@@ryankhja2646the desert is beautiful. phoenix is in a desert that doesn't make the city or crappy residents beautiful. The city just keeps creeping out farther and farther. Every new housing development and strip mall bulldozing that beautiful desert 640 acres at a time. Every person that moves here changes the character of the city away from the one that prompted them to move here.
After watching Houston freeway i am here to watch this... Bcz impossible for me to visit USA.. That's why i watching here how look like is USA. My dream country😍😍 Admin thanks for replying in my previous comment😘
I remember moving to Phoenix from the San Gabriel Valley back in '68 with my family, and even in *those* days I-17 was clean and well-maintained. The surface streets were also kept immaculately clean! The heat sure took some getting used to, though.
You guys haven’t been there lately huh lol the I-17 is a wreck potholes everywhere same with the 101 and I-10 east and 202 the 60 is getting kinda of bad too
@@gi6449 It's definitely not kept up with the times, and they did NOT foresee the amount of people coming to the Tempe/Chandler/Scottsdale area. It's only going to get worse.
Their Roads and Freeway Network in Phoenix is very Clean, Modern and very Good. In Fact, 100+ Miles of their Freeways has been Built in the Mid and Late 80’s.
I think Phoenix has a perfect sized freeway, not too wide, just the right size and as you point out Jim the system is not that old so it has a uniformity to it, as if it was all built as one big project. I so love all that arid terrain with those mountains in the distance, and that sun
Thumbs up!!😊😍😍 I LOVE the desert ALWAYS fantasized about living in Phoenix at least to visit Arizona!! I've always lived in the South and I Looove the South!! But I think my heart belongs in the West too! And on top of it all the Gin Blossoms!!!! Really!!!! This is like my favorite 90's band! Are you kiddin me!! Great Job!
Excellent looking video and an absolutely amazing ride. Whether the traffic was flowing or caught in a some congestion, it was still a fun ride. Made all the better with the Gin Blossoms. Loved it. Thanx for posting this.
I'm born and raised in Mesa. You may have noticed a smooth, quiet tide on the freeway because all the valley freeways plus Tucson have an inch thick layer of rubberized asphalt made with with recycled tires. I-10 in Central Phoenix including the tunnel was the last section built. The vision of I-10 in the 60s had it soar 100 tf over Central with double helix ramps at erd St and 3rd Ave. Broadway Curve is overdue for reconstruction as it handles a lot of daily traffic coming from Us 60 and Tempe, Chandler, Ahwarukee, and Maricopa. The 303 interchange isn't the first to have imaged stamped on the supports. Super Red Tan in Mesa was the first to have them. I-17 is our first freeway and has pumphouses for the rain. Not sure if they still work as underpasses like Peoria Ave close from flooding. In Sept. 201r, I-10 on the westside had to be shut down when a storm dumped 6 inches in one morning. That's just ober half our annual average reainfall in one morning. The 10 lookded like a lake.
Enrique Cortez : FreewayBrent, here (yes, there's 2 of us, lol). I was actually wondering the same thing, as to why Arizona's urban asphalt freeways feel sooooo smooth, especially when compared to some of the ones I drive here in California, even after a fresh repaving. It made for a very smooth filming session, when I recorded I-10 through Tucson, back in May. Love what ADOT plans for and builds in their 2 major urban areas.
FreewayBrent We used to have concrete surfaces as well as those ceramic buttons CA anf NV use for lane striping on our freeways (but not streets or highways). When they finally got the US60 widening project approved for the Superstition Fwy from I-10 to Val Vista Dr, they announced that it would be getting the first ever rubberized asphalt surface. This stuff became popular with drivers and it was applied to all existing freeways plus it would be used on any new freeways built. This initial project was completed in 200w or 2003. After more widening, the 60 today has 6 lanes in each direction from Loop 101 Price Fwy all the way to the Super Red Tan interchange in far east Mesa. The stripimg used is made from vynil. It has better visibility and quiter when changing lanes. You still get some noise from the reflectors. Another bonus to the quiet asphalt is that since they recycled tires that could have sat in landfills or become an always burning landmark like on the Simpsons, the rubber improves traction.
***** I still remember that interchange. That trumpet's curve was really sharp. Freeways definitely replaced some of the manor roadz. The Superstition Fwy used to be AZ360 and while it ended at Gilbert Rd when I was born, I only remember it when it ended at Power Rd before the mall was built. US60 used to be Apache Blvd/Main St/Apache Trail and Mill Ave and Van Buren. Many of those little motels and motor courts still exist. They even restored the diving neon lady on the Starlite Motel sign. I have a 2nd cousin who bought is first house on Escuda Cir near Beardsley and 19th St. It's now home to 101 soundwall. Right now they're beginning the demo work on homes and businesses in Ahwatukee to prep the corridor for the 202 extension west of I-10.
