Yesterday, I was talking to Judy-Bob and asked whether she was going to take the surface streets to get somewhere. In Los Angeles, the non-freeways were all called surface streets, since the freeways are elevated. During her childhood in rural New England, the term was backroads.
When I grew up (outside Louisville) I thought of a backroad as any of those McAdam (macadam) roads without a paint job (no dividing lines).
Here in Dallas they're just called roads, or streets (I reckon'), unless you're in a rural area, where they're marked as FM-something (Farm-to-Market) or RM-something (Ranch-to-Market).
Deep Thought #57: I wonder if the FMs ever become RMs, or vice-versa? What if there are an equal number of ranches and farms on a given road - which one wins?Other Los Angeles basin terms that became part of my vocabulary include Bott's Dots (aka "raised pavement markers"); La-La Land (a somewhat derogatory term for The Hype That Is Los Angeles); The Orange Curtain (Orange County); The Valley (the San Fernando Valley - as if!! there was any other) and (my favorite, which draws a blank stare here): Sig Alert ("any traffic incident that will tie up two or more lanes of a freeway for two or more hours").
3 comments:
Botts' Dots, eh? Now I know who invented the things. Are these the same things as "city titties"? You know, those A-DD cup size road bumps found around here?
--JB
Oh yeah ... backroads. In rural Southern Indiana, backroads are pretty much anything that isn't a major road, generally the less well-paved it is, the more backroad it is. Of course, it's all relative. A state highway might be a backroad compared to an Interstate, and so one. Heading north to pretty much anywhere involves taking US 41 as the main road. Going up State Highway 57/67 is considered the back way. If you're already on 57/67, the the backroads consist of the county roads. :-)
--JB
The Botts' Dots are the raised/reflectorized lane dividers, not to be confused with the "DD size" things that divide exit lanes, etc. Those larger ones can do serious car damage if you hit one, where running over a Bott's Dot does no harm.
I'm sure there's an official name for those .. my car club calls them Texas Armadillos, for lack of a better term.
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