I think last time I doublechecked it, something like 30 or 35 states allow nonmotorized access to freeways, making those that don't somewhat of a minority. However, given that 97%(?) of the population of the US lives in the ~215 lower-48 metropolitan areas (that is, pretty much any city large enough to have a suburb of separate incorporation, of which the smallest and newest could very well be Eufaula, OK (with it's suburb of Carlton Landing, which someone recently shifted it's centroid node across the lane and dropped it to a hamlet even though it's an incorporated town as of last year), and 90% of that being in the top 100 largest of those metros, most people live nearest to a relative minority of freeway miles that don't allow all modes.
That said, given that I've pretty much only ever lived in the emptiest states in the country plus California, unless you're on one of the urban freeways that does allow bicycles, and you plan on biking the freeway, you better be prepared to go 20-50+ miles without stopping. I remember seeing one cyclist back in 2011 on I 80 between exit 4 and 41, a 37, nearly 38 mile gap between exits (third longest stretch between exits in the US), and in the direction I was going, that next exit wasn't going to be someplace you wanted to stop anyway. On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Elliott Plack <[email protected]> wrote: > This is an interesting conversation. Since I'm on the east coast, I've > never seen a bicycle on a freeway. Since I'm a bit of a road geek, I ask > this very question of my fellow road geeks on our discussion forum. It > seems many states have explicit laws allowing bicycles on the highway. > Follow it here: http://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=14452.0 > > Elliott > > On Mon Jan 12 2015 at 1:51:25 PM Paul Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 11:43 PM, John F. Eldredge <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> By contrast, I am not aware of any Interstate highways in the >>> southeast USA that allow bicycles. From my experience, every entrance ramp >>> has signs forbidding non-motorized traffic and mopeds. >>> >> >> All the more reason to explicitly tag it, since it's explicitly posted. >> Of course, the bigger trick is finding the endpoints of that, since even in >> states that do allow it (save for California), it's rare to get a "bicycles >> on roadway" sign regularly (Oregon, Washington and Oklahoma usually only >> post it once starting usually just before or at where bicycles first enter, >> the corresponding sign the opposite direction would be "bikes must >> exit/turn right/whatever" before and "no bicycles" after. And they tend to >> be hard to spot because for whatever reason, USDOT thinks bicyclists can >> read fonts as tall as my thumb is thick while moving (which means >> information dense signage such as found in Portland for it's LCNs is next >> to useless without stopping in traffic), so all bicycle signage tends to be >> in the finest print possible, even on the freeway... >> _______________________________________________ >> Talk-us mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us >> >
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