What Is The Most Rural State In Terms Of Highways?

[Inyomono395]

In what state(s) do rural 2 lane highways greatly out number expressways and freeways?

[hotdogPi]

(Note: Your thread asks for one state, while your actual post asks for multiple.)

South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, etc.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'd throw New Mexico out there on a whim.  They have a crap ton of numbered state highways out in the boonies.  Do Farm-to-Market Routed in Texas count as State Highways by definition of this thread?  I guess what is your definition of out number?  And what are we counting as highways?  Basically the way I see it anything that it is a route with an assigned number is a highway.

[corco]

I'd say Montana with its secondary system included. The Montana secondary system has more unpaved highway mileage than any other state in the country (in the thousands of miles), and really goes out into the sticks with impressive density. I've driven both the Montana and Wyoming systems in their entirety, and Wyoming's system generally seems positively urban compared to Montana's - especially since it's totally paved. Wyoming's system tends to be clustered around areas with at least some population, with one highway connecting those population centers (by "population center" I mean areas with at least a hundred people, this is Wyoming after all) - with a few exceptions.

Montana has more communities with 10 or 20 people that are served by a random secondary highway that connects to other secondary highways.

I'd guess most if not all states (except maybe CT/RI) have more rural two lane highway mileage than freeway/expressway mileage.

[Inyomono395]

(Note: Your thread asks for one state, while your actual post asks for multiple.)

Thank you for pointing that out.

I guess what I'm asking is what states do two lane highways out number freeways and expressways, and out of those which one is the most rural. (Least Interstates, freeways, expressways)

I guess what is your definition of out number?  And what are we counting as highways?   

Any state maintained highways. By out number I simply mean more rural highways than urban freeways and expressways. Statewide.

Hopefully this cleared some things up. Thanks for the responses so far!!

[epzik8]

Based on size, Texas, or even Alaska.

[Inyomono395]

I'd guess most if not all states (except maybe CT/RI) have more rural two lane highway mileage than freeway/expressway mileage.

That makes sense. I guess what I should ask is what state has the least freeway/expressway millage?

[kphoger]

I guess what I'm asking is what states do two lane highways out number freeways and expressways

Wouldn't the answer to this question be 'every state'?  Is there any state at all in which multi-lane highways outnumber two-lane highways?  Picking a densely populated state at random, Connecticut has 3719 miles of state highways.  I cannot imagine multi-lane highways make up the majority of that.

and out of those which one is the most rural. (Least Interstates, freeways, expressways)

But 'Interstates, freeways, expressways' does not mean urban.  I-90 is a coast-to-coast Interstate.  It's a freeway, it's an expressway, and it is definitely rural for the majority of its route.  I'm still not sure what you're asking.

By out number I simply mean more rural highways than urban freeways and expressways. Statewide.

Again, what do you mean by 'more'?

More mileage?  I'm pretty certain every single state will meet this criterion.
More countable route numbers?  Every single state definitely meets this criterion.

[kphoger]

I guess what I should ask is what state has the least freeway/expressway millage?

The answer will not be very meaningful.  Many of the most urban states are also the smallest, meaning they have few miles of any type of highway, including freeways and expressways.  As an example, Maryland has 480 miles of Interstate highway, whereas Montana has 1191 miles of Interstate highway.  But Maryland is certainly not more rural than Montana.

[kphoger]

In order to answer what I think you really want to know, we would have to compile all these data for each state:

(1) Geographic area
(2) Total mileage of all state highways
(3) Total mileage of all divided highways

Doing (1) and (2) is easy.  But compiling data for (3) is a LOT more difficult.  Where do you find that kind of data for a given state?  It's not just Interstates that qualify, but also divided U.S. routes, divided state routes, and divided local roads.  Plus, at what point does a suburban arterial road with a hard median become an expressway instead of just a city street?

[kurumi]

I guess what I'm asking is what states do two lane highways out number freeways and expressways

Wouldn't the answer to this question be 'every state'?  Is there any state at all in which multi-lane highways outnumber two-lane highways?  Picking a densely populated state at random, Connecticut has 3719 miles of state highways.  I cannot imagine multi-lane highways make up the majority of that.

ConnDOT's Limited Access Highways report (on http://www.ct.gov/dot/otherreports) lists 635 miles of parkways and freeways. Other multi-lane divided and undivided routes would be harder to total up, but... three to five hundred miles, maybe? Aside from 7/202, 5/15, 32, 44, 5, etc., the multi-lane sections of routes don't last that long. The typical CT highway is two lanes, and the list of signed state highways without a two-lane section should be pretty short (9, 11, 40... any others?)

[froggie]

The typical CT highway is two lanes, and the list of signed state highways without a two-lane section should be pretty short (9, 11, 40... any others?)

15?

