New Travels and Stats Discussion

[mapcat]

Picked up the last few miles of US 13 & US 40 last weekend, and clinched a few short routes in NJ & MD along the way. Added about 500 miles of new road to reach 240,000 miles (active + preview). 132 of 219 US routes clinched now, 3742 total.

Edit: Just did a quick check, and saw that this makes US 40 my longest clinched US route. Including US 24 & US 36, my three longest US routes were clinched this year.

[oscar]

I got back home Friday from a week-long road trip, basically northern Virginia-Indianapolis-Memphis-Charlotte and back. This included clinches of the newest segments of the Interstate system (along with I-11, covered in an October trip to Las Vegas). I'm for now back up to 100% of the Interstate system -- let's see how long that lasts, before new Interstate mileage opens and restarts the game of Whack-a-Mole.

This trip also filled in all my gaps in US 70 in Tennessee and North Carolina, so now I've clinched all of that route east of the Mississippi River. I still have significant gaps from New Mexico to Arkansas.

This almost certainly will be my last significant road trip of 2018. The most likely minor exception is a day trip to Delaware, depending on when the new US 301 toll road there opens, either this month or next.

[CharlotteAllisonCDTG]

Yesterday, I traveled from my home in Grovetown, Georgia (just west of Augusta) to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, to visit someone. I traveled on US 278 from I-520 in North Augusta to the interchange with US 278 Business. I have now clinched all of US 278 along that path.

On the way back today, I took Georgia SR 73 through Sylvania. I now have all of SR 73 clinched.

[Eth]

Made a jaunt over to Huntsville, AL for the weekend, picking up a bit of new mileage in both GA and AL. Got new clinches of GA 48, AL 40, and possibly I-565 (I have it marked as such, but that's based on fuzzy recollection of another trip about 20 years ago; if I'm missing any part, it's from exits 15 to 19A), as well as some new mileage on GA 140, US 27, AL 117, AL 35, US 72, and possibly US 431 (I couldn't remember if the Anniston bypass existed yet last time I'd been through there, so I hadn't counted it yet).

[dave1693]

A couple more trips between eastern PA and the FedroSplat, one trip out to SE Ohio, and one trip to Long Island later (the latter not entered into TM yet):

Now clinched:
- The Virginia section of US48.
- All of US50 in Maryland, including the southwestern corner of Garrett County on the western edge of the state.
- MD60 and MD62.
- WV43.
- NY BeltPkwy.
- NY GraCenPkwy.
- NJ US1TrkJer and US9TrkJer (same road).
- PA174, PA297, and PA316.

Also driven, new pieces of: Cross Island Pkwy and Northern State Pkwy in NY, US11 in PA, PA43, PA262, PA281, PA382, PA533, PA696, PA743, PA857,  I-77 in northern WV and SE Ohio, US22 and US40 near Cambridge OH, OH7, OH26, OH60, OH209, US40Alt in western MD, MD495, WV2, WV14, WV42, WV55, WV68, WV93, WV95, WV618, US48 in WV, and US50 in WV.

About that last: Having now driven US50 between Clarksburg and the western WV/MD line, I hope I never have to drive it again. The surface isn't in great shape, and the climbs down into and back out of the creek bottoms on that stretch are something I wouldn't dare attempt in anything larger than the minivan I was driving.

[Jim]

I had a chance to grab a little low-hanging fruit today on a ride to and from Catamount Ski Area on the New York/Massachusetts border.  On the way there, I took a very short side trip to finish off the small piece of New York 295 east of the Taconic.  On the way back, I took a more roundabout way to clinch New York 217, which I'd never traveled at all before, and then finished up New York 66, of which I was missing everything south of about Chatham Center.  This gets me to 105 usany routes clinched, and pushes me over 100 to 102 excluding the annoying truck routes.

[Eth]

My weekend trip to Disney World a few days ago was good for perhaps the lowest new-mileage-to-total-mileage ratio I've had in a good while. I got a new clinch of the very short FL 536, plus a couple miles each on I-4 and US 192, and about a dozen miles of FL 429. Otherwise just hundreds of miles of I-75 and the Turnpike that I'd already covered. Sadly, neither the handful of county roads I ditched I-75 for to avoid an accident nor the various freeways on Disney property were mappable.

[michih]

End of year is near and it's time to look back.

I've traveled 29 TM regions traveled in 2018: AUT, BEL, BIH, CHE, CZE, DEU-BB, DEU-BW, DEU-BE, DEU-BY, DEU-HE, DEU-MV, DEU-NW, DEU-NI, DEU-RP, DEU-SL, DEU-SN, DEU-ST, DEU-TH, ENG, FRA, HRV, IRL, ITA, LUX, NIR, SCT, SLO, SVK, WLS
And I've added more than 12,000 mi this year.

