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!

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.

I don’t live in a state that borders SC, but I can think of no better answer to the question at hand.

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

Not the easiest place to get to, but it sure is beautiful

I was going to say the firework signs are a sure sign you moved from Minnesota to Wisconsin.

But it's a solid investment.

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.

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

Actually, Pearl River. Regular suburban.

I live on a border and my jogging path cuts through one state and then rounds back home to the other. The only way you can tell a difference is the states have different paving and road work schedules, so usually one state has more shitty roads then the other.

There are 50 states and a lot of different border arrangements. If a border is something dramatic like a river and you know that's the state border you can tell.

Often the only way to tell is a change in road surface or signage, or the "Welcome to state" sign. Google navigation will tell you too.

The butthurt that I witnessed in Wawas and Grocery stores in the wake of the ban was glorious

Yeah most often the road gets worse /better, either because one state does a better job with road maintenance, or they're just on different schedules.

Also sometimes the signage for state routes changes slightly.

Yeah, the roads instantly change color and texture. If you cross into south carolina, BAM. All the roads are whiter and rougher.

A lot of our residential infrastructure is underground, because of the weather we have. Though, there's a fair amount of aerial hardware as well. Where I live is famous for ice storms, and every few years there's a major outage that lasts anywhere from 12 to 48 hours. They're rare, but they do occur. More often it's because someone hit a pole or ground mount transformer, versus a falling branch or lightning bolt.

I still prefer ice, snow, and occasional outages to unbearable heat and humidity, earthquake, and hurricane tradeoff being further south or west.

To answer OP, there's a visible change in road surface and signage not only at state borders, but even between county and town lines. Each county handles the road a different way, and the finish/quality can differ a LOT even between municipalities and counties.

Ah yes, CO to NM

It's Nebraska.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