N64 Toad's Turnpike

Toad's Turnpike (Toad Highway in the Japanese version) is the first course in the Flower Cup of Mario Kart 64. It is named after Toad and pictures of him are seen on the boundaries of the racetrack. The race track takes place on a public road at night. There are vehicles driving on this course which cause the racer's kart to fly if a collision between the two occurs. The overall shape of this course is roughly a figure 8, with some parts of the road with varying lane quantity. All Item Boxes of this track are located in the edge of a concave area where the road includes.

Mario Kart 64
In 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc, the vehicles go forward in the direction where karts go. The engine class also affects how fast the vehicles move; traffic moves slowly in 50cc, but is quite fast in 150cc. The difficulty resides in the fact that the larger vehicles go slowly through the road, sometimes blocking the player (especially when approaching the finish line). In Mirror mode, the vehicles come in the opposite way at a rather fast speed (same speed as from 150cc), which can provide difficulties for the racers.

This course was the first in a series of similar race tracks in the Mario Kart series, to be filled with cars that come at the player. This type of race track reappears in the form of Mushroom City and Mushroom Bridge in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Shroom Ridge and the returning Mushroom Bridge in Mario Kart DS, Moonview Highway in Mario Kart Wii, Wuhu Loop in Mario Kart 7 and the returning Toad's Turnpike and Toad Harbor in Mario Kart 8 though it has to be noted that Toad Harbor features cable cars following rails instead of cars.

Mario Kart 8
Toad's Turnpike is set to return in Mario Kart 8 as a retro course, this time being the final race of the Shell Cup. The course now takes place in Toad City, as seen on some cars and signs in the course. Although the basic layout stays the same, there are anti-gravity sections among the walls at some points, which help avoid the traffic, but the route is slower. All racers now start on the area where vehicles drive on, instead of the joining starting section that used to be there. Some trucks have ramps that let players drive on them and a gliding pad, and some cars have a surfboard which serves as a simple ramp. Should one land on a normal truck, some will have a small ramp.

Instruction manual description
''Normally, Karts shouldn't drive on a public road, but for some reason, Toad's Turnpike is one of the courses! Drive in a way so that you won't block the large buses or trucks. Cutting one off or driving too slow can cause accidents.''

Trivia

 * The vehicles will not honk their horns in the 50cc mode.
 * While "turnpike" refers to a toll road, the name was not meant to be a description of the course: "turnpike" was merely chosen for alliterative purposes (both it and "Toad" start with "t"). The original Japanese name is the more generic "Toad Highway", and there are no features of an actual turnpike (i.e. toll booths) present in any versions of the game. In the Mario Kart 8 rendition, however, the real turnpike was added in the starting line.
 * Mario Kart 7's Neo Bowser City (Koopa City in the PAL versions) has a remixed version of this course's theme.