Todd Power Ranks Metro Area's Control Cities

Let's power rank metro areas based on their control cities! In this episode, Todd explains the standards of comparison and ranks the control cities listed in Kansas City!

Thanks to everyone who made an exit request in this episode:

Upcoming videos:
12/5 The 805
12/12 US 6 Eastern Eastbound
12/19 IH 610 Houston

All images of roads and signs come from Google Street View unless otherwise specified.

Music: Acoustic Sunrise, from the Apple iMovie sounds library
“Your the Best” Performed by Joe Esposito
"Claycomo" Performed by Q104 Radio in the 80s

Control City Freak Episodes mentioned in this video:


Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

Twitter: @contrlcityfrk
Instagram: @controlcityfreak

Interstates, Interstate Highways, Control Cities, Signs, road signs, highway nerdery, geography, roads, roadgeek, tier chart, power ranking, power ranking metro areas, Kansas, Missouri, Kansas City, Topeka, St. Louis

[brianmiddleton]

Todd needs to do this video just for all the roads going thru Limon.

[samseddmedia]

This new series is pretty awesome already! Complete with a small Todd's "The Way It Should Be", Interstate highways you haven't done yet, and even control cities that haven't been covered yet on the channel! This is going to be another awesome series!

[davidfreesefan]

Happy Thanksgiving, Control City Freak! I’m thankful for the great videos you put up every Thursday!

[andrewdevore]

For the I-610 video, show exit 8D bc that's the exit for KHOU where Neil Frank, grandfather of my favorite singer, Forrest Frank, used to work

[RoadRunnergarage]

Happy Thanksgiving!!! I wonder 🤔 where Limon will fall.. lol 😆 !!

[the_next_]

If you ever do one of these for Chicago, there used to be a sign on I-90 at 294 that had “Rockford-Madison” and not just “Rockford.” It’s on street view from 2012.

[aaronblanco]

Probably a common comment, but it would be cool to have a small map next to you as you reference every sign, so we can see just where you're talking about. I find myself constantly pausing and looking at Google Maps through most videos.

[benjaminrealy]

I like this concept. I think how you presented your first one, however, is a little chaotic. With the bouncing in different directions.
I have two (independent) suggestions to ponder over to.
1. Do all outgoing signs first. Maybe do all north, then all east, then all south, then all west. Then all incoming/loops. I think it would seem less jumbled and more smooth flowing that way.
2. Maybe different parameters than metro areas. I had thought maybe by highway, but then it defeats the purpose of "Todd's the way it should be" I think this could be a potential baseline for ranking the states if you do it by state because it would give the fault to the state that is responsible as opposed to metros where one state could nail it (if a multistate metro), while the other state could choose Limon.
Wish you well with this new series!

[oshy]

As a resident of Lawrence, KS, I appreciate the bias for the town. Also as a resident, I am always driving through KC and Topeka, and I feel like I can recognize every single one of the exits listed here. K-7 to K-10 exit is helpful, and the US-69 exit to claycomo is useful because I can literally keep going straight.

[drivingbritt]

Gr8 video Todd, and Happy Thanksgiving! Until next time, keep on Trucking. :) 👍


P.S. Thankfully there was no 'L' tier city in the KC Metro. lol

[RadicalAidanna]

Fun Fact, while Omaha isn’t on any overhead signs there’s a mileage sign a little after the 29/35 split northbound on 29 that signs council bluffs for 170 miles, it’s covered by trees so it kinda blends in and is hard to spot

[Cboyle]

Happy thanksgiving bro. I’m grateful you gave me a hobby this year!

[tylermarchand]

This is an interesting gimmick, and I would like to see more of this in the future. I’ve got a couple of things to say. I am very well aware of your opinions on Joplin along 49 S and St. Joseph on 29 N, but don’t worry; if you’re tired of hearing my disagreements on those two, I do have other observations that (may) be new.

Regarding St. Joseph, I think it’s good northbound out of Kansas City; yes, it’s very close, but I’m just not a fan of skipping mid-sized metros if the next one is more than 100 miles beyond. And Omaha (or Council Bluffs at least) is by my estimated roughly 120 miles past the last exit in St. Joseph. Southbound out of Council Bluffs, however, is where the close proximity between the two Missouri cities makes St. Joseph by itself a problem.

