Where Do US Interstates Go When They Leave America?

International border crossings are an extremely important part of American transportation. We know our neighbors, Canada and Mexico. But as someone who lives in Wisconsin, I'm not just driving up to Canada because I feel like it. Those international crossings, and the difference in culture between borders, requires a lot more thought. We seem to ignore the extreme economic importance, as over 300,000 drivers cross the Canadian border daily, with over 800,000 drivers at the Mexican border. But what happens after that? I-29, for example, ends at the Canadian border in North Dakota. But does it just disappear immediately? No, it's an important route in Canada. That's what I intend to look at today. I want to dive into the interstate border crossings, and then look at what happens after that border. Before we get into the video, join my Discord. We have a GeoGuessr League, so if you enjoy GeoGuessr, join the Discord and message about it in our chat. The link is down in the description below, we'd love to have you, and we're looking for some new names to enter into our draft for next season. Thank you very much! Starting with Canada, the interstate system has 11 crossings that I'll look at today. The first is at the important Peace Arch on Interstate 5, a fun landmark that signals one of the nicest border crossings in America. It's right on the Strait of Georgia, and there's a nice park here. But what happens next? It turns into British Columbia Highway 99, which continues as a freeway through much of the Vancouver Metro. The Granville Bridge is on Highway 99, one of my favorite viewpoints of any city. Just look at this. From there, 99 is the highway on the Lionsgate Bridge, and through Stanley Park, before following the coast and getting up towards Whistler. This is a busy tourist destination in the region. It doesn't actually end until a few miles north of Cache Creek, making it an extra 234 miles. To find the next one, you have to go out to I-15, which terminates at the incredibly rural crossing at the towns of Sweetgrass and Cootes. It's one of the busiest crossings in the western US, though, despite this. And what it does after the border is head up to Lethbridge, and ends at Highway 3. With that, my interesting fact is that Lethbridge has 100,000 people, and is growing as one of the most affordable cities in Canada. Next we have the I-29 crossing, which I covered already in the intro. Past Pembina, it turns into Highway 75 in Canada, and takes a straight shot towards Winnipeg. It terminates right in downtown, about a half mile north of the Manitoba Legislative Building. And it turns into Donald and Smith Street. Yep, take this road right here south, and you'll find yourself in Kansas City. That's what life is all about right there. Now take a guess at the next interstate crossing, it's I-75 in Michigan, which crosses at the Sault Ste. Marie border crossing, pretty much jumping right over the Sioux Locks. It's a very high bridge to allow for the shipping traffic to make it underneath. Moving on, Michigan does have one of the busiest interstate border crossings at I-69 and 94 in Port Huron into Sarnia. The Blue Water Bridge is a major way into Canada, and stays as a freeway as Canadian Highway 402. Now it terminates in London as 402, but it's a slight shift, so it pretty much just continues as 401, which is an extremely interesting freeway. That one pushes its way into the Toronto Metro, and becomes the main east-west route through that city. In fact, it's one of, if not the busiest freeway in all of North America. At the Toronto Pearson Airport, the volume is around 450,000 to 500,000 vehicles on any given day. The 401 continues to the Quebec border and turns into Highway 20, and then 136, which is a freeway through downtown Montreal. How fun is that? Backtracking just a bit for the next one, I-190 is the only three digit interstate to share a border with Canada. It's north of Niagara Falls, near some very important hydrological landmarks. Into Canada is Highway 405, and then quickly 407, which ties in perfectly with our last Canadian route. Here's the entire route on a map. You can see it swoops around the bay and is also an important Toronto route, while it's the other major east-west route through the metropolitan area, simply running like 5 miles farther north than the 401. It does continue after Oshawa though, at one of the rare instances where a freeway ends at a non-freeway with an interchange. Also, in New York, I-81 ends at the Thousand Islands, my favorite tidbit that will come up in this video. The interstate has several bridges, as it attempts to pass over a few islands here. But right here, there's an interchange with State Route 12. After that interchange, Interstate 81 turns into a simple undivided two-lane road, still signed as an interstate. That is one of the clearer examples you'll ever see of an interstate just going straight against the standards. It does go back to being a divided highway after the bridge, but the story here is that this Thousand Islands bridge predates the interstate system by a couple decades, being constructed in 1937. So they had two options. Go against interstate standards, but get a ton of extra funding, or end the interstate here. I'm sure you can guess what they chose. Apart from that, after ending, it turns into Highway 137 and ends up almost immediately at which highway? That would be Highway 401, which we talked about a bit ago. I-87 also ends at a New York border. This one just travels up into Montreal and gets lost in the mix. But an undoubtedly important connection is that from Montreal to New York City. These are two major regional hubs, and there's a lot of traffic between the two. Skimming past I-89 and I-91 in Vermont, because they're both boring. The last Canadian one that I wanted to look at is the ending of the incredibly important I-95 in Holton, Maine. It's in a very rural area, but it jumps to being the Canadian Highway 95 that pushes its way and ends in Woodstock. This whole valley here is a really weird area of population, from, like, Grand Falls down into Holton. That's what Canada has. But what about Mexico? A country very culturally different to the U.S. and transportationally. There's five interstate borders. And speaking of five, this is the one and only U.S. interstate to terminate at the Canadian border in the north and the Mexican border in the south. It does so at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the busiest land border in the Western Hemisphere. If you do cross the border, it brings you right into downtown Tijuana. But the economic connection between these two cities is undeniable, and it is one of the only areas where you'll see people commute from one country to the other regularly. Moving on, the next one is I-19, all the way in Arizona at Nogales. If you followed this one, it turns into Mexico Highway 15, and this highway is incredibly important to the country. It passes down into Guadalajara, and then down into Mexico City, around where it terminates. It's an important coastal route along the Gulf of California for a while, and it's the longest continuing highway that we have from an interstate border crossing. Next, Texas has our last three crossings, the first of which is I-110 in El Paso, the only other three-digit route that crosses a border, and in this situation, it pretty much only exists to serve as a border crossing, being just a simple .92-mile interstate that sends you into the much larger Juarez. In Laredo, then, I-69 West and I-35 both terminate in this city, but technically I-35 only makes it into downtown. But I-69 West makes it to the border, and it turns into Highway 2D in Mexico, which follows the Texan border down to the Rio Grande Valley, which is where we find our final border crossing at I-69 East. This is down in Brownsville into Matamoros, which turns into a loop road once you're into Matamoros. And that's it. This all presents us with a fun idea of just following the same road for as long as you want. You could follow that crossing into Tijuana, but you could just keep going south into Baja California as an awesome side quest. Overall, I think we underestimate the incredible importance of these international crossings economically, and they're a weird thing to investigate, and so I'm happy I did it today. Thanks for watching. Thank you so much to the members this week, I really appreciate you guys. If you want to become a member, the link is down in the description below. All the money goes straight into my savings. Again, I wanted to advertise the Discord. We have a GeoGuessr League, and we are looking for more people to sign up. The link to the Discord is in the description down below, and you can just ask about the GeoGuessr League in chat. I'm sure somebody will help you out, and I really appreciate it if you guys would join. Thank you so much.