Who you callin' useless?

What do all these roads have in common?

US 264 in Wake County
US 258 in Onslow County
US 117 in Wilson County
US 311 in Rockingham County
NC 39 in Johnston County

They all have what roadgeeks call "useless multiplexes" -- a road that ends at a random point while sharing pavement with another road, and North Carolina seems to have more useless multiplexes than most states. For example, 264 east of Raleigh is routed along the US 64 freeway between Zebulon and the Beltline, but at the Beltline 264 ends while 64 continues. Why couldn't 264 just end at 64 in Zebulon where the two roads merge? (And to make it even more ridiculous, that's exactly what it did until about 1995!)

I think I finally figured out why these useless multiplexes exist, and they most certainly aren't useless. Look at a map and you'll notice that all of these roads go somewhere -- or, more to the point, they connect two places. And it makes it a hell of a lot easier to give directions when you only have to follow one road.

For example, do you need to head from Raleigh to Wilson or Greenville? Take US 264. Coming south on I-95 and need to get to Goldsboro? US 117's your ticket. US 258 connects Jacksonville and Kinston, and US 311 does the same between Winston-Salem and Eden (or it would if the signage would catch up with the map). Traffic that's going between those cities probably doesn't care that the road they're following is also US 64, 264, NC 24 or NC 135, much the same that traffic on I-85 from Charlotte to Durham doesn't care that I-40's also on the road for 40 miles or so.

It doesn't apply to absolutely everything. The formerly- (and still largely-) useless multiplex of NC 24 and 27 connects so many different places to Charlotte that it's pretty pointless; the only people that would use one road but not the other would be NC 24 traffic from Fayetteville to Charlotte, all 141 miles of it. Likewise, I'm not sure too much traffic heads from Eden to...well, wherever NC 700 ends, and NC 902 in Chatham County literally connects Pittsboro to nowhere. But overall, those useless multiplexes might not be so useless the next time you have to give directions to someone who does best only following one road.

Comments

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l

Ghost Town Tuesday; Mannfield, FL and the stairway to Hell

Back in 2015 I went searching the Lecanto Sand Hills for the original Citrus County Seat known as Mannfield. Unlike Centrailia in Hernando County and Fivay in Pasco County I did find something worth seeing. Mannfield is located in the Lecanto Sand Hill section of Withlacoochee State Forest somewhat east of the intersection of Citrus County Route 491 and Mansfield Road. Mannfield was named after Austin Mann and founded in Hernando County in 1884 before Citrus County Split away. In 1887 Citrus County was split from northern Hernando County while Pasco County was spun off to the south. Mannfield was selected as the new Citrus County seat due to it being near the county geographic center. Reportedly Mannfield had as many as 250 people when it was the County Seat. The town included various businesses one might include at the time, even a sawmill which was common for the area. In 1891 Citrus County voted to move it's seat to Inverness which set the stage for the decline of M

The National Road - Pennsylvania - Great Crossings Bridge and Somerfield

West of Addison, US 40 crosses the Youghiogheny River at what once was the town of Somerfield. When crossing the current modern two lane bridge, you many not realize that it is actually the third to cross the Yough at this site. The first - a stone arch bridge - was known as the Great Crossings Bridge. Built in 1818, this three arch bridge was part of the original National Road. The name Great Crossings comes from the men who forded the Youghiogheny here - George Washington and George Braddock. (1) If you cross the bridge at the right time, this historic bridge and what was once the town of Somerfield will appear out from underneath this massive man-made lake. Historical Postcard showing the 'Big Crossings' bridge and Somerfield. Image submitted by Vince Ferrari. The Great Crossings Bridge was located in the town of Somerfield. Somerfield, originally named Smythfield until 1827, would develop as a result of the National Road. (1) Somerfield would go through va