It bypasses Seattle east of Lake Washington , traveling through the Eastside area of King and Snohomish counties, providing an alternate route to I The mile 48 km freeway serves the cities of Renton , Bellevue , Kirkland, and Bothell.
The Eastside highway was originally built in the early 20th century to connect cities along the lake and was formally added to the state highway system in as Secondary State Highway 2A SSH 2A. A freeway replacement for SSH 2A was proposed in the s by the state government and designated as I as part of the federal Interstate Highway program , with the first section beginning construction in and completed in It was initially signed as WA until the freeway was fully completed in ; since then, the highway has been expanded to add lanes for high-occupancy vehicles HOV and toll users HOT.
I is one of the most congested highways in the Seattle area and is known for its meandering "S-curves" through Renton, which were straightened in the s. Route Interstate 21 Interstate 23 Interstate U. Route 47 U. I is a heavily traveled thoroughfare by both commuters and freight haulers along its entire length and is the busiest and most congested freeway in the United States.
The freeway's annual average daily traffic between exits 21 and 22 in Seal Beach reached , in , making it the highest count in the nation. It has played a crucial role in the development of dozens of cities and suburbs along its route through Los Angeles and Orange counties.
It then continues through Irvine, passing north of University of California, Irvine and then along the northern boundary of John Wayne International Airport. After passing the airport, the freeway enters Costa Mesa and has an interchange with CA The freeway then travels through Fountain Valley and along the edges of Westminster and Huntington Beach before entering Seal Beach , where it begins to run concurrently with CA The freeway then intersects with I before entering Carson, where it meets I After leaving Carson, I briefly enters the city of Los Angeles by passing through the Harbor Gateway , a strip of land connecting San Pedro to the rest of the city.
The freeway then continues to roughly parallel the contour of the coastline as it passes through the South Bay communities of Torrance, Lawndale, Redondo Beach , Hawthorne, and El Segundo.
It passes to the east of the airport, serving it with exits at Imperial Highway and Century Boulevard. The freeway continues into Westwood , passing just to the west of University of California, Los Angeles. The freeway then continues due north through the western part of the valley, passing east of Van Nuys Airport and California State University, Northridge. I is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System , and is part of the National Highway System , a network of highways that are considered essential to the country's economy, defense, and mobility by the Federal Highway Administration.
The freeway's congestion problems are legendary, leading to jokes that the road was numbered because traffic moves at "four or five" miles per hour, or because drivers had spent "four or five" hours to travel anywhere.
Indeed, average speeds as low as 5 miles per hour 8. As a result of these congestion problems, delays passing through the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area using this bypass route instead of merely using the primary route I-5 through Downtown may be present. In their early years, most Los Angeles-area freeways bore signs for multiple numbered highway routes. The Pasadena Freeway was Route 6, 66 and In , the state simplified its highway numbering system, ensuring that, with few exceptions, each freeway would bear only one route number.
Around the same time, a flurry of new construction added unfamiliar freeway names to the region. Drivers found it easier to learn new numbers like The rather than new names like the San Gabriel River Freeway. But they retained their old habit of prefixing a definite article, giving rise to a regional idiom that still confounds and amuses outsiders today.
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