Are There Stop Signs on Route 1?

[John Cole]

Here's one question that does have an answer. Rt. 1 runs from Maine to Florida, but has anyone ever seen a stop sign along the way?

[daryn]

i have seen a stop light, does that count?

[John Cole]

No, Daryn, there are plenty of stop lights.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's one question that does have an answer. Rt. 1 runs from Maine to Florida, but has anyone ever seen a stop sign along the way?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't believe in Stop Signs. Therefore, they do not exist.

Next question.

-Zeno

[John Cole]

Wrong answer, Zeno, and you should know better.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Wrong answer, Zeno, and you should know better.

[/ QUOTE ]

And when, John, has that every stopped me?

Here is a link that may help Highway 1 (http://www.geocities.com/usend0009/End001/end001.htm)

Highway 1 starts, apparently, at Fort Kent, Maine and Terminates at Key West, Florida. I suppose you could also say that Highway 1 starts in Key West, Florida and terminates in Fort Kent, Maine. I will leave that geographical and philosophical conundrum to the reader.

To find out if a stop sign exists on Highway 1 (and/or how many), all one as to do is drive the Highway, taking notebook and pen, and note any stop signs encountered along the way. Stop lights and slows signs, and caution signs, and speed signs and signs of the second coming of Jesus would all be ignored. I estimate that it would take 3-4 days to travel the length of Highway 1 and do a stop sign count that would be fairly accurate and satisfy the morbid curiosity of the more flamboyant posters that lurk about this insalubrious forum.

I would undertake the journey for a modest fee, plus expenses, but at the moment I am occupying my time in productive work efforts to better the world and make it a safer and more wholesome place to inhabit. So if this question of stop signs is puzzling the neural infrastructure of your cranium, I suggest the above practical solution.

There is a statistical solution, I am sure, that could also be employed to help answer this question. But in the end, I know that Highway 1 has at least one stop sign. I put it there myself during the first week of creation. God was busy with other things and missed completely my little bit of handiwork. It is one of my proudest achievements.

-Zeno

[Phat Mack]

Thirty or forty years ago, I read an interesting National Geographic article on Route 1 while waiting in my dentist's office. Reportedly, it was the nation's original post road. Maybe this gives it a precedence over other thoroughfares that relieves it of the burden of stop signs.

[miajag81]

Well, I can vouch that there are none between DC and Baltimore.

[MMMMMM]

Yes, I think so.

I am almost sure that a stop sign is on Rt.1, and I will check it to be sure, next time I go near it (within a day or two).

[MMMMMM]

Wrong; just checked: that stop sign is near Rt. 1, not on Rt 1.

Recently I had occasion to drive back from Houlton Maine along Route 1, nearly all the way to Portland. There were numberous stops and a detour, but I can't say for sure that any of those stops were signs as opposed to red lights (except maybe on the detour).

If I take the trip again I will remember to look for SIGNS.

[jason_t]

I'm fairly certain there are none on the stretch of U.S. 1 through NJ.

Are there any stop signs on any U.S. highways? Just as there are no traffic lights on U.S. interstates, perhaps part of the condition of being a U.S. highway is that there are no stop signs.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm fairly certain there are none on the stretch of U.S. 1 through NJ.

Are there any stop signs on any U.S. highways? Just as there are no traffic lights on U.S. interstates, perhaps part of the condition of being a U.S. highway is that there are no stop signs.

[/ QUOTE ]

If they can have stop lights I don't see why they couldn't have stop signs. Back in the old days I bet they had more stop signs than stop lights. I'd bet there is at least one US Highway somewhere that has a stop sign someplace in the land.

PairTheBoard

[John Cole]

I read the same article, but I think it was more recent than thirty or forty years. It was a great photo-essay on Rt. 1.

[John Cole]

I think there is one--or at least I've been told there is one, and it's in Ellsworth, Maine. Or at least I have stopped at one in Ellsworth. Now, why whould I post this in a philosophy forum?

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
I think there is one--or at least I've been told there is one, and it's in Ellsworth, Maine. Or at least I have stopped at one in Ellsworth. Now, why whould I post this in a philosophy forum?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's more profound than a lot of the crap that gets posted here.

PairTheBoard

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
I think there is one--or at least I've been told there is one, and it's in Ellsworth, Maine. Or at least I have stopped at one in Ellsworth.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ellsworth sounds about right.

[ QUOTE ]
Now, why whould I post this in a philosophy forum?

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't know; but I see you've invented a word in your post, just as I did in mine.

