Sh*ttiest roads you've seen and driven on.

[eauclaireliberal]

Most of the windy, rural roads of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are a nightmare if you don't have one of the top of the line suspension systems in a 4x4. It's God's land, but hard to get around in.

Fond Du Lac, WI. The roads for trailer parks are probably better kept. The main drag is several miles of potholes (at least several years ago).

Bessemer, Ala. Ever wonder what it was like in the 1940's South? Swing by and tour the area.

[jobycom]

1. I-10 from Lake Charles to Lafayette, La, or thereabouts. Eastbound.

It's like driving in a basketball.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

13. that was my first thought as well...

SUCKS!

sP

[fed_up_mother]

81. I'll third that.

[MrCoffee]

17. Win

You said what we were all thinking.

[bicentennial_baby]

2. Any of the backroads of the Hilltowns of Franklin and Berkshire Counties

in MA. Esp. way up in the dirt roads with blind corners and serious post-winter ruts. Weeeeeeee! :bounce:

I miss home. :D

[PittPoliSci]

3. anywhere near Salem, OH.

I live in PA so I know what shitty roads are like, but Salem, OH, come forward and collect your prize.

[VenusRising]

4. Kansas City, MO.

You're lucky if you don't blow a tire. They may have fixed it in the last few years, but I'm sure I'll find out when we drive home this Christmas.

[pinniped]

5. This bone-jarring road is somewhere in NV, and is more rough than in appears.

Good thing I had a rental car that day.

[Breeze54]

6. Almost all of the roads in the city of Boston and all the 2 lane highways

leading into the city. I really should drive a tank. I'll bet it would be a smoother ride! :P

[tismyself]

7. Don't laugh

but the worst road I've ever seen is some little but very long dirt road way out in the NC mountains, I'll have to ask my friend exactly where we were at the time, but I named that road Damnation Gap. It's the only road where I actually stopped the truck, got out and walked about 1/2 of a mile ahead to scout it out first. If we couldn't have gone ahead we would have had to back out for about 4 miles.

[Eurobabe]

8. Most of the roads in PA

God awful roads, except for the turnpike, and that is always under construction.

Best roads? WEST VIRGINIA and VIRGINIA. West Virginia has the best Interstates in the US, IMHO. I used to traverse the state between VA and OH while I was househunting, and I was always impressed. Plus you could do 70!!

[Orrex]

9. Ain't that the truth!

Pittsburgh in particular is like driving on the moon after a heavy artillery bombardment.

[TZ]

36. I have to admit I was gonna say...

PA roads..I don't like the Turnpike much either. One time I went from Indiana to Long Island and thus accross the full length of PA...YIKES!!!

[MountainLaurel]

20. Funny story

I grew up in north central WV, and the joke on trips to Pittsburgh was that you knew you had crossed the state line when your car suddenly sounded as if you had a flat. (The change from smooth highway to the steady bumping was that sudden.) So this spring I was moving from Maine to New Orleans, and spent the night near Scranton. The next morning I got on the interstate and had driven a few miles when I noticed a steady thumping sound. I pulled over to check my tires. When everything turned out OK, the light bulb turned on and I realized "Wait, I'm in Pennsylvania, of course my tires are making that noise!)

Our theory was that PA had crappy interstates but great back roads (such as 119 between WV and Pittsburgh), while WV had great interstates and crappy back roads.

[Eurobabe]

23. PA's interstates and major highways are atrocious

Esp. 202, although they resurfaced most of that near Philly a couple of years ago. I-78 is an axle-buster, I-80 leaves this rhythmic ka-thunk sound in your head (from constant truck traffic in right lane).

I think Sens. Byrd and Rockefeller have managed to bring home alot of $$ to WV, I was even impressed by the BACK roads!!

[yellowcanine]

34. Pittsburgh and environs used to be particularly atrocious in the 70s.

Don't know what they are like today but in the 70s they were worse than a lot of the roads in Kenya during the same time period.

[Orrex]

38. The state-maintained roads near Pittsburgh aren't all that bad

But as soon as you hit the Allegheny County line, you might as well break out the mules.

[WinkyDink]

42. Amen, and I live here!

[femmocrat]

57. PA resident: Why are the roads so gawd-awful here?

They always blame the "freeze-thaw cycle", but surely other states freeze and thaw and have driveable roads.

