Beltline to Lose "Inner" and "Outer"
The News & Observer is reporting today that contracts for new signage for Raleigh’s Beltline will go out in November. Part of the deal involves new nomenclature for the confusing I-440 and I-40 sections known as “The Beltline”.
Back in 2002 DOT engineers recommended a new system for labeling parts of the road. What DOT will do is remove “I-440″ from the southern portion of the Beltline (the section that is I-40), and label the remaining I-440 as an East/West road. If one thinks of the Beltline as being shaped like a bell, the curvaceous upper portion will be I-440 while the bottom rim is I-40.
The two sides of I-440 will be labeled by the direction on the bell that they are eventually traveling. The West point is toward Cary, near Crossroads shopping center (map it) and the East point is that where I-40 breaks off toward Wilmington, near Walnut Creek Amphitheater (map it).
I’ve traveled to many cities with loop freeways and I’ve never seen one struggle with its nomenclature as much as we do. Ultimately the new nomenclature makes sense because the Beltline is not a closed loop. In order for the new system to work, however, the name “Beltline” should be dropped as it implies a closed loop. A new name should include the implication of an arc, such as the “Midtown Arc” or “Sir Walter Crescent”. We all know that citizens will not drop the Beltline name, however, and confusion will ensue.
New naming systems take time for adoption, and the introduction of DVD-based navigation systems won’t improve this lag time. While the state is as it, they ought to make an enormous leap in clarification by dropping the “440″ label all together, and going with another hundreds digit, like “340″, but that’s the subject of another post. Hopefully the use of West and East will make at least some improvement to the confusion.
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August 24th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I’m kind of a roadway geek, so I have a comment or two to make… I agree that the 40/440 signage can be confusing to newcomers. The removal of the 440 signage along the southern beltline should help - especially since the remainder of I-440 now has an official east and west designation. FYI, all 3 digit interstate highways are numbered so for a reason - an even first digit (i.e., 485, 440, 240, 495, etc) represents a loop that circles or bypasses an area or city. I-440 connects at both ends to 40, so that is appropriate. An ODD first digit (540, 140, 395, 795, etc) is designated for roads that are a spur or a link. I-540 receives this designation, obviously because the eastern end does not terminate and rejoin at I-40, rather it ends in Knightdale where it links up with the new US 264 bypass. Supposedly, someday when the entire loops is done all the way around Wake County, it will be redesignated as I-640. We shall see. Anyway, enough on that.
What used to confuse the heck out of me was the whole “inner” and “outer” thing (which I’ve since long ago figured out)… curiously, many other cities with loops like DC, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Hampton Roads all use the same terminology… so I guess it shouldn’t seem as confusing as it was to me at first. I used to live in Chicago and everyone up there uses proper names for the freeways there… the Kennedy, Dan Ryan, Eisenhower, Tri-State etc. It’s funny to see signs that say “Cliff Benson Beltline” or “Thomas Bradshaw Freeway” but no one ever uses those names around here… not the media, no one. Maybe if NCDOT saw fit to add the names to overhead signage next to the numbered badges… they might catch on a bit more. “Eastbound on the Benson…” dunno.
If you want to go somewhere and be really confused… go to Greensboro. Lawwwwwdy, what a confusing mess that place is! You can choose a path that will take you down I-85 south… or business I-85 south… I-40 west or business I-40 west… and I-73 (which isn’t on any maps and doesn’t seem to really go anywhere) and then business I-40 east and business I-85 north and… are you confused yet? That’s not even considering the fact that I’ve found one or two signs that NCDOT has not updated since re-routing a couple of the roads. So if all of those roads haven’t confused you yet, a couple of outdated signs will be more than happy to help misdirect you on your way.
Sigh… if I could run NCDOT for one day…. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had that thought, thought!
August 24th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I’ve never had a problem with inner/outer. It always made perfect sense although I suppose I spent about three seconds contemplating it the first time I encountered the signs.
My wife, on the other hand, is applauding this change. She never could grasp the inner/outer thing. East/West made no sense to me until reading your description, which treates it as a northern bypass. Makes perfect sense again.
Although, I sold my car last week with no intentions of buying another one. Makes this whole thing irrelevant for me.
August 24th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Matt, you’re right about the odd/even thing. I think that since 540 is outside of 440, the new number for 440 should then be 240; keeping it even.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:45 am
DANG! 23 years into this and I was just starting to figure out exactly which was which.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Well, it took a couple of minutes for me to get the concept of “inner”/”outer” beltline, but once I got it, it made complete sense to me. Some people still don’t “get it” though. Now that we’ve got 540, I would think “inner”/”outer” is gonna take on a new meaning. I can see many people interpreting “inner” as 440 and “outer” as 540. East/West/North/South doesn’t make sense for a beltline since it’s a circle. How about “clockwise”/”counter clockwise” to describe direction on a beltline since that’s what we normally use to describe direction on a circle and have “inner” mean 440 and “outer” mean 540?
