The talk of orphan 3dus's has gotten me thinking of NYC's poor lost souls of
the 3di highway world, the broken family of X78's.
Their Papa Was A Rolling Stone. I-78 is clearly a deadbeat dad who won't even
acknowlede his kids. Instead he mosies on through Jersey City, not even
bothering to bridge the roads he crosses, burrows under a hole into Manhattan
and crawls off and dies on Canal Street, probably in a crack den somewhere (I
know, a negative and distorted view of NYC, just play along!)
The big brother of the family is I-278. Found in desolate Linden, NJ with no
concept of how he got there, he gets immediately tangled up in a weird
interchange with I-95, who is the closest thing he has to a real father figure.
After a decent start sprinting through Staten Island it reaches the prime of
its life in its bridge accross the narrows, showing off with the long,
luxurious, two-leveled, many-laned Verizanno (sp?) Bridge. But he's peaked too
soon. It's all downhill from here. Life from here on is meandering nightmare of
desperate living conditions: bumpy surfaces, narrow lanes, deadly curves, and
treacherous entrances and exits without acceleration or deceleration lanes. It
has one brief moment of glory by the Brooklyn Heights promenade, with it's
stellar view of Manhattan accross the river, but through the traffic clogs of
the Gowanus and BQE sections this is only a slight bright spot amidst a sad
life. It finally reaches its nadir in northwestern Queens. After a particularly
meandering, narrow section, it gives up all hope, and rather suicidally ends
itself on a parkway. It's apparent death is without any respect at all. Only
one lane is continuous westbound. Somehow it doesn't die, but its truck traffic
must use signalled service roads for half a mile (like father like son!), and
the I-278 status is all but unsigned on both the car and truck section. It
lives on even after its parkway host dies, but it suffers a backhanded dis when
Manhattan only lets it see its perifery. It looks like there might be light at
the end of the tunnel when it gives birth to a 2di, a most unlikely situation.
But then it's nothing but misery. The last few miles of its life are depressing
views of the South Bronx and another interchange that seems to favor the other
road. It finally finds I-95, meeting it the wrong way (the "eastbound" I-278
somehow managing to be to the right of the "northbound" I-95), crawls up and
dies.
If they ever make a movie about the life of I-278, it should be played by
Dustin Hoffman.
:-O
Its younger siblings might even be worse off. I-678 plods along from JFK
Airport, a miserable welcome to the greatest city on earth. She's even more
rootless than her big brother, her route number seeming completely random,
never even going near an existing section of her parent. She climbs north in
Queens at a snails pace, picking up the pace a bit when she plateus. She peaks
with her bridge, a narrow but dignified span, but after that it is imediately
clear that she has no more future. She does meet her sad brother, and they die
together into the Bruckner interchange.
Route 878 is the most bizzare an unpredictable. She disguises herself as a
state road, hoping prehaps to avoid the bastard x78 stigma. But instead she
proves herself to be nothing but completely insane. For the beginning of her
life she's one way and nearly without purpose, though she does move a little
better than her siblings. Then her disguise becomes reality, she is clearly a
NY route complete with grade intersections and traffic lights. She seems to die
at a very young age. Curiously though she has only made herself invisible. She
hitches a ride on a caravan called Rockaway Blvd, huddles in the back, and
prays for a new, better life wherever she's going. Legend has it she shows up
again, completely without warning, in the Five Towns of Nassau County, NY. Her
rebirth is a complete island away from all other NYS routes, and she takes a
quick dive into the bottom of the state (at that point) with an obscure and
overpriced toll bridge as her final glory. She dies a particularly cold death,
without any fanfare, signage, or any concept of where to go next.
I-478, the baby, might be the saddest of all. So deeply ashamed is he of his
bastard status, he doesn't so much as acknowledge that he even has a route
number. He just leaves his big brother and heads right for his deadbeat dad,
hoping to find an explanation. He takes a long tunnel into Manhattan but gets
killed just as he arrives. He never gets any answers. Sadly, he's only a mile
or so away from dad, closer than any of his siblings get. But he probably had
no hope of getting anywhere with him anyway.
Uh.....I better go take my pills!
:-o Andrew :-D ("MisterK")
