Two People and a Truck

I make a lot of runs into Minnesota. I'm typically up there a couple of times a week. Over the course of a couple of months I'm discovering where the good and bad routes are. One would think that U.S. highways would typically be good choices. Oddly enough, they're often not.

The most direct route into the Minnesota lake country, for me, is U.S. 71. But that highway was built many years ago. It's not elevated above the farmland around it. As a result, even when the weather's good, snow tends to blow across the highway, creating a lot of slick and hazardous spots. U.S. 14, running east and west is not much better.

On the other hand, SR (that is, state road) 15, which runs south out of St. Cloud is an excellent highway that is almost always better maintained than U.S. 71. When I can reroute a bit to the east, that is a far better route.

Of course, using mapping software designed for cars in a truck is not too smart an idea, but DeLorme's Street Atlas and MapQuest can provide some nice trip planning short cuts when figuring out where to go. Both Street Atlas and MapQuest (and I'm told MS Streets and Trips does the same thing) act like SR 60 doesn't even exist. There is a major highway that runs kitty corner through Iowa and Minnesota that connects I-29 at Sioux City to the Twin Cities. From LeMars, IA to Mankato, MN, this is called SR 60. South of LeMars it's listed as US71 and north of Mankato its listed as US169, but it's the major through route. Almost all of it is 65 mph divided highway. It bypasses several of the towns along the route, so it's also efficient.

MapQuest does us SR 60 through Iowa, but then routes you either on the interstate, all the way over to Albert Lea and up, or up US 71 and across. Street Atlas prefers the interstate all the way, travelling west (and north) to Sioux Falls, then all the way across I90 and up I35 at Albert Lea. If you're not going directly into the cities, but into some town a bit to the west, the routes add dozens of miles to the trip, take longer, and put you on some really treacherous roads.

Too bad they can't renumber the roads so that the good roads can have good numbers and the direct routes can be consistently marked as direct routes. Oh well. I'm sure that's not going to happen, so I'll continue driving by trial and error.

Category: General