#atozchallenge: Inbound

A to Z Challenge 1 Minute

inbound

Shoval Zonnis (pexels.com)

I think about travel when I hear the word "inbound" and its counterpart "outbound." Maybe because I did so much of it when I was working. On Sunday, I’d catch an outbound flight from Atlanta to wherever I was going, and when I’d return I’d do so on an inbound flight from wherever I was.

When I was in the city I traveled to, I’d listen to the radio when I was in the car, and to the traffic reports, which in the United States generally talk about traffic on the Interstates. It can be kind of confusing if you’re not familiar with what’s inbound and what’s outbound in a city, and even more confusing if, as they do in Chicago, they give the Interstates special names. For example, if you’re going downtown from the South Side on Interstates 90 and 94, you’re driving on the Dan Ryan Expressway, which magically becomes the Kennedy Expressway midway through downtown. If you’re not careful, you could end up outbound on the Kennedy, even though the road is still called Interstate 90 and 94. Then, as you’re driving north, the two Interstates split eventually, with Interstate 90/the Kennedy Expressway going northwest and Interstate 94, now called the Edens Expressway, going north. And that’s just one set of Interstates: there’s also the Tri-State Tollway (I-294), the Eisenhower Expressway (I-290), the Stevenson Expressway (I-55), the Bishop Ford Freeway (I-94 on the far South Side), the Kingery Expressway (I-80)…

Makes you want to take the train…

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

Published

48 thoughts on “#atozchallenge: Inbound”

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  5. Freeways here in Phoenix are really confusing with the names given to sections of them. I’m glad for many years I worked at home and now when working outside the home, my commute takes me only on city streets. When I think inbound and outbound, I’m thinking of inbound mail versus outbound for some reason!! Have fun with the rest of the challenge!

    betty
    https://benchsnotebook.blogspot.com/

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    1. I was much happier when I figured out a surface street way to get to work rather than having to climb on the expressways. And surprisingly it didn’t add that much time to my commute.

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  6. Argh! Chicago traffic!

    pulling at my hair

    It’s been YEARS since I had to drive in it, and I do NOT miss it at all! laugh

    Your former air travel schedule sounds hectic! I hope you are able to enjoy your time on the ground these days. 🙂

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  7. The word inbound takes me back to when I lived in Boston. Back then, I was always taking the train and seeing the word INBOUND (and OUTBOUND) written on the walls.

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    1. I was thinking the same thing. I was visiting Boston last fall as my daughter is going to school in Cambridge and I got turned around on the train as depending on which side of the city I was on I needed to head “INBOUND” or “OUTBOUND” to head back to Cambridge.

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  9. Mostly we see outbound planes flying overhead but I wrote recently about the change in direction in the flight pattern and they were coming inbound over our house. For some reason it looks a little scarier to see them getting closer and closer to the ground above my head even though I know they are no where near to hitting the house.

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    1. Depending on how close you are to the airport, they might be a couple thousand feet over your head, but it sure doesn’t feel that way. We lived near Midway but rarely had a plane going over our heads,

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  11. I love the word Inbound as I think of, not only planes, but trains. I bet every city, country etc…has a mess for hwys. Even in the small city where I live you could be on a street with 4 lanes and suddenly you come to an intersection where the one lane must turn but you wanted to go straight. Unless you memorize it, you are in a pickle. We once drove through Boston…Yikes!

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  13. The borough of Queens in New York City has numbered streets and avenues, with hyphenated addresses. It sounds good in theory but you end up with streets like 1st St and 1st Avenue intersecting (hypothetical example but it does happen). You can also have 1st Lane and 1st Place or 1st Road, 1st Drive, or 1st Terrace, so you have to be careful of the exact street name. If you don’t you can end up miles away from your destination. There is an underlying logic (I didn’t spend much time in Queens so I don’t know what the logic is, but there is logic). Navigating Queens can become a nightmare.

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  14. Driving in the US is a challenge. Look at Atlanta with 71 streets named “Peachtree”. Plus, changing the names of major highways is a bummer.

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  15. City expressways are so confusing to me. I cannot imagine driving in Chicago on a regular basis. Once was enough for me.

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    1. You get used to it. I didn’t have to start driving until I worked in the suburbs. Then, I was driving out when everyone was driving in and in when everyone was driving out.

      As long as I was working in the city, I could take a bus or a train. That worked out well.

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  16. There’s a road around my area that changes names six times, half of which are from an English spelling vs a Pennsylvania Dutch spelling of the same name for a Lenni-Lenape word. 😄

    I’m doing the #AtoZChallenge – writing a speculative fiction short story.
    On the main A to Z site today for “B” I shared a list of books. Check it out!
    At Operation Awesome we’re doing the A to Z Challenge and running a survey to pick the next Pass or Pages query contest genre.

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    1. We have roads like that around here. There must be a rule that says when a road enters another municipal area, it has to change its ame.

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  17. Here it is crazy with freeway signs. Navigation calls the exits by numbers but the freeway signs give them names. Often numbers are not present. It’s enough to drive a directionally challenged person like me, crazy.

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    1. Driving in New Jersey was always an adventure for me. You can’t turn left, you have to go to the next exit, get off and get back on going the other way. So you’re driving along in the left-hand lane expecting to turn left (because that’s what the directions tell you to do), then discover you needed to be in the right lane and go through the “jug handle”…

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  23. I’ve never flown much – I am not a good flyer. Planes mess with my inner ear – it’s the low level vibrations. Luckily the last few times I’ve found noise cancelling headphones work a treat to help. I can never make head nor tail of US roads – they just all seem very big compared to everything in the UK 😉
    Tasha
    Tasha’s Thinkings: YouTube – What They Don’t Tell You (and free fiction)

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