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Comment by nerfhammer | Hacker News Reader

From other parts of the country you might say things like "I took I-5" or "Interstate Five", "Route Five", "Highway Five", "US 5" etc.

"I-5" to me sounds a little harsh and hard to say to my ears vs. "I-95" or "I-80" which have a nicer ring to them, so maybe that's how this sort of thing could develop if that's just how the major highways ended up being numbered in different parts of the country.

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We don't preface highways with I in Chicago. We either just use the number (I took 290 to 294 to 88), or we use their name. Sometimes we use a combination (I took the Eisenhower out to the Tri-State and then to 88).

That works because Chicago is in the north central part of the country, where highway numbers are firmly in the double digits. In the southwest the numbers are often single digit, so it's awkward and confusing to use without a preprended "I-" or "the".

I think it's triple digits that become a mouthful with the "I-" prefix. Double digits sounds best with the "I-", I think.

Triple digits come from being a spur of a two-digit highway incidentally, not to do with region. I-385 is a spur of I-85, etc.

To ultra-pedant it up, generally only odd prefix digits indicate a spur (only connects to the prefixed highway in one spot), where even numbers indicate a bypass or beltway (which intersect the main highway multiple times).

No. In Seattle and Portland it's definitely "I-5." Not hard to say at all.

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