November 28, 20223 yr Road miles - split from another thread On 11/28/2022 at 10:34 AM, rich_c said: njanvilman, where in NJ are you located? I’m in Bordentown — just south of Trenton, NJ. Howell Tnsp, about 50 minute drive for you.
December 14, 20223 yr 50 minutes wouldn’t Even get me to the closest city, I could make it to several small an medium size towns but that’s about it
December 15, 20223 yr It depends on what way I'm going though, if I'm going to the north from where I live it's maybe 4 hours of driving, to the east border its maybe an hour or 2. I live west on the coast. So its not that big. ~Jobtiel
December 15, 20223 yr Wow! Learn something new every day! I always thought it was a much bigger place!
December 15, 20223 yr The mystery novel The Rattle-Rat by Janwillem van de Wetering contains a joke about a pair of Amsterdam detectives getting lost in the Dutch province of Fryslân (Friesland) and getting unlost by driving in the same direction for half an hour until they circle back around to where they're supposed to be.
December 15, 20223 yr And it is FLAT. Much of the country has been reclaimed from the sea and has very little topography. Some years ago my wife and I drove SW from Aachen, Germany and crossed the SE corner of the Netherlands which was slightly hilly. I joked that it was the Swizerland of of the Netherlands. I found out later that is exactly what it is called in reality! "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."
December 15, 20223 yr Yeah, I'm still amazed whenever I drive across the border to Belgium or back, as soon as you see the sign that you have crossed the border the hills are starting, it's like the Netherlands don't want none. I live a couple meters below sea level on reclaimed land and its indeed very flat, the only things that even resemble a height difference I come across are speed bumps! George, you were in Limburg, which is sometimes considered a separate country, the people's dialect, way of living, and culture is quite different from the rest of the Netherlands. ~Jobtiel
December 15, 20223 yr I learned only a few years back how small the Netherlands really is. I often think about it when I'm driving somewhere 3 or more hours away ... "Ah, I could have driven from top to bottom of the Netherlands by now!". I told Ashley as we were nearing Billy's place (4 hours away), that if we'd started at the top of the Netherlands, we'd be in Brussels by now! I just always find it fascinating. It also helped me not feel so weird about not travelling "abroad". I used to read constantly about young adults graduating highschool and taking a year travelling to other countries before starting college. I always wondered where they got all the money to do such a thing because for us here in the States, that would cost a pretty penny just to get over the ocean. Then I started studying Dutch and really looking at the maps and realizing just how close all those countries are to each other in comparison to us in the states. It's nothing for me to drive 4-8 hours for a weekend vacation and not even get more than a state or two away - and I've driven as far as 12 hours to go further when it was cheaper than flying. If I lived in Belgium, I could visit London, Paris or Germany or Switzerland - any of them in less than 8 hours AND their rail travel is much more prevalent so I wouldn't even HAVE to drive! And yes, I understand that I'm basically admitting to you all that I'm clueless when it comes to geography, lol. I truly don't know how I managed a passing grade for whatever class I had to learn that stuff in. The little bit I know now - which I've expressed in this post, lol - has only come from learning the Dutch language and the people I've met throughout that process.
December 15, 20223 yr Yeah wow, wiki says the Netherlands is 16,000 square miles and my beloved State of Arizona is nearly 114,000!
December 15, 20223 yr It's been years since I saw this graphic and I've searched many times, then it showed on my first search hit today! Frosty The Lucky. Alaska Land area: With 586,412 square miles, or about 365,000,000 acres,
December 15, 20223 yr Lol Rojo, you made me look up Oklahoma, Wiki says it’s 68595 square miles! Shaina, I’ve wondered the same thing about how people from here fly over an travel all over Europe, I guess i didn’t realize that everything was smaller and closer together there! on the world map it always seemed bigger to me for some reason, the I got to see a lot of countries when I was in the navy but the only ones in Europe I got to go was Spain and Greece Jerry I didn’t realize Alaska was that big a place!
December 16, 20223 yr Billy, I’ve only been to Alaska the one time, but I still remember its pure vastness.
December 16, 20223 yr Yeah lookin at that map puts in in perspective! I didn’t realize they had that much dirt up there! on a side note I’m pretty sure Oklahoma beats Alaska on vastness of cows an chickens!!!
December 16, 20223 yr Being halfway across the Atlantic Ocean on a ship will give you a feeling of vastness. Not only around you, but under you.