Are our state contracts particularly corrupt or something?
:shrug:

[Orsino]

10. I-20, east of Birmingham, AL.

Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk...

[datasuspect]

11. the old beaumont road between beaumont and sour lake

county maintenance ends midway through it and it is gravel and boulders with big holes.

was superseded by TX-105.

[jobycom]

80. Oh.

I was going to say "What are you talking about, that's a beautiful drive!" But of course I was thinking 105. I took a detour in that area once, routed by my GPS because of major traffic stoppage, and wound up bouncing and swerving down a dirt road that plunged into mudholes and across railroad tracks. The scenery was nice, and I seem to recall some older cottages that were well maintained in some places. But the road was so horrible I almost smashed my GPS for the advice. Of course, I'd have never found my way out again without it, so it lived to screw me another day.

Might have been the road you are talking about.

[mainegreen]

12. A 'road' that's really just this flat stretch of swamp. Cuts twenty miles off the journey though!

Only passable in the summer. It never gets deeper than 6-7 inches of water if you follow the 'road'.

[BarenakedLady]

14. Any road in Rhode Island

So much corruption in the construction companies and bidding for jobs, that nothing ever gets done.

[hobbit709]

15. Hays County, TX roads in the 90's

I had a rural paper route, drove about 80 miles every night. I've been on back roads in third world countries that were better. About 1996 the voters in Hays approved their first road bond issue since 1947. There were roads that used to be paved and got so full of potholes that rather than patch or repave, they just scraped off the remaining asphalt and turned them into dirt roads. In six years I wore out 3 suspensions, about 5 sets of brakes and about 18 tires. My old 1980 Datsun truck had 360,000 miles on it when it finally gave out.

[PVnRT]

16. I-80/I-94, Northwest Indiana, southern Lake Co. Illinois

They're fixing it now, but oh shit that road sucked.

I-94 throughout Michigan is nice and bumpy as well.

[IndianaJones]

27. i drive that every day. it was a nightmare last winter. they fixed the worst parts...

and now they are working on the parts I didn't think was too bad.

I'll be relieved when they finish the 94/65 interchange.

[KG]

18. Penna Trpk.

traveling with family as a kid in the 60's i found the turnpike a nightmare, and was just a passenger.

and a streatch of SR 20 in Oregon near the coast is an adventure.

[jpak]

19. Hainesville Woods - It's a stretch of road up north in Maine

That's never, ever, ever seen a smile.
If they buried all the truckers lost in them Woods
there'd be a tombstone every mile

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agm8kaP84Rs

:evilgrin:

[LSK]

21. any road in Chicagoland come March

Winter usually destroys our roads.

[lizziegrace]

22. Pittsburgh

51 south to 70 is a nightmare. And 70 through that entire area is awful.

[underpants]

48. I drove through the Squirrel Hill thing once

85 MPH 2 feet from the guy in front of me
The person behind me was 2 feet from me.
One flat tire and it would have all been over.

While there I asked directions from the place I was standing to the hotel across the river from the old Three Rivers stadium-I could SEE the hotel. I got four different directions (including leaving Pittsburgh) and the last guy thought...scratched his head and said "You can't get there from here" I could SEE IT!!!

I also love the exit signs up under the beams of the bridge I was driving on there. OH CRAP!! My exit it is NOW!!

[lizziegrace]

54. Yep

and you find that the lane you're in has suddenly become a turn-only lane and your out-of-state plates seem to be more reason to NOT let you over. x(

My parents were raised there. The tunnels are the tubes to them. Always will be. (That's how you can tell a native.)

[kentauros]

24. Houston has a few major thoroughfares that have never been rebuilt.

Some are slowly getting treatment or conversion to concrete. Kirby through the area known as The Village is ridiculous. Metro buses tear up their fair share of the roadways, too, leaving deep ruts in the asphalt until you bottom out on the ridges down the middle of the lanes.

Houston also has this "problem" with patching concrete roads with asphalt. Never a good idea as the patches last a few months at best before they return to being holes or just sink further into the ground below.

We also have some roads in the older "wards" that are a mixture of brick and asphalt patches. You would be hard-pressed to drive at the posted speed limits.

