User:Hjal/Sandbox/Roadgeeking

A roadgeek (sometimes roadfan or Roads Scholar, the latter being a play on the term Rhodes Scholar) is a person who is interested in roads as a hobby.

Roadgeek behavior
In 2002, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that "road enthusiasm" was an internet phenomenon: Road enthusiasm is a phenomenon that developed with the Internet. People who for years thought they were the only ones who eagerly awaited the release of the new Rand McNally road atlases each fall suddenly stumbled on to hundreds of people with whom they could trade pictures, share ideas and debate the finer points of interchange design.

In addition to hundreds of Web sites, there is a newsgroup, misc.transport.road, where the discussion meanders from road-trip routing and construction projects to quirks and inconsistencies in signage.

Typical roadgeek behaviors include:
 * Taking road trips for the roads rather than the destination (sometimes called roadgeeking or Roads Scholaring)
 * Bragging about the extent of their travels, such as the number of Interstate Highway sections they have "clinched"
 * Taking photos of road signs or the highways themselves
 * Collecting old road maps to study the roads
 * Maintaining web sites dedicated to the road network or highway system in a particular area.
 * Correcting errors in newspaper articles and other publications about highway terminology and the history of highways
 * Designing graphics or fonts to facilitate the work of others.

Arkansas

 * Arkansas Highway 43/Oklahoma State Highway 20 concurrency, possibly unique instance of two highways from different states overlapping

California

 * The Ridge Route, the first paved highway directly linking the Los Angeles Basin with the San Joaquin Valley over the Tejon Pass, a portion of which is in the National Register of Historic Places. It was documented by uber-Roadgeek, Harrison Irving Scott, in 2002. in Ridge Route: The Road That United California.
 * Skyline Boulevard, the road that spans the highest ridge of Santa Cruz Mountains, making it possible to see the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay simultaneously.
 * Decomissioned portions of U.S. Route 6, now part of State Route 14, are the subject of significant roadgeek interest.
 * Zzyzx Road, a landmark about halfway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, known for its unusual name. It is the last place on Earth, at least in the English alphabetical order.

Colorado

 * Glenwood Canyon, an engineering marvel
 * Eisenhower Tunnel, the highest point on the Interstate Highway System



Maryland

 * I-70's eastern terminus at a Park & Ride on Security Boulevard in Baltimore, one of the more unusual Interstate termini

Missouri

 * Galena Y-Bridge, an unusual bridge with three land connections

Montana

 * Going-to-the-Sun Road, a scenic road crossing Glacier National Park, designated both a National Historic Landmark and a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

Oklahoma

 * Arkansas Highway 43/Oklahoma State Highway 20 concurrency, possibly unique instance of two highways from different states overlapping

Pennsylvania

 * Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike, an example of 1930's-era highway standards
 * Breezewood, Pennsylvania, a gap in Interstate 70 that routes traffic down US 30 through town
 * Centralia, Pennsylvania, site of underground coal fires undermining the area highways

Notable roadgeeks

 * Steve Anderson, creator of NYCROADS.COM, "described himself as a 'hard-core road fanatic' (others, he allowed, might say 'road geek') from childhood" according to The New York Times in 1999
 * Nick Christensen, also known as "Nick Mojave," created the Las Vegas Freeways Page in the early 2000s, and was "perfectly comfortable being referred to as a road geek," according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2001.
 * Andy Field and Alex Nitzman of AARoads were noted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and others since 2002 for maintaining "a site with an exhaustive guide to the interstate highway system."
 * James Love of Mile By Mile Media has the largest collection of highway photos in the world.
 * Adam Prince, of GribbleNation.com and "a self-described 'road geek' whose hobby is learning everything he can about America's highways and byways," according to the Washington Post
 * David Steinberg, creator of "The ZZYZX Interstate Highway List", as featured in The Telegraph of Nashua, New Hampshire in 1999.