Monday, we asked you to name your least favorite roads to drive on, and you all certainly delivered. There were thoroughfares that readers absolutely loathed on the East Coast, West Coast and the Gulf Coast, as well as North of the border and down under.
The experience of driving on congested and poorly-paved roadways is undoubtedly universal. That being said, we’ve compiled a list of your least favorite roads to drive on from all-over.
There are worse roads, but the one that makes me the most furious is I-376/US30/22, aka Fort Pitt tunnel and bridge.
So you’ve never been to Pittsburgh, because it’s Pittsburgh, but you’re heading there because a sportsball team is playing someone black-and-yellow and you’re trying to impress your bang-buddy. You even offered to drive. You’re approaching the city, passing through rolling wooded hills dotted with houses and random businesses. GPS says you’re getting close. You start on a long downhill grade into the tunnel. You’re driving, driving, and then...BOOM. You’re almost immediately onto one of the 28 yellow bridges leading into Pittsburgh. The skyscrapers of downtown loom before you, the triangle where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers meet to form the mighty Ohio. It’s a spectacular view, and you want to take it in, maybe even grab your phone and snap a quick pic.
Except you can’t. You have three seconds to know exactly which of the four northbound lanes you need to be in, or else you will end up on completely different sides of the city. Far left takes you to the North Shore (this is where you want to be for sportball), middle takes you downtown, and the right two take you through “The Bathtub” and towards the middle and western parts of the city. Doing this in heavy traffic (and it’s almost always heavy; this is the main funnel from the south) is not easy. Doing this in inclement weather is dangerous.
So most folk’s introduction to visiting Pittsburgh is “oh wow look at that—shit, I just missed the exit.”
I actually rather love Pittsburgh. But due to its location, it has the crumbling infrastructure of a Midwestern large city combined with the “lets build four roads over top of each other because water/something historic is in the way” aesthetic of a Northeastern one.
Submitted by: dbeach84
I don’t avoid it, but Merritt Parkway in southwestern Connecticut is horrible to drive on, especially in the rain and/or at night. Two lanes each direction with no left shoulder and sometimes no right shoulder, with barriers on both sides. It feels claustrophobically narrow. Lots of elevation changes and surprisingly sharp turns for a highway when you’re going 65. Plus, the onramps have stop signs, so you have to watch for people going 50+ mph slower than you as you’re passing if they jump out at the wrong time. Looks pretty though.
Submitted by: StalePhish
Interstate 5, between SoCal and the Bay. I’ve been doing it my whole life and just tired of it. I grew to hate it even more when I moved to the Central Valley. It is long and straight and people drive like asshats.
Submitted by: My Hooptie Fleet is Boring
The Great Ocean Road.
Yeah it looks beautiful. Wiggly roads bit like The Tail of the Dragon right?
Well 4 hours on a road like that and you have to have the constitution of an age of discovery sea captain not to get motion sickness and after the seemingly 2 billionth bend you want to pull your hair out too.
One of the roads where the idea of driving on it is far more romantic than the reality of it. Going from Melbourne to Adelaide, take the Western/Dukes highway. Still pretty, not busy and doesn’t have 28 trillion bends.
Submitted by: Tacet
I’ve been to aprox. 36 of the U.S. states, most of which I’ve driven to/in. I drive nearly 30,000 miles a year. Easily my least favorite stretch of road (and one I have to deal with a lot) is I-65 between Chicago and Indianapolis.
This road should be fine. It should be like all other interstates in flyover country; boring, but otherwise without note. Instead, it’s the 8th circle of hell and is almost single-handedly responsible for my annual road rage quota. It’s impossible to maintain any sort of cruise control on this road, adaptive or otherwise. First, you spend half your time stuck behind a line of trucks in the left lane doing 67.5 mph passing a line of trucks in the right lane doing 67mph (limit is 70). There are large stretches labeled “Trucks use left lane” - only about half the trucks obey this, making any sort of overtaking completely impossible. If you do manage to find a break between the endless wall of slow-moving trucks, congratulations, it’s a construction zone with a 45pmh speed limit because 55mph is just too generous. And on the once or maybe twice during the 3 hour, 185 mile drive that you get some road free of both trucks and work zones, there’s three different undercover state troopers (and when I say undercover, I mean in things like civilian-spec F-150s and Jeep Grand Cherokee SRTs with borderline zero way to tell they’re LEOs) watching you like a hawk for the slightest indiscretion. And regardless of any of the situations I mentioned above, there’s always some yeehaw in a rental Nissan (sometimes it’s an Armada which makes it extra fun) sitting 2 feet from your back bumper). Forget Virgina, I have never encountered a state with such an over-saturation of traffic enfocement as Indiana...but I guess that’s not exactly surprising.