And then there are the multitude of railroad crossings that would shatter anyone's fillings were you to take them at speed. A few you can do that with and basically "launch" your car over the tracks so you don't have to touch them, but I'm afraid Houston drivers are so afraid of the slightest risk to their FUVs that invariably you will get stuck behind a long line going slow enough that you could push their vehicle over the tracks faster

[flvegan]

25. I95 through Jersey

At least 15 years ago it was the worst bit of pothole hell I've ever been on.

[Rabrrrrrr]

26. Michigan - I don't think they are allowed, by law, to have a smooth road anywhere.

Indiana is utterly fucking awful in the northwest corner.

[AlCzervik]

28. The Hana highway from hell, beautiful but throw uppy.

[KamaAina]

53. Oh come on. The Hana Highway is not crappy so stop saying that.

The fifty one-lane bridges along the route, on the other hand... :scared:

[kwassa]

29. Washington, DC has capitol-sized potholes

The best argument in favor of huge 4-wheel drive SUVs are the giant potholes. Hey, that's what the Secret Service drives!

And back in Los Angeles in 1994, the local part of I-10 near me collapsed into the surface street after the Northridge earthquake. The entire freeway settled down a couple inches, so all the overpasses left were about two inches higher than the roadway on either side of them.

[femmocrat]

60. Driving in DC is a nightmare, IMO.

And the Beltway just scares the crap out of me!

[astonamous]

62. You mean, "The Silly Circle".

I think that is what the truckers call the DC Beltway. I have seen some interestingly terrifying things on that stretch of road.

:scared:

[RubyDuby in GA]

30. Driving across Missouri

From Kansas City to St. Louis.

I understand the weather plays hell on the roads, but I nearly lost my car in there!

[greendog]

31. My county has over 700 miles of unpaved roads.

Some of them are pretty bad.

Edit to add:

Those 700 miles don't include the unpaved roads in Flathead and Kootenai National Forests or the unpaved roads in Glacier National Park.

[JCMach1]

32. The road from Kathmandu to Pokhara, built by Chinese in the 1970's

with only the occasional dose of asphault and rocks thrown into the pothole... or should i say road...


Hell, what's the difference!?

I have driven most of the bad U.S. places mentioned... you can stop whining now!

American roads are the best in the world... yes even better than Germany!

[sazemisery]

33. Oklahoma - most turnpikes - worst roads n/t

[Taverner]

35. University Ave in East Palo Alto

Not the one that stretches through Palo Alto, land of the rich...

But the other side

[Tektonik]

37. Roads in the Valley after the Northridge earthquake

[Kali]

39. the just under two mile long dirt road into our HQ

and driving it sometimes twice daily SUCKS!

[Turbineguy]

40. I-5 in Seattle

my car feels like Fred Flintstone's heap.

[Danger Mouse]

41. The road my step-dad's ex-wife lives on. It is in absolutely hideous shape.

It doesn't have potholes, it has craters.

[littlebit]

43. Let's see

I-78 in all of NJ and most of PA. I-10 anywhere in LA. I-80/94 around Gary IN. I-40 in most of AR, OK, and parts of TN. And the biggest shit road of all I-95 from VA all the way up to ME.

[CatholicEdHead]

44. Rural roads in Grand Forks County ND

They are pretty bad. North Dakota rural roads leave something to be desired.

But Saddle Road on the Big Island of Hawaii is the worst I have been on.

[Awsi Dooger]

45. Pennsylvania is memorably awful

I see that's already the subject of a sub thread. I drive cross country and back virtually every summer and Pennsylvania stands out for lousy interstate road conditions. If you love tha-thump, tha-thump, that's the place to move.

Otherwise, driving north out of the United States toward Winnipeg was a joke, terrible highways. I don't remember which road it was and I'm too occupied to look it up.

[TZ]

46. living in Maryland I ALWAYS know when I enter PA

Even if I'm a passenger in the car not paying attention..It really is noticeable the difference in roads.....

[underpants]

52. They could at least have paved around the bend in the road

I85 or whatever it is. As I posted just below this the sign Welcomes you to PA and the BUMP BUMP BUMP starts (seams in the concrete) there is a bend in the road not 1/2 a mile up the road. They could have paved THAT at least.

Man I was beat by the time I got to the Turnpike

[underpants]

51. I85 or whatever it is going north from Maryland

Sign to the right says "Welcome to Pennsylvania" and Bump Bump Bump the seams in the road started jarring me up up up
Bump Bump Bump
Miserable.