While exciting to watch you go though, its too hot in Phoenix in the summer for lambs. You know, the wool and all... Here lizzerd,lizzerd,lizzerd..Great job as usual.
Wheee, that was fun!! I love the way you bob and weave through traffic, and your music choice set the pace perfectly. This video goes on my list to view a couple of more times. (GVJ)!!!!
You should come back to Phoenix in late 2019. The 202 will be officially done and the 303 will look much better than what you saw. The I-10 is an awesome freeway, but the others in the Phoenix metro are as amazing if not better. Best recommendation to drive thru Phoenix is over a weekend because the freeways are gridlock during morning and afternoon rush hour during the week.
the 202 is faster than it was before it exist. I drove from Tempe to Glendale in a semi at 45 minuts while it took me 1 hours and 20 minuts before the 202 was open up for traffic.
I've lived in 5 states, including California. Phoenix has the worst drivers out of all of them. Self centered and rude as hell. They will ride your bumper for miles instead of passing you even though both lanes on the sides of you are clear to pass. When getting on the freeway, they drive ultra slow until they are actually on the freeway. Then they expect everyone to yield to them instead of merging into traffic. When a red light turns green, they start out really slow for no reason, causing you to hit your brakes. Then they floor it. People in Phoenix are insane. My theory is that the sun and heat has baked their brains.
Great video as always! Boise Idaho has pine trees on a few newer interchanges. Also the one on 10 mile has grass like designs too. But the lizards are awesome! I remember them well from my road trip from Mesa to Oxnard last year!
This is where my parents live and I absolutely love flying into this city and driving on its freeways. I love the desert, this is without a doubt my favorite city! Thank you for sharing this with us!
+TOmm Ng 95 degees at night, 120 degrees in the daytime -- it's PERFECT WEATHER for people like me who enjoy the heat. Although I do have friends in other states who don't like heat. Some friends of mine hated Las Vegas (Nevada) because it was 105 when they visited, and I was thinking "oops, I better not invite them to Phoenix or they will hate me because it's way hotter here". So we changed plans and met in New York....and...um...after seeing all the heroin addicts, prostitutes, and crazy people, and surprisingly ample amounts of human feces on the sidewalks, I decided that I really prefer the 120 degrees, rattlesnakes, and scorpions in Arizona.
+TOmm Ng I spent 8 years in California and I loved the absolutely beautiful scenery. But I was not happy about the mild weather. 70 degrees EVERYDAY OF THE YEAR just made it difficult to notice when the seasons passed. Even looking back now, most those years kinda blend together into just one big endless mild summer. Never too hot, never too cold. I guess that's fine for people who like that sort of weather, but I really prefer the hot weather. My last few years in California I spent between Barstow and Death Valley because I was trying to get that wonderful hot weather I like and still stay in California. Barstow had plenty of 120 degree days, but the costs of keeping my business in California eventually caused me to come back home to Arizona. Now I have the best of both worlds, 120 degree weather AND lower taxes. The scorpions and rattlesnakes seem like a small price to pay to get those two very important things :-D
Love Arizona because it is sunny almost all the time! I would never survive in the pacific nw where it rains and is cloudy all the time..planning on moving to Phoenix area after college..currently in Iowa
I love your 1969 map in the beginning!! The proposed freeway that comes off the bottom left corner above South Phoenix from then AZ-69 (today I-17) at the “Durango curve,” is still a proposed freeway today. It is currently proposed as AZ-30, so hopefully it’s not another 50 years!
Seattle is an amazing city. The downtown and the attractions are most appealing in Seattle than Phoenix. However, weather isn't amazing and there can be earthquakes every once in a while.
+AwesomeDesertTrains You know that we are home to Flagstaff, a city that is surrounded in a large FOREST and we get SNOW there in Winter, some years we get more than Denver. In cold winters in the desert, after rain, you can expect frost or ice during our 30 degree lows, along with fog, our summers, are the home of that stereotypical Arizona you're talking about. Yeah, it gets to 120 degrees, but, it cools off to about 79 - 81, also, Summer is our monsoon season when our rain comes. And when we get rain, Freeway underpasses become ponds, schools close, and flash floods occur commonly in the wild, that's when the monsoon season is at its peak though. Arizona is lovely and represents the two borders, Mexico in the South, Canada in the North. Eastern Arizona has a town called Greer, where it hits -2 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. Oh, and in 2014, a nearby park became a lake, and a sailboat was on the water!!!!
