Trip to US - Hitting the Road...

My first destination was Indianapolis. And here was the first time when I hit the roads of US. Nicely marked lanes with well qualified entry and exist points to freeway. This was indeed a good experience. Though the excitement would have been double had the pune-mumbai expressway not been built.

The interstate highway system in US is quite impressive. The highway (or also termed as freeway) are generally either east-west or north-south. The numbering of these freeways also has a convention that the east-west highways generally have even number and north south one will have odd numbers. So generally there is a mesh of these freeways across US. And where two freeways intersect there are eight ramps connecting the possible combination of path across these interconnections. This is to get rid of signals at the crossing. As by definition freeways generally don’t have any signals in between.

Across the freeways were the fast food restaurants chains like danneys, windy’s mcdonalds, bob evans and so on…

On the freeways there are also rest places where one can take a nature break. Vending machines are also there to take a bite to the ready to eat packets. There are also another types of rest areas called picnic areas (I found them mostly in the texas). The difference with the picnic area was that they only have some tree shades with benchs to sit on. Nothing else is available including loo’s.

A good thing about the highway system is that everything is logical that you see on the highway. Like near the sign for rest area you also have a board telling you the distance for the next rest area. This is to help you to decide whether you wanna pull over at this exit or wanna wait till the next one.

If the freeway is closed at any place, then there are temporary displays that will take you through the diversions. If the road turns into a single lane then there are temporary traffic signals to control the two way flow of vehicles through the single lane.