All the way to the Turnpike in which there is a STOP SIGN in the middle of the freakin' Interstate!! I saw the signs warning me but I assumed that there would be ramps or something SOMETHING. Nope, just stop, NOW

[triguy46]

47. The 20 or so miles of NM 57 into Chaco Canyon. And I love it, hope they never fix it.

It takes over an hour to drive the 20 miles because it is basically one vehicle wide wash board desert road. I love it because it keeps the hoards of tourists away.

[jobycom]

79. They leave it that way deliberately, I've read.

I followed a large RV down that road once. The RV couldn't make it over 20, because it would start bouncing and swerving when it sped up.

Miserable road to an awe-inspiring destination.

[skygazer]

49. CA-17 over the Santa Cruz Mountains is right up there

As far as main roads go - I don't expect (or necessarily want) back roads to be in good shape.

17 is poorly engineered, with abrupt curves and places that pool rather than shed water, and parts of it are pretty rough pothole-wise. Plus it carries way too much traffic and gets socked in with thick fog up top pretty frequently.

It's not a fun road to drive.

[LeftyMom]

55. True.

Plus it seems equally divided between people who want to go way too fast for conditions and people who want to poke along at 25.

[Coyote_Bandit]

50. Oklahoma

Tulsa area roads are rated in the bottom 10 percent of metropolitan areas nationwide.

Local news stations are doing news stories blaming the sorry state of the roads on a decision made in the mid 1960s!

If you want to leave town, any direction you chose to go requires either driving on a shitty turnpike or an even shittier two lane country road with lots of speed traps that winds through lots of small towns.

There are not one but two ballot initiatives which will be on the November ballot to fix the streets - city streets of course not the crappy highways. Both ballot initiatives will create tax revenues.

As far as I'm concerned the roads here can continue to crumble. I just want to get out of here with my soul, my self respect and my pocketbook still largely intact.

[graywarrior]

56. Route 302 Fryeburg to Bridgeton Maine

God almighty, even the moose know enough to watch for the potholes

[laconicsax]

58. I-80 between Sacramento and Reno

Who the hell builds a cobblestone freeway?

[alfredo]

59. The road between Asmara and Axum once you leave Eritrea and near

Axum. Desolate and rutted gravel mountain roads make for some white knuckle moments.

Now the road between Asmara and Massawa drops 8,600 ft with 1.020 curves, many hairpins, is one hell of a nice trip. You go from Denver type weather, to Sahara heat, where it goes down to 90 on a good night, but hits 120 in the day. One of, if not, the hottest seaport in the world. It's a remarkable land.

[Erin Elizabeth]

61. Honestly none that I normally drive on, but when we were in

Yellowstone, the roads were good. Suddenly they went from good to HORRIBLE. I mean pot holes, ruts, you name it and I was all "what happened??" and my friend said "well we did just enter Montana." Our teeth were rattling in our heads.

[JanMichael]

63. I-85 in North Carolina.

Like the engineers that designed it were all drunken NASCAR freaks. Plus half of the cars are driven by current NASCAR freaks that simply don't know how to drive.

IT SUCKS!

[Haole Girl]

64. Indonesia

There was one rural road we took that was so bad we got two flats. Used the spare, and got another flat! My poor Dad had to walk a couple of miles to get another tire. Could have been a lot worse, I guess. THAT was a scary stretch of road!!

:scared:

[Whoa_Nelly]

65. Why, we have'em right here in the Great San Joaquin Valley!

Roads that only go north-south or east-west.
All laid out on a grid to surround the great farm lands that provide for much of America and the world at large.
So many roads here that are no more than some tar over dirt.
Roads that have names, and are scary to drive...especially if you have to move over into a field for a combine or some other farm machine.

Am Series! Only CA freeways are upgraded...forget about the county roads.


For fun, back in the '70s, used to leave the freeway from up by Sacramento, and drive the farm road grid, stoned...just to see how long it would take me to get back to my little farm town about 200 miles south of Scat'o. Always made it, even if I didi have to turn oaround on a road that becoame nothing.

[Systematic Chaos]

66. I used to be in abject terror of one particular bridge in West Virginia.

My mother and I lived with one of my aunts back in 1977/78. We were in a large house on a huge plot of land, on US 52 between Welch and Pineville. At the time, the closest big place to shop was Beckley. It's been over 30 years so I can't tell you exactly where this damned thing was, but there was one little bridge over a creek which gave me total fright attacks every time we went over it. It was narrow as hell, actually had what looked like hardwood floor under the pavement in spots, was propped up on old barrels and had no guard rails.

