In Los Angeles the 110 is the Harbor Freeway south of downtown or the Pasadena Freeway north of downtown. And depending where you are on I-5 you could be driving the Santa Ana, the Golden State, or the San Diego freeway. That can certainly be confusing.
Same thing in Seattle. The radio could report a backup at the S-curves and it was just known it was on 405. And everyone knew the Mercer Island bridge was I-90.
Now I live in a small town in western Oregon that has no freeways or traffic to speak of.
I have a working theory that says that people tend to remember names better than numbers, so that’s why you will hear highways referred to with a name rather than the number.
Seems to work for car models (sort of!), streets, and electronic gadgets.
Personally, I am more of a numbers person, but I think I am the exception. I suspect that many on this website are the same.
Then there is Felt, OK on Hwy 412 in the panhandle. All of about three by six sparse blocks in size. So small it has one road sign on the highway with the town name on both sides.
Lol, that one always makes me chuckle when I drive through the area. We’re all 10 years old
OP, I’m a professor of transportation engineering and even I didn’t realize that the mile marker/exit signing was not universally adopted. It’s got so many good uses, like quick and accurate reporting of location in emergencies!
Base math is your friend. That’s how I remain young. I’m actually 48. really! Just in base 15. I’ve been using it for years, and only one person called me on it. I was talking to one of Mrs JT’s friends, and she asked my age. I told her 58, and she immediately asked what base. I howled and told her base 12. She knew my wife’s age and that I was older. Math teachers! They get nerd jokes like that.
Not so much now…but early in my engineering career - knowing binary and Base 16 was extremely important. Those old IBM mainframes would do hex dumps on almost any little mistake. That was one of your only ways to debug. Then for years working on DEC systems it was no longer needed. Much more sophisticated debugging tools. Then switched to PC’s and back to knowing Binary and Base 16 even using a debugger like Soft-Ice.
I don’t know what kind of update you asked for, the map data is stored on a SD card, $165. Most people can insert the SD card themselves, it is shown in the navigation manual.
@MikeInNH. “Knowing binary and Base 16 was extremely important”. My first experience in a computer was on a Control Data 3400/3600 system. Core dumps were in octal (base 8).
I have often thought how much simpler things would be if we used octal instead of decimal. We could eliminate digits 8 and 9. Odometers would be simpler. The sign makers would need fewer digits to make highway markers.
The only reason we use the base 10 or decimal system is that we have 10 fingers. Had the rotary power mower been invented before the numeration system, we would be using a base 9 system. When the rotary mowers first came out, users were sticking their fingers under the deck to see if the blade was spinning. Hence, the safety control that stops the blade when the handle is released had to be incorporated into the mowers.
One of the fastest computers at it’s time. Seymour Cray was their chief designer. Then started Cray computers and was CEO…then left and started another computer company…then died in a car crash. What ever company Seymour Cray worked for - they built one of the fastest if not thee fastest computers of it’s time.
In every measurable sense…my Apple Watch is several hundred magnitudes faster then that CDC 3400 system.
Florida made the conversion about 20 years ago, and since most states made the change, I’ve found it to be quite convenient to always know approximately how many miles there are between me and my exit.
@MikeInNH. In my second year of graduate school, the CDC 3400/3600 was replaced with a
CDC 6600 which was many times faster but still slow by today’s standards. There were two job runs a day. If the job was submitted before 8:00 a m. , it would be delivered before 4:00 p m. if the job was submitted before 4:00 p m., It would be delivered by 8:00 a m. the next morning. Of course, all the jobs were submitted on punch cards.
+1
Ever since its inception in the '50s, the Garden State Parkway has used that type of numbering for its exits. However, the NJ Turnpike does not, and it retains its original numbering system for exits (1-18).
