Americans who live near state borders,how do you notice you've crossed the border?
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Ok, this is bonkers. Although the risk of contamination with foreign insects via transit is real (we e.g. imported the Tiger Mosquito from the US via tire shipments from the U.S. into Europe some years ago...), using that as an excuse to search passenger cars is quite a stretch...
Yeah, but… as you say. It’s an excuse. Give war on drugs people an opening, they take it. Anything to oppress the poors.
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Connecticut is making a bold claim here to anyone leaving NY
What's the point of putting the governor name on the road sign? How is that information useful to drivers?
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Besides the obvious "welcome to [state name]" sign. Is there a significant change in architecture, infrastructure, agriculture, store brands, maybe even culture?
It usually depends on how big the road is that you're driving on. Most state borders are in very extremely rural areas, so sometimes there's not even a sign. On interstate highways it's always quite obvious, but little country roads might not have any signage at all.
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There's usually no obvious change in architecture, no; often the only architecture is farm buildings, and those are more or less consistent architecturally. And broadly speaking architecture is regional, rather than state-specific; the difference in architecture from northern Indiana to southern Indiana is far more pronounced than the difference in architecture from southern Indiana to northern Kentucky, for instance.
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As noted elsewhere, sometimes the infrastructure can be different (usually seen in road quality), but most states tend to number their county roads in different ways, so when you cross the border you'll often find that the number of the roads you're crossing tend to suddenly shift from "300W" to "2300E." The signage may also change very slightly, though if you're truly out in the middle of nowhere, there might not be any signage to change.
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Agriculture, like architecture, is usually much more defined by region than by state. All of the states around mine farm corn, wheat, and soybeans, just like mine does. Most also farm cows, though Kentucky notably has a lot more horses than any of its neighbors, so that can be a tell. But you don't get into a ton of ranching until you get further west, and then you see large changes across multiple states at a time.
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Store brands often do change, but again, since most crossings are in rural areas, there often aren't any stores around to notice the change right away. You'll roll out of a state with a lot of Meijer stores and into a state where Publix is the regional grocery store, but until you get into a town, there's no way to know.
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Culture is probably the thing you'll notice least. People who live in rural areas tend to think of themselves as American before any other identifier, so you'll find a lot of jingoism anywhere on both sides of any border. American flags, Christian crosses, gigantic emotional support pickup trucks, bizarrely aggressive patriotic bumper stickers, Trump signs and flags, etc. Depending on where you are those sorts of things are accompanied by very clear signs of deep poverty (mobile homes, trash-strewn lawns, run-down houses), but they can just as often be on or around very well-kept houses on huge acreage.
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And if you mean "culture" in the sense of theater, music, etc., you're unlikely to find any at all near a state border.
I guess the other thing is that Google Maps will tell you "Welcome to (state)" when you're navigating. There are some times that that's the only way you'll know.
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The other big thing for knowing I'm in Illinois is seeing gasoline and diesel prices significantly higher than in my state. It's not just fossil fuels either, charging my EV in Illinois makes it cost more than fueling my wife's SUV in my state and driving the same trip. The roads aren't much better either for the higher taxes either.
And toll roads....
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Besides the obvious "welcome to [state name]" sign. Is there a significant change in architecture, infrastructure, agriculture, store brands, maybe even culture?
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Besides the obvious "welcome to [state name]" sign. Is there a significant change in architecture, infrastructure, agriculture, store brands, maybe even culture?
I pay money to cross a large river.
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Yeah I would hardly call Ned Lamont a governor.
He legalized weed at least
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QT: Free air, Roller grills.
And much more. Not good prices though, they know how to separate customers from their cash pretty well.
Air is free at every gas station in CT
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Besides the obvious "welcome to [state name]" sign. Is there a significant change in architecture, infrastructure, agriculture, store brands, maybe even culture?
field on one side, field on the other. if I am on the interstate, the surface gets really shitty on our side because brownback and the republicans in topeka drained the highway fund to give the koch bros and fat corpo-farmers a tax break.
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I'll never forget driving home from college with some friends for the holidays one year. I was from PA, he was from Ohio and had never been more east. We were headed to NY with another friend and our route took us briefly through Jersey.
"How will we know we're there?" he asked as the car suddenly lurched and felt like we hit a gravel road despite ostensibly being a paved highway ...
That's strange, I grew up in NJ and our roads tend to be well maintained. It was kinda shocking when I moved to PA and the roads had way more potholes and skinny useless shoulders!
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Besides the obvious "welcome to [state name]" sign. Is there a significant change in architecture, infrastructure, agriculture, store brands, maybe even culture?
Heading west out of Connecticut into New York the most obvious difference is they don't trim tree branches over the road/power lines. It suddenly feels like you're driving through a tunnel of green. Its actually quite nice but those parts of nys must have a lot of outages after storms.
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North Carolina paves its roads. South Carolina air drops its roads.
You know you have crossed into South Carolina when the suspension of your vehicle is torn out from under you.
I don’t live in a state that borders SC, but I can think of no better answer to the question at hand.
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What's the point of putting the governor name on the road sign? How is that information useful to drivers?
Ya know. I don't know. Every state does this as far as I can tell and so I've never questioned it.
If I had to guess, its how the DOT or Highway department shills to Tue new governor
"Hey look boss, we put ya name on da side of Interstate 69 from Illinois!,"
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Ya know. I don't know. Every state does this as far as I can tell and so I've never questioned it.
If I had to guess, its how the DOT or Highway department shills to Tue new governor
"Hey look boss, we put ya name on da side of Interstate 69 from Illinois!,"
It’s totally legit highway info. Completely not grifting public money for the governors election campaign. /s
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Never been, but I've heard it's lovely.
Not the easiest place to get to, but it sure is beautiful
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Well, I live on the Minnesota side of the Minnesota / Wisconsin border and normally I can tell I crossed the border because I have to cross the 4th largest river in the world, the Mississippi river.
Joking aside a big tell used to be frac sand mines. Minnesota cracked down on them much harder much more quickly than Wisconsin so you would see them all over the place in Wisconsin but not in MN. I haven't seen as many of those lately though. Also If I drive too far south I wind up driving out of the Kwik Trip gas station zone and into the vastly inferior Caseys gas station zone in Iowa.
I was going to say the firework signs are a sure sign you moved from Minnesota to Wisconsin.
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Delaware makes you pay to leave New Jersey
But it's a solid investment.
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I knew a family who's house was in New York and the backyard was in New Jersey. No, you couldn't tell.
A lot of territories end at a river, but when the boundaries were set for New York they asked for a buffer zone (10 miles I think?) away from the Hudson River. So it really is an arbitrary boundary.
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That's strange, I grew up in NJ and our roads tend to be well maintained. It was kinda shocking when I moved to PA and the roads had way more potholes and skinny useless shoulders!
I do concede, I am ... old. Things may well have changed and it depends on the part of Jersey. States around Jersey just like ripping on them to feel better about themselves, but PA is no treat either which is why I got the hell out of there =P
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Sounds like Upstate New Jersey, hill country. That's pretty neat, though.
Actually, Pearl River. Regular suburban.
