Populated Highways

I'd been thinking during our drive and move from Austin to LA about the possibility of Interstate 10, the freeway my mother-in-law and I traveled, being the most populated Interstate in the country.



It has the LA metropolitan area, the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario (known around here as the Inland Empire) area, Phoenix, Tuscon, El Paso, San Antonio, the massive Houston area, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola, Tallahassee, and Jacksonville.

It seemed like it could win out. I was starting to imagine the numbers when I realized that I shouldn't forget another Interstate away from which I grew up less than a mile: I-80.



Starting in the Bay Area in California, we start smaller than LA. Reno and Salt Lake City are also smaller than Phoenix by magnitudes. Then there's not much through Wyoming and Nebraska. Des Moines' probably comparable to San Antonio, but then we get the big guns along 80. While Houston, along 10, is large, it's smaller than the Chicago metropolitan area. New Orleans isn't as big as it was pre-Katrina, but it's still the biggest city along the remaining stretch of I-10, and it's smaller than Cleveland on I-80.

Anchoring Interstate 80 is New York.

I haven't starting punching numbers, and I really don't think it's necessary. Gotta be I-80.