Freewayjim you definitely have to come to Phoenix again and make the same drive you did here but going East, the I-10 has become really modern and a new interchange has been completely incorporated ( the 202/I-10). ✌🏼
Very nice ride! Very nice- loved seeing the area where my sister lives- my sister and her family live in PHX and it is cool to see the roads they probably ride on! Also, love the stacks- the signs- wow- PHX did a good job with their highways- and no I have not been there to visit my sister yet- and alsol- love the lizards o the side of the stacks! NICE TOUCH! Very nice ride! Waited til I had a chance to enjoy your Vid- awesome as always!
Lizard art on a bridge column...you don't see that everyday. Nice video, bro. The Phoenix area is very nice from what I recalled during my visit there.
Another great video. I lived there in the 70s when the only freeways were the old I-17, I-10 to the south, and AZ 360 (now US 60) to the east. I-10 from the west only made it as far east as Dysart Rd.
This was a great video! I'm a native & old enough to remember as a kid the days before sprawl. This vid was a real eye opener & fun to watch too. Oh & BTW. yeah, other cities, take a clue & learn to beautify your freeways! Drive safely.
Did you know people in Phoenix back in the 1970s hated freeways??? They didn't want them built in the city leading to interstates stopping in Phoenix resulting in traffic jams and then in the late 1980s when more people moved to Phoenix people wanted freeways built and this is why they are so new and nice and the metro is expanding leading to more freeways!!!
@@Freewayjim traffic in Phoenix is awful before COVID happened especially in March spring training baseball, spring breakers, snow birds, as well as the locals not knowing how to drive etc.
Many years living in the area. Some familiar sights. I blew the transmission in my truck in that tunnel. I also saw The Gin Blossoms in a little bar in Tempe in the early 90s.
Phoenix is very big on its artwork scene as far as infrastructure goes. It’s nearly everywhere. On the freeways, on the surface streets, on the light rail, you name it. A lot of it comes from Native American influence, it breathes a lot of life into the general aesthetic of the city.
I think that I-10 interchange with AZ-51 and AZ-202 is probably one of my favorites. Something about I-10 making that hard 90 degree turn makes it really interesting.
Nice Jim! I made that same drive in May and tried out that new stretch of 303 up to US 60 on my way to Vegas. It was a really nice ride. There's still a lot of open farmland on that west side of the valley (for even more sprawl, I'm sure). I'm really impressed with the PHX freeway network.
Thanks for another great ride, Jim. I'm surprised that you didn't mention that the segment on the west side of downtown was the last part of I-10 built. Also, one of those anti-freeway folks (a Phoenix city councilman, I believe) has been credited with coining the slur "Los Angelization" to describe uncontrolled urban sprawl. And I loved the Gila monster on the column.
About the pillar lizards: in southern California (on Interstate 10 again), there's an interchange that also has lizards on it, though it's not on the pillars but instead on the embankments for the ramps themselves, and the interchange in question is a parclo-diamond half-and-half hybrid, not a stack interchange. Interestingly, it seems like southern California, along I-10, has the same aesthetic flare that Arizona has, even if it's just on one single interchange. Interestingly, there's been lots of construction where a lot of the diamond interchanges in the Palm Springs/Palm Desert area are in a weird transitional state of being upgraded from diamond interchanges to parclo interchanges, and some of them have been beautified, to an extent. Enjoyed the video, though; it's certainly curvy.
+Ganaram Inukshuk Yeah, but that's only ONE interchange. Most of Arizona's new freeways and roads have artwork on them. Even sound barrier walls have artwork on them.
+TruckerTRex I've along I-10 about a month ago heading the other direction, westbound. There's been a lot more beautification than that, as I've been surprised to learn.
Phoenix have one of the best freeway systems ever seen with a lot of stack interchanges and they also have 3 partial beltways (101, 202 & 303). Speaking of interchanges,: 1:58 Superstition Transition 3:03 The Split 3:22 Mini Stack 4:11 The Stack
Notice at the 303 interchange the unfinished flyovers. It's easy to see that 303 will eventually be extended south of I-10, and I guess they wanted to get the hardest part done on the stack. While we're on that subject: * 10/202/Pecos Rd * 10/60 in Tempe * 10/143 (Sky Harbor) * 10/17 transition (I-17's southern terminus) * 10/51/202 Short Stack * 10/17 "The Stack" * 10/101 * 10/303 So you went by eight very easy to look at freeway to freeway junctions in this vid, three of them are currently full stacks, and a fourth one will soon be a stack. If 202 South Mountain ever happens, you'd have another interchange, on 10 between 101 and 303. And if you would have continued this video to AZ 85, which will eventually be a freeway, you'd have another freeway to freeway, a semi-directional T, which it is right now.
Had no idea the Gin Blossoms were from the Phoenix area. I like how you slowed down the footage in between songs to showcase the I-10/I-17 interchange, northwest of downtown. You mentioned the fact that Phoenix didn't want to become "LA East", and yet, even without the comprehensive freeway network, leading up to 1990, the sprawl came anyway, and in a major fashion. Very nice video...the Phoenix area has a fun freeway system to explore, especially if you're into modern construction methods and flyover ramps, which the whole network features a bunch of.