[cpzilliacus]

In order to answer what I think you really want to know, we would have to compile all these data for each state:

(1) Geographic area
(2) Total mileage of all state highways
(3) Total mileage of all divided highways

Doing (1) and (2) is easy.  But compiling data for (3) is a LOT more difficult.  Where do you find that kind of data for a given state?  It's not just Interstates that qualify, but also divided U.S. routes, divided state routes, and divided local roads.  Plus, at what point does a suburban arterial road with a hard median become an expressway instead of just a city street?

I assert you also need:

(4) the percentage of area in each state that is considered "urbanized" by the U.S. Census Bureau.

[Duke87]

I'd guess most if not all states (except maybe CT/RI) have more rural two lane highway mileage than freeway/expressway mileage.

CT and RI both definitely have more miles of 2 lane state/US highway then they have of 4+ lane state/US/interstate highway, bearing in mind that state highways in urban and suburban areas are also often only 2 lanes. If we explicitly require that the two lane roads be "rural", then yes, I'd expect that represents a minority in both states (unless you define rural liberally).

If there is a state where a majority of the state/US/interstate network (rural otherwise) is more than 2 lanes, it's New Jersey. New Jersey has a lot of multilane roads and a very bare bones state highway network (the fewest miles per capita of any state).

[kphoger]

In order to answer what I think you really want to know, we would have to compile all these data for each state:

(1) Geographic area
(2) Total mileage of all state highways
(3) Total mileage of all divided highways

Doing (1) and (2) is easy.  But compiling data for (3) is a LOT more difficult.  Where do you find that kind of data for a given state?  It's not just Interstates that qualify, but also divided U.S. routes, divided state routes, and divided local roads.  Plus, at what point does a suburban arterial road with a hard median become an expressway instead of just a city street?

I assert you also need:

(4) the percentage of area in each state that is considered "urbanized" by the U.S. Census Bureau.

No, I think that's backwards as to the intent of the topic. The OP seems to be about defining urban/rural based on the prevalence of divided highways compared to regular roads. Including an official definition of urban and rural in the data either is superfluous or makes the whole exercise pointless.

[kurumi]

The typical CT highway is two lanes, and the list of signed state highways without a two-lane section should be pretty short (9, 11, 40... any others?)

15?

Froggie is right, I overlooked that one. (There is a short section of single lane southbound near Brainard Airport, but NB is still two lanes in that area.)

[J N Winkler]

No, I think that's backwards as to the intent of the topic. The OP seems to be about defining urban/rural based on the prevalence of divided highways compared to regular roads. Including an official definition of urban and rural in the data either is superfluous or makes the whole exercise pointless.

I am not sure the question is well-defined even with agnosticism about population density or formal urban boundaries.  If I understand correctly, elaborateness of development beyond two-lane with flat intersections is to be used as a proxy for degree of urbanization.  Where does this leave US 395 behind the Sierras (a road well-known to the OP), which is four-lane divided with occasional grade separations for most of its way through California's empty quarter?

[Pink Jazz]

Note that of the coast-to-coast Interstates, I-40 generally passes through smaller cities than I-10, I-80, or I-90.  A lot of I-40 is rural indeed, which is why I think truckers choose it over the others to avoid urban bottlenecks on I-10, I-80, and I-90 (plus the high risk for winter weather on I-80 and I-90).

[paulthemapguy]

Here's one way to look at it--the most rural state in terms of roads, means the roads are experiencing the lowest traffic.  Rather, this means that the usership of a given lane mile is the lowest.  This implies the lowest ratio of people to lane miles, or the highest rate of lane miles per capita.  So I decided to make this spreadsheet, looking for the population of each state and the number of lane miles in the corresponding state.  (This is just a simple A/B=C.) The highest ratio of lane miles per 1000 people went to North Dakota--the only four states that also exceeded 100 lane miles per 1000 people, which rounded out the top 5, are South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska.


lmpc by Paul Drives, on Flickr

[froggie]

Where did you get your lane mileage data from? 

[paulthemapguy]

Where did you get your lane mileage data from?

I took them from a blog, which took them from the FHWA's site in 2013.  I'm now aware that a 2014 table is also available, so my numbers may shift slightly.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2013/hm60.cfm

[Howpper]

Alaska BY FAR..

[hotdogPi]

Alaska BY FAR..

Alaska doesn't have that many highways to begin with.

[oscar]

Alaska BY FAR..

Alaska doesn't have that many highways to begin with.

Alaska has a lot of unnumbered state-maintained highways (about 500 if you count everything more than a mile long, dozens if you subjectively narrow the list to the more important ones), in addition to the dozen numbered routes. Many of the unnumbered highways, and even the majority of the numbered ones, are mostly two-lane with long unpaved segments. The scarcity of paved highways, let alone freeways/expressways (less than 100 miles of them in the entire state), make Alaska a strong candidate under the OP's criteria.

[Roadgeekteen]

Alaska and it's not even close.