What's Every US State's WORST Interstate Highway?

The U.S. interstate system is so extensive, it can include two things. First option, a very useful cross-country highway, serving several cities and the nation's economy. You can be a freeway hater and still admit these are an integral part of the United States. Personally, I wouldn't give them up for anything. Then there's option two, that being interstates with tons of problems. There can be one-mile spur routes that nobody uses, only built for political reasons. There can be traffic-ridden gridlock messes that people don't want to use because of that. Or there can be dangerous highways for whatever reason they can figure out. Either way, today I want to assess this, looking at every U.S. state's absolute worst interstate. Let's pick out our criteria. Like I said, it could be a useless interstate, with a routing to a small city that makes you ask why it even exists. It could be a highway with bad traffic, that is way too small to carry the required traffic. It can be dangerous, which usually goes hand-in-hand with traffic. And finally, it can be just plain dumb, with the stupid routing or design. Couple of ground rules here, I picked every state's worst interstate, then I ranked the highways, meaning 50th place will be the best worst interstate, and first place will be the absolute worst worst. And keep in mind, this is all my personal opinion, I made this list myself. Let's get into it with New Mexico in 50th place with I-10. It has very little interstates, and they all serve a purpose, so here we are. Same thing with Arizona, but I-17 is known as an important truck bottleneck, with a lot of elevation change, it's not very safe. Kentucky has I-471, a simple urban spur route that push through neighborhoods. Colorado has I-76, a mostly rural connecting route from Nebraska, it's really boring. And Delaware has I-295, which seems to be the most useless of the bunch. In 45th is Idaho with I-184, and Rhode Island has I-195, which is the least impactful in the state. North Carolina then has I-77, which is a high traffic route, which can get very stressful. If you've ever driven on I-77, you know how dangerous it is. If you get injured, you might have to go to the doctor. And doctor appointments are very easy to put off, especially if you're a young adult, booking an appointment is usually annoying or overwhelming. You have to wait weeks to see a doctor after you schedule it, and I'm sure many of you can relate that this is a much bigger task than it should be. Maybe you're moving to a new city, or maybe you're just starting a new job. Either way, there's an easy way to find doctors, this being ZocDoc, today's video sponsor. This high quality platform lets you very easily search and compare local in-network doctors. They carry more than 150,000 providers with 200 plus specialties, anywhere in the US. You can find actual appointment openings and click to instantly book a visit, and many of these appointments can happen within a few days. Furthermore, ZocDoc is free to use. I think this is a very high quality, easy to use platform that can make the medical process so much less stressful. If you want to check them out, head to zocdoc.com slash beaver to get started, and just give it a click to help me out. It's in the description. I know it may seem small, but it's a huge step towards prioritizing your health. Taking care of your health just gets so much easier. Head to zocdoc.com slash beaver to get started, and check that appointment off your to-do list. Thank you! Getting right back into it, Nevada has I-11, which, until completed, does not contribute enough to the state. Massachusetts is I-93, highlighted by the monumental Big Dig project. Minnesota has I-35 East through St. Paul, where it was designed specifically for rich people with a 45 mph speed limit. Alaska pops up next with A-2. And then Hawaii is after that with H-2. It's a coincidence, but both are equally strange. Louisiana has I-110. I feel like this should be I-10 and the lower highway should be I-110. Plus it cuts through neighborhoods. New Jersey has I-278, which does nothing for the state. And Connecticut has I-291, which isn't much of anything. Arkansas is next with I-630, again along the lines of just being an ugly spur route that isn't very useful. Utah is next with a fun one though. I-70 is useful for travelers, but it's just boring and completely empty. Indiana has I-865, and they couldn't just push this highway through right here rather than having to construct a freeway triangle. It's very annoying. Kansas has I-670, which is only in the state for a short time, and follows I-70. Then we hit 30th place with West Virginia's I-470 along the same highway. This one runs through Wheeling and does the exact same thing that I-70 does, it's just a bit wider and a bit farther to the south. Moving on, this is where the highways really start to kind of suck. I-565 in Alabama connects to Huntsville, and the highway is simply not built for traffic necessity. It's always very congested. Pennsylvania has I-579, which does nothing but disconnect Iowa has I-129, which is in the state for just about a quarter mile, so it's kind of a freebie for me, but it also doesn't do much across the border either. Maryland has I-97, which is here because it should not be a primary interstate. This is obviously just a spur route. With that, we reach our halfway point where these highways start to get worse and worse, and I'll start going a bit more in-depth as we get higher up on the list. In 25th is Ohio, which is I-490, which does not need to exist, it simply connects two interchanges. Next is Nebraska, which is I-480. This may be a high traffic corridor, but not enough to justify the neighborhoods it tore down throughout the downtown. Next is Maine with I-195, the most boring little spur route that connects to Old Orchard Beach. It's necessary probably two months out of the year because it's a beach town, and the rest of the time it's basically just unnecessary. Oregon has I-105, and I really don't like this highway personally. It tears through Eugene, and it would have even more if it weren't cancelled. In 21st is the unnecessary I-90 in South Dakota, which technically has sidewalks for a bit, I'm not gonna lie here. In 20th then is I-229 in Missouri. This connects to the declining city of St. Joseph's, no longer anywhere close to in need of this highway. Furthermore, it completely disconnects the city from its own waterfront. They're currently trying to get it removed because it's that bad. For Georgia, it