Changes to Views Of and From the Roadway
It has been almost a half-century since the first segment of I-94 in North Dakota has carried automobile traffic. Would the first to travel over the route in its incarnation as I-94 recognize much difference in views of the roadway were they to travel over it today?
Changes are numerous, but also fairly subtle. On the face of it this seems somewhat surprising. After all, I-94, at least its earliest finished segment, has been in existence for as long as the highway that preceded it as the primary east-west auto route across North Dakota. Unlike the Red Trail/U.S. 10 route between 1912 and 1958, however, the interstate has not changed course in its near half-century existence – it is contained within the same right-of-way acquired initially. Also unlike that previous route over its half-century of use, generally speaking I-94’s curves are located as they have always been as are the straight-aways. Right-of-way and median widths remain unchanged. It is true that a few interchanges have been added and others modified. A number of grade separation structures have been added and others have been rebuilt with modifications to their original designs, frequently to make the highway safer and sometimes to make the structures themselves somewhat more aesthetically pleasing. Culverts have been added here and there.
Grade separation structures are not particularly noticeable to the traveler if the I-94 traveler is being carried over them. If traveling under them it is a different matter, however. When I-94 was being constructed grade separation structures carrying traffic over the interstate (those most noticeable to the interstate traveler) tended to be supported by outer piers set at the outer edge of the road shoulders and a center pier set in the middle of the median strip. Steep backslopes extend from near the foot of the outer piers to the bridge abutments. The proximity of the piers to the roadway represents a driving hazard; consequently these structures are being modified and retrofitted with steel beam guardrails mounted just inboard of the outer piers to guide errant traffic (such as from a driver who has fallen asleep at the wheel) away from the piers. Beyond the safety deficiencies created by the original designs, they also created maintenance problems during periods of heavy snowfall. The proximity of the piers to the road surface and the steep back slopes between the outer piers and the abutments created a blockage/collection point for snow being plowed from the roadway surface. Consequently, new and replacement grade separation structures are being designed and constructed to eliminate the need for outer piers altogether, back slope toes are moved further from the roadway and back slopes are designed to be less steep. These design changes improve traveler safety, and they enhance snow removal from the roadway beneath the grade separation structure. Another change is that the newer grade separation structures on I-94 provide greater vertical clearance by up to approximately two feet for the traffic flowing beneath them.
Construction of new grade separations is associated with expanding population areas. The majority of new structures on I-94 are thus, not surprisingly, to be found in the Fargo/West Fargo area, though they can also be found in every larger community along the route of I-94 through the state: Valley City, Jamestown, Bismarck/Mandan, and Dickinson.
Other changes to views of the roadway, be they of the pre-or post I-94 periods can be found in the Changes to Roadway Design section.
Changes to views from the roadway are much less subtle in many ways and in others much more so. Clearly the views of even the more prominent landforms differ from route to route (i.e, from Red Trail/Highway 10 in its various incarnations and I-94). One need only travel, for example, on the last route of Highway 10 from Sentinel Butte to I-94 exit 23, or from Fryburg to Medora on the 1926 route of Highway 10, to realize how radically different a view one has of the Badlands as one has when traveling between the same points on I-94. Generally speaking, the more vertical the landscape, the more different the landscape appears when traveling the various highway routes that have historically paralleled I-94.
Views from I-94 over the fifty years of its history are most different in the larger communities through which it passes. Clearly the highway’s siting has dictated the siting of much new development in communities both large and small along the route. When the interstate was constructed, there was virtually no development to its south in Fargo or Jamestown, for example, or to the north of it in Bismarck or Dickinson. Likely the first travelers along the interstate that passed through those communities would not recognize them as the same towns because of the commercial and residential growth they have experienced. Both the growth of those communities and the location of that growth has occurred, at least in part, to the existence and siting of I-94. Even some of the smaller communities along the route, if they are within a mile of the highway, have realized commercial growth at the nearest interchanges that would represent a change in view for a traveler on the interstate of half a century past.
Another change has been in the design of rest areas along the route. Long gone are the strictly utilitarian designs characteristic of the first rest stops. Today’s designs often reflect themes considered important in the state’s history – the arched roofs and monitor of the south-side Hailstone Creek Visitor Center reminiscent of the steamboats that were as important to commerce on the Upper Missouri before the coming of the railroad as the interstate highways are today, or the north-side Apple Creek Visitor Center which is reminiscent of one of Bismarck’s Main Street gas stations when that street was also U.S. Highway 10.
The early traveler on I-94, were he to return today, would also note a proliferation of transmission lines and towers carrying electricity from the coal-fired electrical generating plants constructed in the first two decades following I-94 completion. Such lines cross I-94 in sixteen different locations in the 230 miles between Valley City and Dickinson.