Roadgeek
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A roadgeek is an individual involved in "roadgeeking" or "road enthusiasm"—an interest in roads as a hobby. A person with such an interest is also referred to as a road buff, roadfan or Roads Scholar, the latter being a play on the term Rhodes Scholar.[1]
Roadgeeking may focus on a single activity related to roads, such as driving the full length of the highway system in a specific area, creating fonts and other graphic elements to share with other enthusiasts, or researching the numbering system used for a national highway system. Road enthusiasts may also have a comprehensive interest in a single road, a larger highway system, or in roads in general, participating in a wide range of hobby activities.
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[edit] Roadgeek behavior
Behaviors for roadgeeks may include taking road trips for the roads rather than for the destination, sometimes referred to as roadgeeking or Roads Scholaring, or bragging about the extent of their travels, such as the number of Interstate Highway sections that have wholly traveled.[2] Other activities include the photography of road signs or of various highway sundries, collecting old road maps, maintaining web sites dedicated to highway transport, correcting errors in newspapers and other publications about highway terminology and the history of highways [3], and the design of graphics or fonts to facilitate the work of others.[4]
[edit] Roadgeeking online
In 2002, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that "road enthusiasm" was an internet phenomenon:
| “ | Road enthusiasm is a phenomenon that developed with the Internet. People who for years thought they were the only ones who eagerly awaited the release of the new Rand McNally road atlases each fall suddenly stumbled on to hundreds of people with whom they could trade pictures, share ideas and debate the finer points of interchange design.
In addition to hundreds of Web sites, there is a newsgroup, misc.transport.road, where the discussion meanders from road-trip routing and construction projects to quirks and inconsistencies in signage.[5] |
” |
Examples of online road enthusiasm
- misc.transport.road (Usenet); charter approved November 27, 1995[6]
- misc.transport.road FAQ
- Roadgeek Yahoo List; founded April 25, 1999
- Society for All British and Irish Road Enthusiasts (SABRE), founded August 13, 1999
- Brad's Australian Highways Page; founded September 19, 1999
- Great Lakes Roads Yahoo Forum; founded February 16, 2002
- Infrastructure forum on boards.ie
- Highways and Autobahns on SkyscraperCity
[edit] Organizations of road enthusiasts
The Society for All British and Irish Road Enthusiasts (SABRE) was started in 1999 and given its current name in 2002. The acronym originally meant "Study and Appreciation of the British Roads Experience". SABRE's 1300 members meet to discuss road subjects in online forums, hold formal meetings to elect oficers, and maintain several online data projects.[7][8][9]
[edit] Sites of interest to roadgeeks
[edit] United Kingdom
- The Magic Roundabout in Swindon, England consists of five mini-roundabouts arranged in a circle.[8]
- Gravelly Hill Interchange, one of many known as Spaghetti Junction, is junction 6 of the M6 motorway where it meets the A38(M) Aston Expressway in Birmingham, United Kingdom.[8]
- The A64(M) portion of Leeds Inner Ring Road is classified as a "pathetic motorway" by one SABRE member because it is "sadly, only 800 yards long and that's if you go the long way."[9]
[edit] United States
[edit] Arkansas
- Arkansas Highway 43/Oklahoma State Highway 20 concurrency, possibly unique instance of two highways from different states overlapping.[10]
[edit] California
- The Ridge Route, the first paved highway directly linking the Los Angeles Basin with the San Joaquin Valley over the Tejon Pass, a portion of which is in the National Register of Historic Places. It was documented by uber-Roadgeek, Harrison Irving Scott, in 2002. in Ridge Route: The Road That United California.
- Skyline Boulevard, the road that spans the highest ridge of Santa Cruz Mountains, making it possible to see the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay simultaneously.
- Decommissioned portions of U.S. Route 6, now part of State Route 14, are the subject of significant roadgeek interest.[11]
- Zzyzx Road, a landmark about halfway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, known for its unusual name. It is the last place on Earth in the English alphabetical order.