My progress since I've joined TM (CHM) 5 years ago:
End of 2013 mileage:   9,615 mi   
End of 2014 mileage:  16,818 mi ; + 7,203 mi
End of 2015 mileage:  19,169 mi ; + 2,351 mi
End of 2016 mileage:  36,983 mi ; +17,814 mi (~5,500mi added due to new deub system)
End of 2017 mileage:  58,190 mi ; +21,207 mi (~2,500mi added due to new deubyst, deubwl, deuhel, deunwl, deurpl, deusll systems)
End of 2018 mileage:  70,811 mi ; +12,621 mi (~400mi added due to new remaining deuxxl systems)

I think about traveling to some regions next year where I've never been before. I guess I might add minimum 10,000mi, maybe even more than 15,000mi in 2019. I don't expect getting noteworthy mileage due to new systems but by traveling only.

I should join the the 100,000mi club in late 2020 or in 2021 at the latest
Will Jim reach the milestone earlier?

[dave1693]

Spent the holidays between Virginia and New Jersey. Got a few chances for more new mileage along the way...

New clinches in no particular order: MD624, PA741, PA181, PA262, PA382, PA722, NJ15 (except the old southern pigtail that's cut off from the rest and not in the database). Most of these were just filling in the last piece(s) of a route I'd partially traveled before.

New segments of: MD165, PA72, PA611, US206.

Pretty sure my next chance for any significant new mileage will be next month.

[mapmikey]

Just returned from a road trip Virginia to San Diego (via Austin TX one direction) and back...

New clinches:

Louisiana: US 90
Texas: I-40, TX 105, TX 183A, TX 290 toll
New Mexico: I-10, I-40
Arizona: I-8, I-40
California: I-8, I-40, I-805, CA 15 (postmiles begin at I-5?), CA 75
Oklahoma: I-40
Arkansas: I-40
Tennessee: I-840

This resulted in national clinches of I-8 and I-40.

Also picked up appreciable mileage:
Mississippi: US 11 (Laurel to Meridian)
Texas: I-10 (I-20 to US 83/377); US 377 (I-10 to Mason); TX 29 (Mason to US 183)
Arizona: I-10 (I-8 to NM)
California: I-5 (border to Solana Bch); I-15 (San Diego to Barstow)

[mapcat]

Just returned from a road trip Virginia to San Diego (via Austin TX one direction) and back...

Nice! Does this put you over 100K miles?

[oscar]

California: I-8, I-40, I-805, CA 15 (postmiles begin at I-5?), CA 75

According to Caltrans' Postmile Query Tool, CA 15 continues past I-5 to at least Main Street. The Cal-NExUS official exit list also places route 15's first exit at Main Street. The HB has it going a little farther south, to 32nd St., but I'm unsure that's correct.

[mapmikey]

Just returned from a road trip Virginia to San Diego (via Austin TX one direction) and back...

Nice! Does this put you over 100K miles?

I believe it will...

Kinda sad since I have driven over 1.1 M miles. Regrettably my commute over the last 20+ years accounts for over 40% of it.

[CharlotteAllisonCDTG]

I live in a suburb of Augusta, Georgia. This morning (2/1/2019), while on an extended lunch, I decided to drive down to Wrens, GA and then to Thomson.  There was no new mileage added, but I was able to confirm that GA 540 is indeed signed on US 1/GA 4 from Augusta to the southern part of Wrens, with lots of confirming signage added in Wrens itself for the GA 80 and GA 17 concurrencies, as well.  At the eastern terminus of GA 540, on US 1/GA 4, at their interchange with I-520, there is an "END" sign eastbound and a "JCT" sign and a GA 540 sign with an arrow pointing straight ahead westbound.  In Thomson, I confirmed that US 78/GA 10 do indeed still follow GA 17 Byp. east of the main part of the city.  On my way back, I drove on Harrison Road in the city, which I heard might be an older path of US 78/GA 10.

[Highway63]

Because I'm bad at posting my reports, here's my results from a week in the Pacific Northwest:

• Clinched US 730, the nation's highest-numbered and shortest US highway, in less than an hour
• Clinched I-82 (with a double back from the Tri-Cities south), and every 3di in Washington state
• Clinched I-405 in Portland VERY SLOWLY  , and I-205 in OR/WA
• Touched US 395 for the first time, which was by FAR the longest US route I hadn't hit by intention, happenstance, or short duplication
• Clinched US 197 in Washington, which isn't hard at 4 miles
• Clinched I-5 in Washington with a "visual clinch" at the international border and an hour at the Peace Park
• 20 new counties in the Pacific Time Zone, my first there since 2009, including a 30-minute snow-covered detour to hit the only easy way to Island WA
• saw the west end of the west US 2 less than 7 months after seeing the east end
• saw the west end of I-90 about 15 months after seeing the east end
• and traveled the new WA 99 tunnel

EDIT/UPDATE: When were the Yellowstone segments pulled back out of the US routes? It nearly wiped out my Montana mileage and splitting up US 20 cramped my tracking. Back to the spreadsheet I go.