This Map Continues to Drive Me Bonkers
That Highway Map You've Been Seeing on Social Media? Yeah, about that
Every few weeks this map, below, shows up on social media.
People continue to be amazed by this, that there is some sort of pattern to the interstate highways. That’s not to say that all of the interstates follow this pattern and there are a few outliers1. But the pattern is a pattern that is easily recognizable to most people at a very young age.
As in I was seven or eight when I realized this.
Just wait until they learn that the US Highway system, created thirty years prior to the interstate system, has a similar pattern. What, you didn’t think Route 1 is on the East Coast and Route 101 on the West Coast was a coincidence, did you?
You know what really drives me bonkers about this map though? The East-West grid has two interstates listed that don’t even exist.
Interstates 50 and 60 do not exist. They’ve never existed. They likely will never exist due to the fact that they would run near U.S. Routes 50 and 60, respectively. And this would potentially confuse drivers.2
There are no I-50 and I-60, as routes with those numbers would likely pass through states that currently have U.S. Highways with the same numbers, which is generally disallowed under highway administration guidelines.3, 4
And if they do exist, they certainly won’t exist looking like this. Whoever created this fakakta map seemingly made Interstate 50 traverse the Grand Canyon while Interstate 60 services Area 51 and the most vacant parts of Nevada.
The closest we’re getting to either Interstate 50 or Interstate 60 is this movie I never heard of with a very odd cast.
I suppose the morals of this story are:
You should know this stuff from a young age;
Don’t trust everything you read on the internet.
Looking at you, Interstate 99
Of course in a world where Interstate 41 and US 41 and Interstate 74 and US 74 are duplexed on the same route, maybe not
https://web.archive.org/web/20061101234238/http://cms.transportation.org/sites/route/docs/HO2_Policy_Retention_HO1.pdf
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htm#question19