I always finish drives along this stretch highly irritated and in desperate need of a Tylenol, a tequila shot, and a nap.
Submitted by: sm70- why not Duesenberg?
The Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey. A 90-year-old bridge, two narrow-ish lanes each direction, no shoulders, Mad Max drivers gunning for the Holland Tunnel. The speed limit is 50 (HA!), but there’s nowhere for a cop to set up shop if they wanted to, so it’s anything goes for 3.5 miles. One entrance ramp comes up from street level to dump you in the left lane (although I rarely see it used as locals know better, and an out-of-towner would have to be truly lost to end up there). Anyway, if I ever stalled on the Skyway, I would exit the vehicle and jump into the Hackensack River. It would be safer.
Submitted by: flyingstitch
I’ve been in Dallas, TX for about 7-8 months (and thankfully only a few more to go) and the roads & highways around here are absolutely dreadful. Outside of traffic (which is constant), the roadways are warped, potholed, surprisingly winding, full of debris, shockingly wide in total breadth but with narrow lanes, and the patchwork repair system means that with every car length you will riding marginally higher or lower, rattling bolts and mind loose from their worldly tether. The highways are quite similar but with increased speed & consequence.
Submitted by: Parker
Hands down it’s Storrow Drive in Boston. I don’t rattle easily when driving but that road puts me on edge. Dense traffic, narrow lanes, no shoulders, sharp turns and ramps, and everyone is going 50+ when it should be a 40mph road. Oh yeah, then there’s the regular accidents caused by trucks ignoring the LOW BRIDGES DO NOT ENTER signs.
Submitted by: EssExTee
I-24 from Murfreesboro to Nashville. It’s full of horrendous drivers, way too many people and you will possibly get shot on it. And if there is even a hint of precip, strap in...
Also, I-24 going into Chattanooga. There is never not an issue there, and there’s really not a great way around it with the Tennessee River on one side and Lookout Mountain on the other.
Submitted by: satalac
It’s the busiest highway in North America and 800 km of misery.
Sections around the GTA will take you 100% longer to drive than you think, and are full of crazy people. It doesn’t matter what time of days it is. Rush hour is all 24 hours of the day. I’ve been on the road at 4am headed to the airport and got stuck in traffic. In the winter, large stretches east and west of the GTA will experience whiteouts, and is hell to drive. In the summer, idiots will go 149km/h in order to get to the next traffic slow down. When an accident happens, and it closes the road (this happens A LOT), the surrounding roads don’t have anywhere near the capacity to handle the busiest highway ever. An hour drive becomes 4 when the emergency detour happens.
The entire road is a massive time suck, and I hate driving it.
The Tragically Hip said it best:
“So we don’t fuck with the 401. It’s bigger than us or larger than we bargained. I guess it’s just not done.”
Submitted by: dolsh
I-294 (aka The Tri-State Tollway) between Ogden Ave. and O’Hare Airport in the Chicago metro area.
It’s 5-6 lanes wide, but has seemingly been under construction for the last 30 years. Despite always being under construction it has potholes that will swallow a Mini Cooper. Several major roads and other interstates all merge in our out in that section (I-290, I-88, I-190 which takes you directly to the airport) but the ramps can be overly short.
People in the right most lanes go around 60mph, but people merging in (who are inevitably in front of me) merge in at 30. People in the far left lane go 85mph, but there are almost always people in the middle lanes doing 55mph, so they’re getting passed on their left and their right.
Oh, and it feels like every 100 yards there is a billboard with Brian Urlacher’s face on it. In his post-NFL career he now shills for a men’s hair restoration company.
Submitted by: mrmcderm
I live off the FDR so can confirm it’s not the best but when the traffic is flowing it’s fine. The only big complaint is northbound between Brooklyn Bridge and exit 5 for Houston the rightmost lane has some truly, and I mean astoundingly bad potholes and they’re usually right after a blind rise so even I know that its coming sometimes I still don’t see em.
BUT NOTHING IS AS BAD AS THE CROSS BRONX EXPRESSWAY I-95
Bruh, it’s the worst road by far. It’s constantly full of traffic, it’s got constant construction, it’s got every angry bridge and tunnel driver and commercial driver. I live on the east side and if I’m ever coming from the George Washington Bridge I NEVER take the Cross Bronx to FDR, I know it’s longer but I ALWAYS take Hudson River Drive/West Side Highway and then crosstown near my cross roads. I will do absolutely anything to avoid the Cross Bronx, I will drive into other boroughs and then into Manhattan if I have to. I hate this stretch of I-95 more than literally any other automotive related thing in existence. It’s ONLY redeemable trait is that there isn’t a toll to get into Manhattan West Side from it (presumably you paid elsewhere) that it. I’m having a meltdown just thinking about the next time I am on this road.
Submitted by: The World of Vee