Hit the Road

Having acquired a posh, brand-new car (see my post of a few days ago) I have been exploring the Bay Area freeways with cheerful gusto. After all, I need to give the Camry a proper shakedown, and I need to become fully accustomed to its increased bulk compared to my previous Honda Civic. But mostly I’m just having fun with my shiny new toy. I still have a smidgen of vacation left, so I’ve been zipping about, going hither and yon, driving and driving and driving and in general having a fine old time. I chose the Camry as a great freeway car, and in that capacity it certainly lives up to its reputation.

Having put about 500 miles on the odometer in mostly freeway driving, I’m ready to report on the condition of Bay Area freeways, mostly of the Interstate variety. My report comes right on the heels of having driven all over New England via I-91, I-93, I-95, US Highway 1, and some smaller roads including New Hampshire Freeway 4 from Concord to Portsmouth. New England’s Interstates are, in particular, the best I have ever encountered—especially I-93 north-south through New Hampshire and I-91 ditto along the eastern edge of Vermont. Now I’m back in the Bay Area and experiencing freeways, particularly Interstates, here.

My verdict: Bay Area freeways suck, period. They are pestered by a host of ills, chief among those being:

  1. Poor surfaces in a shockingly large number of circumstances. I-880 running north/south from San Jose to Oakland is one rough patch after another. The entire stretch of I-580 along the Altamont Pass is in desperate need of resurfacing. Exceptions: I-280 from San Francisco to San Jose and I-680 from Walnut Creek to San Jose. Even the Big Daddy freeways of the region, I-80 and I-5, are frequently icky. I-5 is particularly vile from Stockton down to Castro Valley.
  2. Frequent disruptions for major construction, rerouting, or repair. (At least they’re trying to do something about all those terrible surfaces.) I actually missed the intersection between I-80 and I-5 near Sacramento due to a massive construction project that hid the turnoff behind miles of orange cones and cement dividers. I wound up driving up to the next intersection, looping back, and then using the (so far) unmolested interchange in the west-heading direction to get onto I-5 South. Once I got on I-5, I was in road construction from Stockton almost the entire way down to Castro Valley. Much of the road construction looks oddly vacant, with miles of blocked lanes, orange cones, and the like, but only a few wan guys in a truck or two moseying around one small area.
  3. Too many big rigs for the road. Driving west along I-580 through the Altamont Pass, then down into the Amador Valley towards Livermore, Pleasanton, and Dublin, can be an unnerving experience thanks to the endless stream of gargantuan big rigs. The lanes on I-580 are a bit too narrow for such humongous vehicles and thus the sense of being a few inches away from sudden annihilation is omnipresent. Not to mention the noise. Not to mention that you can’t see a thing to your right—including the important freeway signs that let you know where you are and where you might need to turn off.
  4. Traffic pileups at the drop of a hat. Bay Area traffic is notoriously bad, and a lot of that has to do with all of the issues I’ve outlined above. Even mid-day you can’t make it along any major stretch of an Interstate without coming across at least one traffic jam or massive slowdown.
  5. An almost total absence of public rest stops. The New England Interstates are well supplied with clean, spacious, and comfortable rest stops complete with shaded picnic areas and squeaky-clean public restrooms, all managed by at least one attendant. Massachusetts offers “service areas” that combine gas station, mini-market, and rest area, all superbly maintained, safe, and sanitary. But here? I know of precisely one Interstate-sanctioned rest area, on I-280, and it’s a pigsty.
  6. Most of the Bay Area Interstates are ugly. The stretch of I-580 from I-5 into the Bay Area is featureless at first as it runs through the Altamont Pass (which in summer looks downright Martian in its bleakness) and then garish with endless strip malls and car dealerships as you drop down into Livermore. I-880 along the East Bay is not only cramped, but lined with businesses. That said, I-280 from San Francisco to San Jose is often gorgeous, high up as it is on hills overlooking lakes, mountains, and the like. I-680 from Walnut Creek down to San Jose is mostly tolerable, although undistinguished. I-80 is mostly drab despite wan attempts to plant shubbery along the median dividers. Furthermore, you really can’t enjoy any of that wan shubbery given the laser-beam attention required to deal with the constant shifting traffic.
  7. Many years ago some genius at CalTrans decided that freeways in California should be designed with lanes that leak off rightwards. Therefore, if you begin an Interstate stretch in the far left lane, you can almost guarantee that after a while you’ll be in the middle lane, then the right lane—and that right lane will become an “Exit Only” lane in short order, throwing you off onto some road or highway you’ve never heard of. Thus on a California Interstate you are obliged to change lanes leftwards just to stay on the road. That never happened once in New England, and its absence was a blessed relief.

Ergo, my advice to the Bay Area freeway managers and planners: get on the ball, you hopeless pudknockers. If New Hampshire, with its far lower tax base and logarithmically more severe winters, can create in I-93 a downright masterpiece of an Interstate freeway, why can’t the spectacularly more wealthy Bay Area come up with something at least comparable? I-280 is the closest Interstate the Bay Area has to I-93 through New Hampshire, but it still misses the mark by a substantial margin thanks to poor landscaping and its lack of proper rest stops.

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