[John Cole]

M,

I know, I should use Word and spell check to take care of my typing errors. Here's one of my favorite spelling errors: "whoreship" for "whorship." It has that Joycean touch.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
I think there is one--or at least I've been told there is one, and it's in Ellsworth, Maine. Or at least I have stopped at one in Ellsworth. Now, why whould I post this in a philosophy forum?

[/ QUOTE ]


You think there is one? You stopped at one in Ellsworth, Maine. Are you sure? Are we to take this on Faith alone. Do you have evidence? Is this the same one stop sign planted during the first week of creation by Zeno, Master of all Fates conjugate to the Universe? It's possible - yes?

[ QUOTE ]
Now, why whould I post this in a philosophy forum?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because you are insane my old friend.


-Zeno

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
I know, I should use Word and spell check to take care of my typing errors.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I really don't like the idea of using that stuff. That to me would seem a bit like painting and using a mechanical contraption to put the paint on the canvas, in order to be sure you always get even strokes.

Some typos or hasty errors are pretty neat. I like the "numberous" I just invented;-) The "whould" also has a nice Middle Ages woodsy ring to it;-)

[ QUOTE ]
Here's one of my favorite spelling errors: "whoreship" for "whorship." It has that Joycean touch.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is cute, with hints of double entendres, to boot.

As for Joyce, what little of his I read (a few pages only) I couldn't stand.

Some artistic styles just seem to grate on my nerves. I can't help it.

[Siegmund]

[ QUOTE ]

Are there any stop signs on any U.S. highways? Just as there are no traffic lights on U.S. interstates, perhaps part of the condition of being a U.S. highway is that there are no stop signs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, there are stop signs on U.S. highways, oodles of them. Not being on the east coast I can't address the U.S. 1 question directly; but seen enough of them on 20, 26, 89, and 91 that it doesn't seem rare at all. (Most of those that I can recall were at simple T-junctions of two such highways, with a stop-sign on the less traveled route, perhaps a yield if you were turning right. Out west some of these are loooong empty 2-lane roads with very little traffic.)

I would be quite surprised to hear about any one of these highways that *didn't* have a stop sign somewhere along its length.

[FNHinVA]

Are you kidding?

"Are There Stop Signs on Route 1?" is a profound existential question.

And if they do exist, they carry a life-affirming message.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
"Are There Stop Signs on Route 1?" is a profound existential question.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, I give up (and I just woke up).

Why is it profound?

[MMMMMM]

As the coffee kicks in, a couple of glimmerings.

[ QUOTE ]
Here's one question that does have an answer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Suggesting a contrast with the other philosophical/religious questions posed on this forum.

[ QUOTE ]
Rt. 1 runs from Maine to Florida, but has anyone ever seen a stop sign along the way?

[/ QUOTE ]

It has an answer, but depending on the amswer, the answer might not be knowable.

(By the way, the question also has a very nice koan-like ring to it.)

John is asking several things with this question:

1) Have any of us ever seen such a sign?

2) Have any of us known of such a sign (or lack thereof)?

3) If, somehow, we are able to find out that Rt. 1 has no stop signs anywhere along its length, what about in its past? "...has *anyone* *ever* seen...?"

What if Rt. 1 once had a stop sign somewhere along its length (perhaps during early stages of construction), but does not now have one? Could we find *that* out, for sure?

The question also suggests other less obvious things.

[ QUOTE ]

Rt. 1 runs from Maine to Florida, but has anyone ever seen a stop sign along the way?


[/ QUOTE ]

The stream of philosophical inquiry is ongoing. Is there ever a stopping place along the way?

More later (maybe).

[John Cole]

M,

To paraphrase Thoreau (or maybe this is the exact quote?), "Heaven is above our heads and below our feet."

Emerson says, "I ask not for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in Italy or Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provencal minstrelsy; I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds. What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the news of the boat; the glance of the eye; the form and the gait of the body;--show me the ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence of the highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in these suburbs and extremities of nature; let me see every trifle bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal law; and the shop, the plough, and the ledger, referred to the like cause by which light undulates and poets sing;--and the world lies no longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order; there is no trifle; there is no puzzle; but one design unites and animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench."

And Wordsworth, "You will find it here or nowhere."

[John Cole]

[ QUOTE ]
Because you are insane my old friend.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think it's the condition of all of us with 2+2 member numbers under one thousand.

[Phat Mack]

[ QUOTE ]
1) Have any of us ever seen such a sign?

[/ QUOTE ]

And if any of us had, who would register such a thing?

[Rick Nebiolo]

Zeno,

Great read, made our night /images/graemlins/smile.gif

~ Rick