August 25th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Bruce,
I think the clockwise/counterclockwise concept is by far the most logical. I only see two problems with it, though:
* “clockwise” and “counterclockwise” are very long words to put on road signs. I wish we had another pair of synonymous terms. Something short like anni and donni (I made those up) would go great on signs. I even thought of just a curved arrow, like we see with Undo and Redo icons in some applications.
* The beltline is not a closed loop. At the 40/440 intersection near Cary, motorists on 440 must actively exit the highway in order to remain on the highway. I think that the term clockwise implies that one could stay on that side of the road and go round and round effortlessly. My office is near that intersection and we frequently hear of people who end up in Apex or at RDU trying to find us. I think it was a big mistake to design a cloverleaf intersection there. We 440ers should have precedent over those 40ers. They should have to enter OUR highway, not vice versa. However, what’s done is done. We can’t take 1983 back.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:50 am
“Something short like anni and donni..”
how about “inny and outty”? pretty much works for the belly-button across the globe, so why not on our little contorted beltway? just a thought
August 25th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Maybe because I have lived here so long but I have never had an issue with it. How hard is it know the difference betwen inside and outside ?????
August 25th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
@Dana:
I-240 runs around Asheville, so 440 is the lowest number we can have. Obviously, there has to be an ability to repeat a number (If I-40 goes from Wilmington to CA, there’s going to be more than 4 loops highways), but I think the convention is not to repeat one in the same state. I think they’re also supposed start with the lowest number at the west or south and go up from there, similar to the mile markers.
Also, FYI, at the time that cloverleaf was built that was an intersection with I-40 and US 1, there was no loop, so It kind of made sense at the time.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
This is probably a good change, although inner/outer was never that complicated to me… then again I was born here. People say the confusion came when 540 was built and drivers referred to it as the outer loop also.
I-440 should stay numbered as is (and it will) because even numbered xxx interstates connect to the primary interstate twice, and Asheville already has 240, as Michael noted. 540 is named as such because it only begins and does not tie back into I-40, and may not ever. Odd numbered xxx interstates are considered spurs. I guess it’s supposed to be for driver expectancy, such that if you get off on 440 east, you know it will end back again to I-40… although I wonder if very many people actually know that.
August 26th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
“* “clockwise” and “counterclockwise” are very long words to put on road signs. I wish we had another pair of synonymous terms. Something short like anni and donni (I made those up) would go great on signs. I even thought of just a curved arrow, like we see with Undo and Redo icons in some applications.”
How about “inner” and “outer” for shorthand versions of “clockwise” and “counterclockwise”? That’s all they mean.
It absolutely blows my mind how people never manage to understand this nomenclature.
I don’t like that Raleigh is getting rid of them, but it is at least feasible given 440’s geometry. The East/West designation will work on that road. Most other cities with true beltlines (continuous loops around the city with a bisecting interstate) should absolutely have “inner” and “outer” as designating terms. Circles, after all, have no set direction other than clockwise and counter clockwise. If you start by travelling east on a circular road, before long you’ll be travelling north, and then west. Cardinal directions make no sense whatsoever for circular roads.
The undo and redo circular arrow icons is a great idea. (That is, if people don’t mistake them for cloverleaf exit directions.)
August 30th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Three-digit Interstate numbers like 240 can be repeated from one state to another, but they can’t be repeated within a state. There’s an I-240 in Memphis and an I-440 in Nashville.
Now that NC 540 has popped into the picture, I don’t know whether I-640 is still the eventual plan.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:01 am
I guess the ‘inner/outer’ thing was created to help the newcomers and out-of-towners. I never had a problem with it. Having lived in St. Louis and Columbus, there was an I-270 in each of them (although in St. Louis is wasn’t a complete loop with I-270 being the western loop in Missouri and I-255 being the eastern loop in Illinois).
Be that as it may, the loops in those two cities pass through a number of different municipalities. So, when there was a traffic situation on the TV/radio, you would hear ‘there’s been a wreck on I-270 in Hilliard’ and people would know what’s going on. Since 440 and 540 still pretty much encompass Raleigh, it can be tough to make that designation unless we get used to saying ‘I-440 in North Raleigh.’
I’m guessing that somebody in the NCDOT comes up with the naming conventions and sits down with all of the media sources to agree on how to state it. I live in Raleigh and work in Zebulon. And, there’s not a complete agreement to the reference for the new US64. Is it US64-264, US-64, Knightdale Bypass, etc.