And my biggest issue with Springfield on 49 S is that the fastest route is NOT all freeway (if MO 7–MO 13 were a spur route at 100% freeway standard, then I’d be fine with Springfield). As is, my solution would be guide signs approaching 49 S (largely near the 435 interchange) saying something along the lines of “Springfield use I 49 S”, and for the secondary mileage control to be Harrisonville. In fact, I just realized something else regarding 49 S leaving Kansas City: only about 75 miles past Joplin is the Northwest Arkansas metro area, which is actually 25% bigger than Springfield (610k vs 490k). As a result, if I were to list a second city on an overhead for 49 S, I’d argue Fayetteville is a stronger choice…

Now for the newer observations. I think both K-10 and I 70 W should be signed for Lawrence. Topeka’s metro population isn’t quite high enough in relation to Lawrence’s (232k vs 120k) for my tastes. But the main point I want to bring up is how this is an example of two neighboring metro areas being served by two parallel freeways where there doesn’t seem to be one route faster than the other. In such cases, I’d actually advocate for directional references to where in the city the route goes: I 70 would be Lawrence North and K-10 would be Lawrence South.

For I 70 E, I’d actually use Columbia. You also mentioned a ‘100 mile rule’, and Columbia does qualify, as its most extreme exits are both roughly 110 miles from those of Kansas City and St. Louis. Now, once east of Columbia, is where I say St. Louis is prioritized, no excuses.

My only other observation is regarding the U.S. Highways, specifically 69 and 169. From what I can see, those exits you showed are for city streets. In this case, I think the city street names are okay; I just want them to get the appropriate shields, which in this case they seem to do.

[brianarbenz]

When I was growing up, during the ‘60s and early ‘70s, my spellbound fixation on highway sign patterns was something that isolated me, as there was no way back then to know that any other person, much less that thousands had the same fascination with something so trivial.
The pre-internet era was a different time.

[MA-Route]

Happy Thanksgiving, Todd!
5:34 maybe people can submit roadside milage signs for extra points if worthy, looks like you’re mostly ranking on overhead signs which is reasonable. Ik New England might not rank well in this series but a roadside milage sign for Providence, RI 90 miles away not far after the NH border on 95SB in MA is kinda as good as it gets for long distance, but then again that sign is far from Boston proper & Boston metro lol

[mappingthemiles]

Looking forward to seeing you do St. Louis. I think 270/255 is signed really well and has a lot of S tier cities on it (I feel like you've commented on that in the past). The possible exception would be 64 west, but that's tough IMHO because it ends at the western edge of the metro.

[sargon]

You're soon going to do I-376, My Favorite hometown interstate, with 79 being my second.
I have a handful of requests, but i won't do all of them because i don't want to hog this whole interstate.

#1: I would like to see Exit 31 for state route 51, I used to take that way to get fireworks for the 4th

#2: I would like to see Exit 59 for Robinson Town Centre, it's a very cool shopping place in my opinion, no thanks to the traffic there sometimes.

#3: There is a sign when you come out the Squirrel hill tunnel, and cross the bridge on the right that says "Kennywood park, use Swissville Exit" i would like to see that because, Well.. Kennywood Hype!

#4: I would like to see Exit 80 U.S. 20 Business, for Monroeville. It's where the Monroeville mall is and i went there a few times, it pretty good.

#5: a little info and i didn't know this, with interstate 376 and 279, 279 has an even number, but doesn't go back to 79, and 376 goes off 76, and comes back to 76. In my opinion they should change 376 to 276, and 279 to 379. I just want to hear what do you think about it?

Once again I'm sorry if I'm asking to much, just really like this interstate, (Despite the god awful traffic)

[patrickgast]

For the us 6 video: exit 127 in New York. On us 6 and NY 17 west. That’s the exit we would get off to see my grandma and aunt

[Baseball-huh]

The only reason I can think to justify Saint Joseph as a control city in the KC area is its cultural significance to Missouri as a whole.

[dvferyance]

I hope he does one like this for the Denver metro so we can hear more about Limon.