December 16, 20223 yr Basically, you can think of the larger coutries in Europe as about the size of larger states in the US and the small countries about the size of the smaller to mid sized states in the US. The culture shock re distances works both ways. Europeans are often amazed at how BIG the US is and how long it takes to drive from one place to another. In the UK many folk think the drive from London the Edinburgh is a reasonable 2 day or a LONG 1 day trip. It is about 350 miles, most of it on high speed motorways. To us in the western US 350 miles is a longish morning or afternoon drive. It is about 390 miles from Laramie to Salt Lake City, UT and I figure that as about 5 hours, all interstate. I'd think nothing of eating lunch at home and figure to eat dinner in SLC. It's all a matter of perspective. Here in Wyoming where it is a long way between towns back when I was single I would think little of driving someplace 80 or 100 miles away for just a movie date. And it is easy to rack up a couple of hundred miles for an afternoon drive. And, frankly, it is not that expensive to go to Europe if you leave from a major airline hub, e.g. Dallas, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Newark, Atlanta, etc.. The last time I checked I could get a flight in the shoulder season (fall and spring) for about $500 per person round trip from Denver. And once you are there if you stay at 2 and 3 star hotels you can probably figure $150 to $200 per day for food and lodging for a couple. Car rental is pretty reasonable too in the non-summer seasons. Basically, you can spend the same amount of time in Paris or London as you would for a "love boat" cruise of the same length for the same cost. If you go, do NOT rent a car in the big cities. The public transportation is superb and parking is rare and expensive. We often stayed in the cheaper suburbs and rode the train in with the commuters to the city and got around on the Underground or the Metro or the buses with no problem. Live and travel like the natives. You can do it cheaper if you go the hostel and 1 star hotel route and buy much of your food at grocery stores. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."
December 16, 20223 yr PS I just checked fares from Denver to London for 2 weeks in April, 2023 and the cheapest was $579/person round trip. It was on Icelandair and I believe they still have a deal where you can layover in Iceland for several days with no penalty. In comparison I remember that I flew from Denver to London and return in 1985 for about $500. That would be almost $1400 in today's money. My suggestion to anyone thinking of travelling to Europe is DO IT. It is cheaper and easier than you would think. And think of all the cool ironwork you would see and the smiths you could visit. The legend is that the smith who did the ironwork on the doors on Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris made a deal with the Devil to be able to do such intricate work. Once you see it you start thinking that maybe there is some truth in the legend. GNM
December 16, 20223 yr As of 2021 the total number of certified public road miles in Alaska was 17,690 and not all of them are paved. We have about 4x as many square miles as road miles. Private roads and jeep type trails aren't counted. Frosty The Lucky.
December 16, 20223 yr By contrast, Scotland has almost twice as many miles of road in an area about 1/20 the size. On the other hand, South Carolina has a little less than twice as much public road mileage as Scotland, in an area about the same size.
December 16, 20223 yr Depends where you put the dividing line, but California as a whole has twenty times as much road mileage as Alaska.
December 16, 20223 yr Here is a chart of lane miles by state from the Federal Highway Asminsitration. I believe that a mile of 2 lane road counts 2 lane miles. You can see that Wyoming a wide open state about a fifth the size of Alaska has nearly twice as many lane miles. Road Miles by State: Sorted from Most to Least STATE TOTAL LANE MILES Texas 683,533 California 396,540 Illinois 306,658 Minnesota 290,618 Kansas 286,606 Missouri 277,504 Florida 275,376 Georgia 272,662 Ohio 262,492 Michigan 256,579 Pennsylvania 251,708 New York 240,489 Wisconsin 239,318 Oklahoma 238,754 Iowa 235,549 North Carolina 229,011 Arkansas 210,729 Alabama 210,531 Tennessee 203,850 Indiana 202,707 Nebraska 193,996 Colorado 185,486 North Dakota 178,845 Washington 167,632 Kentucky 166,971 South Dakota 166,635 South Carolina 166,594 Virginia 164,132 Oregon 162,101 Mississippi 162,088 Montana 150,446 New Mexico 150,216 Arizona 146,465 Louisiana 134,115 Idaho 107,568 Utah 102,031 Nevada 100,805 New Jersey 85,108 West Virginia 80,167 Massachusetts 77,730 Maryland 71,129 Wyoming 62,620 Maine 46,736 Connecticut 45,916 Alaska 36,009 New Hampshire 33,391 Vermont 29,273 Delaware 14,069 Rhode Island 12,664 Hawaii 9,799 District of Columbia 3,445
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