Now, for common vernacular in New Jersey, everything seems to be about exit numbers. So, if we all started to use that as opposed to exit names, the confusion may drop off as well. Just a thought…
Peace
August 31st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
ct and chief, it sounds as if the Raleigh Beltline can only carry the numbers 240, 440, 640, and 840. What happens in a state that has more than 4 cities with loops? At some point the nomenclature rule of even numbered loops will have to be broken, and I can’t wait until that day. It’s an arbitrary system that seems contrived to satisfy a few people sitting in an office somewhere, and clearly does not work in the wild.
The purpose for naming roads is not to honor history or to follow a system, but rather to make streets clearly navigable. If one of the former systems prevents clear navigation, then the system is what is wrong. Like I said, I’ll be posting soon about the use of “440″.
August 31st, 2008 at 5:10 pm
> What happens in a state that has more than
> 4 cities with loops?
Nearly every major city has more than one two-digit Interstate highway. Atlanta, for example, has three (I-20, I-75, and I-85). So does Nashville (I-24, I-40, I-65). Richmond and Charlotte have two each. So, plenty of three-digit numbers are available for loops in major cities.
But… because the NC Dept. of Highways had such incredible foresight in the 1950s, the city of Raleigh was left off the original Interstate system entirely. The eastward extension of I-40 to Raleigh (and ultimately Wilmington) came much later. Thus there are only four choices here, one of which is already taken by Asheville.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:27 am
I’ll admit, I’ve been wrangling with this for years, reading everyone’s comments, and, admittingly, had my own bias as someone who’s travelled across the country.
Inner and outer does have some benefit. It indicates which side of the ‘loop’ you are on and whether you are going clockwise or counter-clockwise. But it’s most notable nuance is that it requires someone to know where they are on the loop in order to properly choose which side to take. i.e. If you think of a clock, you have to know which ‘minute’ you are ‘at’, and which one you are going to, so you can correctly choose inner or outer. If you don’t know that, choosing inner or outer is impossible.
This is a common problem with people not familiar with a city. They don’t know where they are on the clockface, but they often know which cardinal direction they are heading - east, north, south, west, etc. In this situation, inner/outer, used on it’s own, loses it’s benefit; the choice of whether to choose inner or outer, to go clockwise or counter clockwise, is not obvious. All one knows is that they both go in a circle.
If you think of a loop as a clockface, and you need to get TO a certain minute - or area where a minute is located - you first need to know what minute you are at. Without that knowledge, you can’t choose whether to go clockwise or counter clockwise.
For example, i need to get to northern Raleigh. Should I take inner or outer? You think it’s a simple answer, but it’s not. If I’m at 2, I take outer, but if I’m at 10, I take inner. It’s a common situation. Sure, I could stop and whip out a map and try to find out where I’m at. But, trying to identify where I’m at can be difficult. People often stop for food, gas, shopping, etc, while traveling, and lose there sense of ‘location’. But they still know what direction they are going.
This is why, in my opinion, the best solution is to include the cardinal direction AND inner/outer. This will (1) aide those familiar with an area, they can easily just choose the ’side’ of the loop, and (2) aide those not familiar with an area, that know only the direction they are trying to go.
I had to learn inner/outer the hard way on my first visit to Raleigh from Charlotte. I knew I-40 went into Raleigh, and I knew I needed to go to the northside of Raleigh. But, I didn’t know exactly where at I-40 intersected on the clockface. Was I at 9? 6? 4? If 9 I choose inner, 6 choose either, or 4 choose outer. I didn’t know where I was, and thus couldn’t choose.
But if 9 or 4 had also been labeled including ‘north, I’d have been ok. If it had been labeled east or west, I would know I’m on the bottom of Raleigh, and either choice would have been fine.
Yes, N E S W on it’s own isn’t perfect either - which is why I suggest using both.
If you had to break it down to identify (1) where someone is at, and (2) which direction someone is going, this is what you’d end up with.
Inner/Outer only. Identify location on clockface: 0%. Identifying directin traveling: 0%. All you could say is they were driving in a circle - clockwise or counter clockwise.
N E S W only. Identify location on clockface: Reduced to 50% of clockface. Identifying directin traveling: 100%.
N E S W with inner/outer. Identify location on clockface: Reduced to 25% of clockface. Identifying directin traveling: 100%.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Good points, Dave. I thought of them replacing signs with clockfaces with an arced arrow at 12 different locations on the highway.
The real problem is that they didn’t do the 40/440 intersection near Crossroads right in the early 80s. Just like the Civic Center, the Marriott, the airport, and the arena, this city keeps building in mistakes that are costly and confusing down the road. {sigh}