When we went over this thing in my cousin's van (LOVED the van, at least) you could feel it vibrating and shaking something fierce. Please lord never again!

[achtung_circus]

67. Sections of the Forestry Trunk Road in Alberta.

4X4 almost mandatory, winch recommended, dry weather strongly suggested. No services.



or the road into the Ya Ha Tinda Ranch west of Caroline Alberta. About 20 miles of winding hard washboard.



Hard roads, yet the memories are outstanding.

[QMPMom]

73. Your pics of the Forestry Trunk Road look very good compared to when we drove through

there. See my post below... We did it in a Hyundai Pony.

[AccessGranted]

68. 1 and 9 in Northern New Jersey

That is some scary shit!

[A HERETIC I AM]

69. The Plenty Highway, Northern Territory, Australia.

I lived in Alice Springs in the early '70's and we drove on this road several times. Hundreds of miles of "washboard", a condition where the road is crossed by small ridges formed by both the wind and heavy truck (RoadTrain) traffic. Red dust that would coat the rear window of your vehicle so thick you couldn't see out of it at all.


That's not a pic of our vehicle, but my dad did buy a Rover when we were there, just like this one;

Those old, early 1970's Land Rovers were tough as nails. You could just about push them off a cliff, set them back on their wheels and drive away. We traveled all over south central NT in that unit. Went down to Uluru (Ayers Rock) one time and camped out in it. Trust me, this was no gentle ride.

[buzzycrumbhunger]

70. FL weighs in

For me, it's a tie between our designated "hurricane evacuation route," which is a two-lane road that does not drain and runs through a swamp (it floods in the daily summer afternoon downpours) and I-4 between Tampa and Orlando, a largely four-lane road with incredibly heavy tourist traffic (not unusual to go 50 miles at 5-10 mph because the fuckers see brake lights a mile ahead and think that's the cue to slam on theirs), convoys of trucks, and nonstop construction. When my son went to school in Winter Park, I could make the drive in under four hours if I did it in the middle of the night, and six or more if I hit daylight hours.

I'm afraid our problems are more often due to everyone sending us their worst drivers than actual road issues. Why do you even let Grandma and Grandpa drive at that age? You'd do us a great favor if you'd just slap 'em on a bus with their nursing home address pinned to their jackets. No, it isn't very friendly, but you haven't lived until you're pinned between a rented RV driven by a frazzled dad, half a dozen double semis, and endless old farts who average 20 Rx medications, can barely see over the steering wheel, and haven't turned off the turn signal for 20 miles. . .

[Unvanguard]

71. One in rural Costa Rica.

We literally drove through streams.

[QMPMom]

72. The Forestry Trunk Road in Northern Alberta between

Grande Cache, Alberta and Grande Prairie, Alberta.

I swear to God, I was convinced that an axe murderer was going to come out of the bush and kill us it was so desolate and scary. Add to it that there had been rain for days and days and there was mud about a foot deep in spots.... We had an old Hyundai Pony and it was sunk so deep in the mud, but we got through - amazingly.

NEVER will I let my husband convince me to drive that road again - even if they pave the damn thing in gold.

[achtung_circus]

75. Oh yes,

the northern portion, north from Grand Cache is very different from the portions south of Hinton. Down near Nordegg it's positively bucolic. I've only ever done it in dry weather (I'm a coward), but still found a winch helpful in dragging fallen trees off the road.

[CreekDog]

74. The road through Capitol Reef Nat'l Park in Utah (undeveloped area) is something

it's terrible and stunningly beautiful too.

[sarge43]

76. The roads in east PA are ghastly.

New England roads in the spring, thanks to the frost heaves.

[RetroLounge]

77. I really can't complain about the roads in Milwaukee

We have 2 seasons here, winter and road construction.

But being a "socialist" state they are pretty good.

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

78. Kentucky is fine...as long as you stay on the highways. Just Don't

get off the highway :scared:

Though The four-way stops and the roundabouts are cool. :D

[applegrove]

82. There was a road right near where I grew up. It was a mess of buckled concrete &

pot holes. The people who lived on that street refused to allow it to be fixed cause they felt it kept the traffic and speed down.