y8s

iTrader: (8)

to get to dulles airport I have two choices:

a) the restricted airport lanes which only allow travel to and from the airport and are free of charge. speed limit is 55 and heavily patrolled and tightly enforced. there is never traffic.

b) the pay-to-use toll road that parallels the airport lanes. speed limit is 65 and you can pretty safely drive 75-80 all day long even when patrolled. usually only reckless drivers get shown the badge. there is only rush hour traffic.

Doppelgänger

iTrader: (12)

So wait, am I strange in that I refer to interstates as interstates? "I'm going to jump on the interstate and head up to Gwinnett". I determine highways as major numbered roads with intersections...but usually refer to them in context by their number- "Yeah, just take 20 up to Old Milton...". The ones that are fun are the ones that change behavior. We have "GA400" here that splits off the interstate just north of the city. A few miles from its origin is a toll, so it's a toll road. But it's only one toll, not one to get on and off or meter a section of the road. Further up, for a number of miles, it is all controlled access. Eventually, the road stops with the controlled access and has intersections and eventually comes to an end...but yet, it's not given a designation as a interstate spur. But once again, it is just referred to as "Georgia 400" or just "400" around here.

We also have I-285, and if you know your interstate numbering system, will tell you that it makes a full circle around the city (3 numbers and starts with an even number). Here we refer to it as "The Loop" or "The Perimeter"...not usually referred to as "285" or "I-285". To further confuse people, reports are given in compass readings "traffic o nthe top-end is getting thick. The west side is open between 75 and 20.." and then there is the one spot we all know- Spaghetti Junction. It's on the NE side and is the junction between 285 and 85. It's not that big of an interchange to me, but I guess when it was built it was seen as crazy, big and complicated. Lastly, ALL signs are labeled north/south/east/west depending on where you are, but they don't make any intuitive sense. They really need to change the signage to "inner loop" and outer loop" to make it easier to know where you are going when you need to take the perimeter. For example- If you are coming down 85S into the city, you hit 285 at about the 1:30 mark..where it's a NW/SE orientation, but it is labeled 285 east or 285 west.

As for some of the other words from the OP- I say pah-KAHN because I hear the country people say PEE-can with a deep southern drawl...and I hate it., so I say it the other way lol. I also found the drinking fountain/water fountain one strange...as I am a water fountain sayer.

FRT_Fun

iTrader: (19)

An interstate is a highway. A tollway is a highway. A freeway is a highway. I don't understand what is so difficult about this. Calling any of the above a highway is acceptable. Calling any of the above by their short names is okay.

Highway is used because we also have the term waterway. Highway is land, waterway is... well water.

A highway is just a public road capable of heavy traffic.

Erat

iTrader: (5)

Chicago has the skyway.

Doppelgänger

iTrader: (12)

True. It is technically the Interstate Highway System and the National Highway System.

I tend to think of them being different so I know the traffic operations of different roads. In context, I refer to them simply by their numbers. Though there are some cases where I hear people here refer roads as "highway." Like we have two highways that are numbered 20- I-20 and GA20. Most people will use "highway 20" to refer to one and just "20" (for the interstate) for the other. They do cross too...which is kinda odd considering they are both even-numbered roads. Actually GA20 doesn't go east/west much at all lol. Here is GA20 highlighted to show a large portion of its path. I-20 is clearly seen running east/west.