Edward Kollin Of course not, I never once left the highway or car, but there really doesn't seem to be much of a downtown or skyline and there's just endless sprawl...I live with sprawl in Atlanta but it's not quite like this.
I love phoenix idk what would I do with out a city like this but my favorite part of it is the tunnel with all the lights on it lmao I lived here since 1996 lived here all my life well almost but ya I ones lived in Cali well Bakersfield but I really love this city such a beautiful city hope they make it bigger for me is a city then a country I ts just an old name for me so j just use city so ya love the video tho
Is Arizona like the only state that keeps their freeways "clean" and updated? Whenever I go to California and some other states, all I see/hear is/are ugly and loud concrete roads with a bunch of unsealed cracks, (if they're sealed it looks ugly too) and no freeway art!
+TruckerTRex I know what you mean. Cali has some dirty lookin freeways. Here the city does not tolerate dirty roads. They constantly keep up with everything. Even if there is fresh graffiti somewhere it will be gone within a couple days. I've heard of people being shocked when they come to PHX because they are surprised a big city is so clean lol.
I know what you mean, I live in new haven Connecticut. I-95 has really bad pavement. Try going to New york city and the bronx and northern nj! It's like a stampede of potholes!
I lived in Phx from 97 to 07 and use to joke about I-10 from the 17 split the 51and 202 interchange aka the ministack, had to be designed by someone from NASCAR. You can hit them curves in the right car at 85 with ease.
I've never been to Phoenix so this video is really great to see! It's nothing like I thought it would be. Where are all the buildings? It looks pretty sparse, except for a quick glimpse of downtown. I guess I'm just used to Dallas with all the large buildings alongside the freeway (central expy). Phoenix looks really clean, bright, and nice!
+Freewayjim another excellent video. I rode I-10 back in February. Spent a week in AZ escape in the big storm we had back east...if you went to Apache Junction, the rode the rides past Superstition Mountains has spectacular views.
+Freewayjim Yikes! Sorry about all the typos. My iPad is not the best typing tool sometimes. Definitely go back being there while it was 80 while home was 13 degrees made it that much sweeter to visit. AZ is a beautiful state, very underrated. Any more trips to Pittsburgh or Denver/Boulder area?
If I ever lived in Phoenix, it would be so hot. Temperatures would rise over 110 degrees or 43 Celsius. Also, the dust storms and monsoon season would be insane as well.
Freewayjim I liked the music and the video! I even heard of them songs before too. An awesome time to post this at the first day of school. Have a blessed day Freewayjim. (LOL! The Lizards.) Can't wait for Los Angeles ONCE AGAIN!!!!
Justin Hundley Hey, I believe we got off on the wrong foot. I'm Nash. I hope we can put the disagreement of music on the last Freewayjim video behind us. Please except my apologies for the argument. -Nash Wayz
7:57 I agree! ADOT is responsible for some of the most beautiful freeway bridges and interchanges, especially more recently, and every time I drive on I-10 in Tucson up to Phoenix or beyond it just puts a smile on my face that they do that. It’s a shame that this only seems to happen in AZ, wish it was elsewhere too.
Next time you come through going west, you should try out the new 202 west which goes around south mountain and meets up with the 10 at 59th Avenue I believe...super nice section of road
Great Video Jim! Interesting fact the section of I-10 from 2:10 to 3:02 was planned to be widened to a 24 lane collector-express system. However I haven't heard any more about this since about 2008 0or 2009.
Try the 101, it is crazy with Traffic, especially with the widening project going on, and especially when it rains. There is always a crash every few miles when it rains! But that happens on every freeway even without construction going on.
If you like the lizards, there is plenty more artwork like that in the area. Try the 101 through Scottsdale, for example. Lots more in other areas, too.
Gin Blossoms are awesome. Saw them in concert back in the mid-'90s. For years, I thought "Hey, Jealousy" was "Hey, Chelsea" thanks to crappy car stereo speakers.
Hi, I'm from 2018, the Interstate 11 will be coming soon, can't wait for it, the route to Las Vegas will be much easier, and safer. The Interstate 11 will go from Reno, Nevada to Mexico City. It will be West of the Metro area after the 303, and leave its fusion with the Interstate 10 at Casa Grande.
I can't wait to see the Colorado portion of this series! I was there this past spring break down in Alamosa. I remember taking I-80 west from Nebraska, and then taking I-76 west through Denver (and then I-70 west after a while). From there, we then took CO-470 east through Colorado Springs. Finally, we then took US-285 south and CO-17, which then led us to Alamosa. Which part of Colorado are you mainly going to be going through?
