If you ever find yourself in Wytheville, Virginia, the answer is yes.
They run together for a few miles roughly east-west, then diverge. On a map, it looks like this:
Driving on the road, the signs indicate the joined section as being both 81 North and 77 South.
I got through it at night without the help of locals or a map having never been through Wytheville before. Therefore, anyone who looks at a New York subway map or a London Underground map and has complained that it's "too hard" should try getting in a car one of these days.
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rj3 | 04:46 PM |
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Erm, I think you're having a little east-west confusion here...
"In Wytheville, Interstate 81 continues its northwesterly run from Tennessee to the Canadian border in New York. There, it meets Interstate 77 running southwest from Ohio and West Virginia on to Charlotte and points south."
Actually, I-81 runs SW/NE and I-77 NW/SE... :-)
There are two British railway stations where two trains bound for London can leave the station in opposite directions to travel to London by different routes; Exeter St.Davids and Edinburgh Waverley.
Before the ex-SR line from Exeter to Plymouth closed in 1970, it was possible for two trains from Plymouth to London to meet at Exeter, travelling in opposite directions.
Houston has similar confusion with US 59 (named the Southwest Freeway) being signed north/south but running due east/west and intersecting other north/south highways.
Since most of our freeways have cardinal-point names (North Fwy, Northwest Fwy), and the circumferential ones have suffixes to denote address numbering (like the West Loop South) you get traffic reporters trying to describe things like "the exit ramp from the northbound Southwest to the southbound West Loop is closed."
But it really does make sense to the listeners, I swear. Houston being laid out like a wagon wheel means most roads get referred to as inbound or outbound.
New Orleans, where I'm from, is notorious for compass-point-labels that are meaningless, from "South" streets that go northwest and cross each other, to the "west" bank of the river being east of downtown. There's a freeway interchange where your three choices are "I-10 west," really northwest, "US-90 west," really southwest, and "US-90-B west," really southeast.
I guess our point is that car travel can be just as confusing to those unfamiliar with navigating, but most Americans are far more used to cars than trains.
San Francisco Bay Area anecdotes: 580 West/80 East heads NORTH through Berkeley and Albany, 280 North runs WSW through Downtown San Jose and generally westward for several miles through Santa Clara Valley. The route directions can be virtually meaningless sometimes. Maybe we should only identify the destination cities; after all, they're supposed to be logical links between destinations, not just roads for roads' sake.