- Interstate 238 in the San Francisco Bay Area which defies numbering logic both by location and the absence of its parent, Interstate 38.
[edit] Colorado
- Interstate 70's route through Glenwood Canyon, an engineering marvel
- Eisenhower Tunnel, the highest point on the Interstate Highway System
[edit] Maryland
- I-70's eastern terminus at a Park & Ride on Security Boulevard in Baltimore, one of the more unusual Interstate termini
[edit] Missouri
- Galena Y-Bridge, an unusual bridge with three land connections
[edit] Montana
- Going-to-the-Sun Road, a scenic road crossing Glacier National Park, designated both a National Historic Landmark and a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.[12]
[edit] North Carolina
- Interstate 73, which lies east of Interstate 77
- Interstate 74, which lies south of Interstate 40 as well as the already-established I-74's eastern terminus in Cincinnati, Ohio (but is planned to connect there)
[edit] Oklahoma
- Arkansas Highway 43/Oklahoma State Highway 20 concurrency, possibly unique instance of two highways from different states overlapping.
[edit] Oregon
- Historic Columbia River Highway, the first paved highway in the Pacific Northwest, an engineering and scenic marvel, designated both a National Historic Landmark and a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.[13]
[edit] Pennsylvania
- Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike, an example of 1930's-era highway standards
- Breezewood, Pennsylvania, a gap in Interstate 70 that routes traffic down US 30 through town
- Centralia, Pennsylvania, site of underground coal fires undermining the area highways
- Interstate 99, which lies west of several lower-numbered interstates, such as Interstate 81 and Interstate 95
[edit] Virginia
- The wrong-way concurrency of Interstate 81 and Interstate 77, where one goes north on one route and south on the other at the same time. Located near Wytheville, VA
[edit] See also
- Trainspotting, Plane spotting or Bus spotting
- Metrophile
- Railfan
- Road trip
- Sport touring
- Openstreetmap
- Society for All British and Irish Road Enthusiasts
[edit] References
- ^ Road to future or a dead end., Austin American Statesman, 12 December 2004 (accessed 20 January 2007)
- ^ Mike the Actuary's Musings, My Clinched Freeways, accessed November 16, 2007
- ^ John Kelly "A Long Way to Go for a Refund: Highways, Revisited," Washington Post, Page C11, February 21, 2005, accessed June 27, 2008
- ^ Mike the Actuary's Musings, Roadgeek Fonts, accessed November 16, 2007
- ^ "'Road Geeks' Ramp up Their Hobby on the Information Superhighway," William Lamb, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 22, 2002, p C-1, accessed July 20, 2008
- ^ RFD unmoderated group misc.transport.misc, accessed August 16, 2009; charters were approved for misc.transport.misc, misc.transport.marine, and misc.transport.road; the charter for misc.transport.road "is for discussion of all aspects of road/highway transportation and design not included in other groups (such as misc.transport.trucking and misc.transport.urban-transit)."
- ^ "Society: About Us". The Society for All British Road Enthusiasts. http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
- ^ a b c Milmo, Cahal (29 October 2004). "Round the bend? How we became a nation of roadies". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/round-the-bend-how-we-became-a-nation-of-roadies-755067.html. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
- ^ a b Gupta, Lila Das (17 Jan 2005). "Never mind the trainspotters". The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/2732679/Never-mind-the-trainspotters.html. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
- ^ "Oklahoma Terminus: Arkansas SH-43", Martin McMahon, Roadklahoma, accessed July 17, 2008
- ^ Lisa Leff, Los Angeles Times, May 14, 2002, "BEHIND THE WHEEL; Road Scholars Driven to Go the Extra Mile; A small but dedicated band of buffs spends free time studying and, yes, traveling the state's highways and byways", accessed June 27, 2008
- ^ National Park Service "Going-to-the-Sun Road"
- ^ Historic Columbia River Highway"