feels like you have to pick I-285, that being the perimeter. It's long, and every inch of it has way too much traffic. But especially around Spaghetti Junction, where the traffic is questionable, and it's literally 9am on Wednesday. Honorable mention to I-575, which to put it simply was only built so that the area could sprawl even more than it already does. In 18th is New Hampshire with I-393. Why does this interstate exist? I really couldn't tell you. This part of Concord has very little traffic, and it simply just ends. It's unnecessary and underused. For Mississippi though, we have a funny one with I-69. This one is on here because it only exists for a few miles, and they're yet to finish the rest of it. It's just a nothing burger if I've ever seen one. In 16th we have Washington with I-705 in Tacoma. This connects to their downtown, but it jams up the entire waterfront, blocking it from the city before ending very quickly. It has a questionable history, and it's just not great overall. Virginia has I-381 in Bristol, which is extremely short, and it's just a glorified exit ramp, literally. You could keep this route completely unmarked and just include signage for I-81, and it would be just fine. Not to mention, Bristol really only needs it a couple weeks a year when there's a race in town. In 14th is Tennessee's I-155. It simply crosses the Mississippi in a rural region, connecting to next to nothing. I mean, Dyersburg does not need an entire spur route, let's be real here. In 13th is Wisconsin, which I wish wasn't as high on this list, but I-794 really sucks. It cuts through the historic 3rd ward, destroying its waterfront, and they now want to fully get rid of it because of this. The plans would turn this section into a boulevard, and there's not even a ton of opposition to this. Montana has one of the absolute shortest highways in 12th, the unsigned I-315 in Great Falls. I get that they obviously just wanted federal funding, but that arguably makes it worse in my mind. This is next to nothing, and Great Falls doesn't need a spur route in general. In Michigan, we have I-375 in 11th. This is another sketchy urban route, destroying the former Black Bottom neighborhood. This is another one currently in the process of being removed because it's so bad, and tore up the downtown area. Finally, we reach our top 10, starting with I-444 in Oklahoma. I have a personal vendetta against this one because it's totally invisible. There's no signage for I-444. It's just an unsigned route that goes hand-in-hand with US-75 around downtown Tulsa. It's simply a little scam for federal funding. In 9th is California's I-980, never talked about before on this channel. It's very short, and all it did was cut through Oakland's downtown, destroying neighborhoods and displacing residents. Yeah, it might be nice for some people that it exists, but wouldn't it be cool if there wasn't a highway completely killing the urban environment here? In 8th is North Dakota's I-194, which has a confusing routing, because it's signed to here, but it's unsigned all the way to this intersection. Along the unsigned portion, there's literally sidewalks and a curb. It simply does not meet interstate standards, and it makes me very mad. In 7th is going to be a very different route. We have Interstate 4 in Florida. This is our last primary interstate, and it's on this list because it's the most dangerous route in the US, experiencing 1.13 fatalities per mile of roadway. It's just poorly designed, connecting Tampa to Orlando, and basically having to carry the traffic of both cities on its own. And there's plenty of non-locals driving on this road as well, so it gets really rough. Texas has I-345, an unsigned route in downtown Dallas. It's pretty funny because it's one mile long, and it's signed fully with I-45, meaning nobody would lose anything if it just ceased to exist. Furthermore, it's on a small inner loop tearing up downtown Dallas, so there's two reasons why people would be happy if it wasn't there. In 5th is I-185 in Greenville, South Carolina. Let me quickly take you through this situation. This is a bypass of the city, which is not as quick as simply driving through the actual city. The route is so inefficient, there's no reason to use it. Oh, and did I mention it's a toll road? You have to pay to drive on it, so because of this, nobody wants to use it. It could be much better if they removed the tolls, but they refused to do that, so here we are. In 4th we have New York's I-878, the shortest interstate in the country. Here it is. That's it. This is a clear example of New York getting whatever they wanted for political reasons, because there's no sane designer that makes this and decides, yep, it's all good. The top three are the big dogs. We have I-189 in Burlington, Vermont. It was meant to stretch all the way into the city's downtown, but it was quickly cancelled, meaning the only existing area is this for a few miles, which only connects to a small commercial area south of downtown. It's really nothing to write home about, and it does not need to exist. Top two, starting with Wyoming's I-180, and this just doesn't make any sense. It may be useful, connecting to the downtown of a capital city, but importantly, it does not follow interstate standards even a little bit. It has a diamond interchange here, and then a few surface intersections before just ending. It only exists for the funding. Finally, in 1st place is obviously 180, this time in Illinois. This is a decently short route, but it only connects to the 700 resident village of Hennepin. It was a political favor for a steel plant north of town. The steel plant closed, being replaced by a power plant, and now it's incredibly useless and dumb. I mean, how many industrial parks around the country could use an entire interstate? They would all want one, but is it necessary? No, not at all. But that's it. It's very easy to critique the interstate system, and there's a ton of really unnecessary highways that have just not been designed well at all. I mean, let's have some awareness here that these routes are costing millions and millions of dollars to build. They really shouldn't be placed down willy-nilly. I should have been the one to design them. Thanks for watching. Thank you to the members this week. It is very appreciated as always. If you want to become a member, the link is down in the description below. All the money goes straight to my savings. So if you appreciate the content and you want to help me in the future, I promise it's going to go to a good cause. Thank you!