Do you call it a freeway, highway, interstate, what???

[yoda313]

I usually call it a freeway but sometimes I say highway. How about you?

[canadateck]

highway

[shelbyGT]

Highway and if I'm talking about Interstate 35 or 70 or 435, then I say Interstate.

[yoda313]

Allright who voted for "the big scary place people drive really fast on" Come on its not that bad is it??

[Grimey]

I voted highway....cause thats what they are :P

[canadateck]

Where did that name come From(highway)?

I can see Over-Pass. but (High)way? Nothing High about the ones here.lol

[yoda313]

Where did that name come From(highway)?

I can see Over-Pass. but (High)way? Nothing High about the ones here.lol

Who knows???? I'm not a dictionary

[canadateck]

Where did that name come From(highway)?

I can see Over-Pass. but (High)way? Nothing High about the ones here.lol

Who knows???? I'm not a dictionary

I know you KNOW!!........................................Tell Meeee

[yoda313]

I don't.... HONEST

[canadateck]

I think it comes from that term High Road.? Who Knows......

[shelbyGT]

Maybe because they go over normal city roads, and thus are highways.

[thecoalman]

I tried to reseach it a little, apprently the term highway goes back quite a bit. As I suspected it's origin relates to the fact that the roads are built up, or elevated. Partiucularly around wet or swampy areas. Considering most of your major urban areas are directly adjacent to water there would have been a lot of swampy wet areas to build rods across. That's the best I could come up....

BTW I refer to them as I-80, I-81 or interstates etc....

[ZAPPER]

I call Interstates Interstates
State Roads, State Roads
County roads.....
The problem around these parts is that there is an Interstate 20 and a State road 20 and Interstate 85 and state road 85. The general slang would be Interstate 85 and Highway 85. And to make it even more fun, some areas put a street name on a section of county or state roads as they go through little towns or cities and when two or more State highways run the same route it gets even better.

I have three mailing addresses. A Hwy west number, a street name and number and a rural route number.

[MackemX]

where the hell is motorway?

http://www.wordreference.com/definition/motorway

motorway
A noun
1 expressway, freeway, motorway, pike, state_highway, superhighway, throughway, thruway

a broad highway designed for high-speed traffic
Category Tree:
entity
object; physical_object
artifact; artefact
way
road; route
highway; main_road
expressway, freeway, motorway, pike, state_highway, superhighway, throughway, thruway
turnpike
autostrada
autobahn

why is a car an automobile, a boot a trunk, a bonnet a hood, petrol is gas, a road a pavement, a pavement a sidewalk, a windscreen a windsheild etc etc?

[waheed]

Here in the UK, we call it a Motorway.

Come on yoda313, wheres the option for motorway?

[yoda313]

Sorry didn't think of it. Thats what OTHER Is for

[snafu099]

I live in urban area of Southern Calif. US
In the poll question, what are we being asked to label?

To me:
freeway by difinition has no cross traffic
inter-state is a roadway that goes from one state to another

In common usage if I did not know the proper (offical) disignation I would most likely refer to it as highway ##

From memory, ?? source
Highway comes from England
A built up roadway for use of the king and nobility, I thinik the early term was Kings highway. Peasants had to make way for any nobility. The highway in fact belonged to the King

On the practical side, not terminolgy, most road building tecniches derive from the Roman Empire (Modern Marvels Tv)

[Xylob the Destroyer]

I usually call it a freeway but sometimes I say highway. How about you?

it's a regional thing
I bet you're from California!

[yoda313]

I usually call it a freeway but sometimes I say highway. How about you?

it's a regional thing
I bet you're from California!

Nope Michigan

[thecoalman]

I usually call it a freeway but sometimes I say highway. How about you?

it's a regional thing
I bet you're from California!

Apparently it is a regional thing.... from the wikipedia

In the U.S., the terms expressway and freeway are legally defined by federal regulation and under the laws of most U.S. states according to civil engineering usage. However, the distinction between these two terms is not universal, and in several states which built freeways very early on (including Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania), the terms expressway and freeway have the same meaning. In those states, expressway, the older usage, is often preferred.

In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, newer roads are often officially styled freeways, where older roads retain the title "expressway". In New England and New York, the term freeway is rarely if ever used; highway is the generic term for high-speed limited-access roads, though Expressway and Freeway are both used as part of the proper name of some roads. In the rest of the country, freeway is the usual term; however, the distinction between freeways and highways is not always as clear or well-understood as it is in California, which has many of both kinds of highway. In California, freeways are divided, grade-separated, controlled-access highways where private driveways, pedestrians, and bicyclists are forbidden, where speed limits range from 55 to 70 miles per hour, and are usually elevated within major cities. Highways are divided, but may have at-grade or grade-separated intersections as demand requires, private driveways are minimized (but not completely forbidden), bicyclists and pedestrians are sometimes allowed, and the speed limits range from 45 to 55 miles per hour. Within a major city a highway can have commercial buildings along it. All interstate highway routes in California are freeways, most important intracity state routes are freeways, and most important intercity state routes are highways (with sections being upgraded to freeways as necessary).

In the U.S., particularly in statutes, the term highway technically has the broader meaning than that given at the beginning of this article (encompassing all state government-maintained roads or canals for cross-city or inter-city traffic), but in colloquial usage is often used to refer only the subset of that category that includes roads less important than a freeway. That subset generally includes roads with 2, 4, or 6 lanes, with or without a center divider, that have at-grade intersections and driveways connecting to adjacent properties. However, even then, such highways are usually built to higher standards (wider lanes and more durable pavement) than the connecting arterial routes, streets, alleys, and driveways.

The highest continuous road in the United States is the Trail Ridge Road that runs through the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

The term highway is also often used in colloquial speech where the correct term would be "State Route," or "U.S. Route." For example, California residents frequently refer to Highway 101 rather than U.S. 101.

[sux2bu]

how about "BELTWAY"?????????

[thecoalman]

Beltway is just that, it goes in a circle. They have usually have the even prefixes like 695 for the one around Baltimore.

Odd prefixes are usually spurs and while I'm the topic..... Even numbered interstates run west and east, Odd numbered ones run norht and south.

That's not always the case but will be most of the time.

[Conquest10]

Expressway or E-way here.

[SquirrelDip]

I call a freeway a freeway as it is a highway with no stop points, a highway a highway as it is a higher speed roadway that may involve intersections, an interstate an interstate as it is a highway that travels across state borders. Never called anything an autobahn as I've never driven on one.

When I've driven on a sidewalk I know it's time to go home...

[Xylob the Destroyer]

another term used around here (though, it's only used to refer to once specific highway!) is turnpike.

[ZAPPER]

Super Slab

[jimmalenko]

We have both freeways and highways over here. Freeways generally are multiple lane in either direction and usually have a median strip or some sort of concrete barrier (and therefore a greater speed limit also), whereas highways tend to be mainly single lane in either direction and no median strip or barrier. Although of course in Metropolitan areas highways tend to have multiple lanes.