Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Some descriptions of routes and grades in the East

Since I drive in the East, I have been on every grade and interste East of Laredo, TX. I stay East of the exact center of USA. I don't say East of the Mississippi Rver because I am often West of itbut not much. The following are just some examples so you get an idea of the most hazardous passes in the East:
Illinois
Interstate 24 in Illinois is a remote, four-lane freeway that travels through hilly rural southern Illinois and the Shawnee National Forest. I-24 is 38.73 miles (62.33 km) in length in Illinois. There are only five mainline exits; of those five, four have services. Interstate 24 crosses into Kentucky via the Interstate 24 Bridge from Metropolis, Illinois to Paducah, Kentucky.

Kentucky
Interstate 24 runs from
Paducah to the Tennessee border just northwest of Clarksville. Along its route are Kentucky Dam which forms Kentucky Lake and Barkley Dam which forms Lake Barkley, Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area ("LBL"; under the management of the US Forest Service ), and Fort Campbell. Future extensions of Interstate 66 and Interstate 69 are proposed to overlap Interstate 24 in the Eddyville to Calvert City corridor.

Tennessee
The Olgiati Bridge on I-124 (US 27), spanning the
Tennessee River in Chattanooga.
In the state of
Tennessee, Interstate 24 runs from Clarksville to Chattanooga by way of Nashville. Just west of Chattanooga, I-24 drops into Georgia for 4 miles (6 km). One of the most notoriously hazardous stretches of Interstate highway in the United States is approximately 40 miles (64 km) west of Chattanooga on I-24 in Monteagle, where the highway goes over the Cumberland Plateau. Compared to grades elsewhere, Monteagle's 4 to 6% grade does not come close to the steepest highway roads (the Siskiyou Pass of Interstate 5 in Oregon has some the steepest grades in the nation), but the slope is protracted over a distance of several miles. Interstate 124 is an occasional (currently unsigned) designation of a portion of the US 27 freeway which runs as a spur into downtown Chattanooga and beyond.[3] Also in Chattanooga is the "Ridge Cut", a 1/4 mile section of Missionary Ridge, between the 4th Avenue exit and the Germantown/Belvoir exit. Accidents and severe congestion are common here.

Georgia
In the state of
Georgia, Interstate 24 runs for 4 miles (6 km), running along the southern flank of Raccoon Mountain and intersecting with Interstate 59 before turning back north to the Tennessee River and around the northern flank of Lookout Mountain. The exits and mileposts remain numbered according to Tennessee's mileposts. This segment is also officially State Route 409.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Audio books?
Do you consume thousands or are they too distracting?