


As the term is generally used in California, "freeway" is applied to restricted-access (no at-grade crossings) high-speed highways.
"yesterday when we were on the freeway we saw two orange Civic hybrids"
When people refer to specific freeways they usually refer to it by its number. This is a very typical example of how I might give someone instructions on getting somewhere using a few San Diego freeways:
"just take the 5 south to the 52 east, then take the 805 south to the 8 east..."
In that case, three of the freeways happen to be interstates (I-5, I-805, and I-8 ), while 52 isn't, yet they're all restricted-access highways I call freeways.
In the LA area a few freeways are equally as well known by their names as well as their numbers, which doesn't happen often in other parts of the state. For example, the 110 is the "Harbor Freeway" (the freeways' names usually refer to their ultimate destination), the 101 is the Ventura Freeway, the 405 is the San Diego Freeway (because it ultimately leads to San Diego), etc. What's interesting is that the local population commonly refers to them by their names interchangeably with their numbers, which isn't as common in other areas (in the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego they're called by their numbers in popular usage).
One interesting regional difference is that in the San Francisco Bay Area, the term "freeway" is still generally used as in So-Cal, yet when people refer to the number of the freeways they don't usually preface it with "the." So in referring to freeways there, they usually say things like "take 680 north to 580 east," with no definite article.
I know different parts of the US have different terms generally applied to these roads--some only call them highways, some use highway/freeway interchangeably, some call a highway something different than what they call a freeway, etc. What terminology do you use and where are you from? Do you use definite articles before numbers of freeways or just the numbers?