Massachusetts to renumber highway exit numbers so you know how far you are from where you're heading

This is a slippery slope to buying beer at convenience stores and using civilian traffic flaggers - think of the children!!!!

I've heard that this change was coming, I thought, at least five years ago. I wonder what the delay in implementation was (assuming there was actually a delay). I know it's been used on I95 in Maine (including the Maine Pike, of course) for quite some time now (probably getting up to about 20 years, if I recall). So it's not like this idea isn't already used elsewhere in the region.

Its a stupid thing to spend money on.

Its 2019, nobody is driving 8 miles by looking at their odometer, which is what the signage thing is supposed to be about.

We have GPS. "Take next exit" Thats all you need.

that nearly every other state in the country has been using for some time now.

Probably moments ago. People I know routinely identify exits by their numbers, excepting only major highway interchanges. My wife almost never knows what the road name is, and always wants the exit number.

Even so, the change to mile numbers is extremely logical. I remember the first time I encountered mile-numbered exits while driving in some other state, and thinking what a good idea it was. It's true that local residents don't care how many miles to their target exit, but out-of-staters usually do, and there's no reason to not accommodate them.

Despite having lived in that area for a long time, it wasn't until recently that I learned of the exit number. Know of the road, of course.

If you head south on I-75 into Kentucky, you can see signage for Big Bone Lick, which is conveniently located (you can't make this up) near Beaverlick.

The Warren Toll Gantry on the MassPike is at 69.78 miles. Not an exit, though.

New numbers (assuming that rounding matters):
Exit 1 - Stockbridge will now be Exit 3
Lee Service Plaza - Exit 9
Exit 2 - Lee ... Exit 11
Blandford Service Plaza - Exit 29
Exit 3 - Westfield ... Exit 40
Exit 4 - West Springfield - Exit 46
Exit 5 - Chicopee - Exit 49
Exit 6 - I-291 - Exit 51
Exit 7 - Ludlow - Exit 55
Exit 8 - Palmer - Exit 63
Exit 9 - Sturbridge I-84 - Exit 78
Exit 10 - I-290/I-395 - Exit 90
Exit 10A - Millbury - Exit 94
Exit 11 - Millbury - Exit 96
Exit 11A - I-495 - Exit 104
Exit 12 - Framham Southborough - Exit 111
Exit 13 - Natick Framham - Exit 117
Exit 14 - Weston I-95 - Exit 123A
Exit 15A/B - I-95 and US 30 - Exit 123B/123C

Etcetera.

Logan Armpit will be Exit 137

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Turnpike

When Route 128 was considered the main highway in Boston, all exits on other highways leading to Route 128 were numbered with Exit 25 as the main exit. Three highways - MA 3 to Cape Cod, MA 24 to Rhode Island, and US 3 to New Hampshire - used that scheme until the late 1970s/early 1980s.

US 3 still uses the Exit 25 = Route 128 scheme today, with exits increasing northbound. MA 3 and MA 24 were peculiar in that their exit numbers increased, rather than decreased, southbound from Route 128; then they changed to the current scheme of exits increasing northbound (MA 3 from Sagamore, MA 24 from the state line at Fall River).

All of Route 128 had exits from 9 in Gloucester to 69 in Braintree (then the Southeast Expressway/Pilgrim's Highway split, now I-93/MA 3) but had those exits changed wholesale in the mid-1980s when I-95 was rerouted onto Route 128 from Canton to Peabody; the I-95 exits superseded the Route 128 exits. I-93 found the same fate - they were renumbered once I-93 was extended southward to Canton. The only exits that weren't touched are from Gloucester to Peabody (exits 9 through 28).

As far as I can tell, it was exit 37 on 128 before renumbering as well.

BUT, it looks like, if they fudge the rounding a little bit, it could be exit 28 (or 29) on both roads

in 1985 and 1986, and replaced the original Route 128 exit numbers between Braintree and Peabody with appropriate numbers for I-95 and I-93.

As memory serves, there wasn't and major confusion about the change after the first couple of weeks, especially as signs indicating the old exit numbers were posted.

(duplicate comment)

No.

"New-to-towners" don't have unresolved issues about 128. They'll do better than you.

It saves money too in the long run. When you add a new exit, you just make a sign for the mile marker, vs trying to 'fix' numbering every decade

.

Why would you want box trucks on the Emerald Necklace? Next thing you know we'd be driving on driveways and parking on parkways. Somethings make too much sense to change.

This is the most completely ass-backward way of looking at the question of "how far to the exit" that I can imagine.

I would much rather know I'm taking the third exit than some unknown number of miles before that exit.

Really? You'd rather know how many arbitrarily-spaced features will pass than exactly how many miles are left? 4 is not easier to keep track of than 37, if #s 2 and 3 are right on top of each other, or share an off-ramp. Miss one, and you're likely to be stuck driving to the next one, however far down the road it is, then driving back. If you know your exit is 37, and you're at Exit 25, you can relax for 10 miles. I have to believe you like the current system because you're familiar with all the routes you use, so you don't actually use the exit-number relationships at all.

Roadside mile markers are no use in determining how far to your exit, unless you know what mile the exit is at. You can find that out in various ways, but the only convenient and safe way to do that while you're driving is if the exit number is the mile number.

This is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever encountered and I would have been extremely disappointed if it hadn't turned up in the comments here.

I would much rather know I'm taking the third exit than some unknown number of miles before that exit.

Thanks for not letting me down.

(PS: It's not "unknown". It's the number of miles between where you are and the exit number. There are signs that tell you the mileage where you are every 1/10 of a mile.)

Humans are pretty adaptable. You'll get used to it, grumbling all the way of course. But you won't have any choice.

Talk about solving a problem you don't have.

Yeah!

After all - when you get on the Pike, you stop at the toll booth and ask the friendly clerk what exit you'll need for whatever your destination. He'll tell you the exit number, how far it is, how much the toll will be, point it out on the little oaktag toll ticket where it says all of that, AND smile & say "have a nice day"

Don't forget to check the air in your whitewall tires before setting out and drain the water from your car radiator at night (it's getting down close to freezing in the hills these nights).

Happy Motoring!

(And do NOT get me started on that awful replacement for Highway Gothic...)

Not the same. Although FHWA did issue an Interim Approval allowing states to use Clearview, which was later rescinded and then reinstated (thanks to the Texas Congressional delegation), the Federal Government has never mandated that states switch from Highway Gothic to Clearview for highway signs.

And to put your mind at ease, the current Massachusetts Amendments to the MUTCD expressly forbid the use of alternative fonts such as Clearview on highway signs in this state.

Letter suffixes. An exit at mile 10.00 and another at mile 10.25 would be numbered 10A and 10B.