Nevada mile markers on State and US highways

[N9JIG]

I am driving thru Nevada on US-93, US-6 and NV-375 and they have CA style mile markers on the rural highways that show the route number, county abbreviation {2 letters} and miles from the county line.  In some counties it is more similar to the basic CA style with stenciled text-based route numbering but other counties they have and updated (and easier to read for sure) version with an outline style route marker, two-letter county code and miles in much larger text.

I assume the updated version will eventually be installed in Lincoln County and the others. I have pics but they are still on my phone so maybe when I get home I will get them posted up.

[jrouse]

Yes, NDOT has rolled those out over the last few years.  More info here:

https://www.dot.nv.gov/safety/roadway-safety-improvements/milepost-signs

[US 89]

The only thing I don't like about the new ones is this problem, emphasized in this photo of mine from a few years ago. Is that a 9, or a 6?



It's a 9, because that's how the rest of the signs work, but that's really not intuitive without other digits around to help you figure that out. If the post is on the right side of the road, you could use the rule of thumb that the number would be upright if you bent the sign horizontal over the road, but that doesn't work when the post is on the wrong side like it is here.

[Max Rockatansky]

I just wish there was some sort of Postmile look up tool for Nevada like there is with California.

[cl94]

I just wish there was some sort of Postmile look up tool for Nevada like there is with California.

There is...sort of, but I'd argue it's better than anything public-facing on the Caltrans end. Nevada DOT puts all of their GIS layers online, so you can see what there is/is not. See: https://geohub-ndot.hub.arcgis.com/pages/ndot-divisions-roadway-systems-maps-and-apps

Postmiles in NV are simply county mileage. They're known to redo mileage if necessary. It's not nearly as messy as it is in California, who just tacks on a realignment and doesn't care about mileage along what already exists.

[Scott5114]

I like these for their weirdness, but a part of me wonders why they didn't just adopt the standard MUTCD enhanced mile marker (with the county code replacing the word MILE). The 90° rotated text is quirky but it's not exactly easy to read.

[cl94]

I like these for their weirdness, but a part of me wonders why they didn't just adopt the standard MUTCD enhanced mile marker (with the county code replacing the word MILE). The 90° rotated text is quirky but it's not exactly easy to read.

Probably to reinforce that it's county mileage and not state mileage. Green markers in NV are exclusively for state mileage and they are used for that purpose along Interstates. Nonzero states use typical MUTCD mile markers with county mileage and it can be confusing.

[US 89]

I like these for their weirdness, but a part of me wonders why they didn't just adopt the standard MUTCD enhanced mile marker (with the county code replacing the word MILE). The 90° rotated text is quirky but it's not exactly easy to read.

Probably to reinforce that it's county mileage and not state mileage. Green markers in NV are exclusively for state mileage and they are used for that purpose along Interstates. Nonzero states use typical MUTCD mile markers with county mileage and it can be confusing.

Georgia is one. Interstates always use state-level mileage, but especially on some of the bigger state highways it's a crapshoot whether you're looking at state or county level mileage because there's no way to tell the difference - most routes reset mileage at county lines but a small handful do not. Combine that with Georgia's small counties and resulting frequent mileage resets and you get a milepost that tells you very little. And you might not even know what route is being referred to thanks to the numerous concurrencies. All this to say - I really wish Georgia's mileposts had a mechanism to know whether it's state or county mileage, what route the milepost refers to, and what county that mileage is being counted in - all of which Nevada does.

[roadman65]

I like these for their weirdness, but a part of me wonders why they didn't just adopt the standard MUTCD enhanced mile marker (with the county code replacing the word MILE). The 90° rotated text is quirky but it's not exactly easy to read.

Probably to reinforce that it's county mileage and not state mileage. Green markers in NV are exclusively for state mileage and they are used for that purpose along Interstates. Nonzero states use typical MUTCD mile markers with county mileage and it can be confusing.

Georgia is one. Interstates always use state-level mileage, but especially on some of the bigger state highways it's a crapshoot whether you're looking at state or county level mileage because there's no way to tell the difference - most routes reset mileage at county lines but a small handful do not. Combine that with Georgia's small counties and resulting frequent mileage resets and you get a milepost that tells you very little. And you might not even know what route is being referred to thanks to the numerous concurrencies. All this to say - I really wish Georgia's mileposts had a mechanism to know whether it's state or county mileage, what route the milepost refers to, and what county that mileage is being counted in - all of which Nevada does.

They do now.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/52924768952
uS 319 in Kelltown.

[US 89]

I like these for their weirdness, but a part of me wonders why they didn't just adopt the standard MUTCD enhanced mile marker (with the county code replacing the word MILE). The 90° rotated text is quirky but it's not exactly easy to read.

Probably to reinforce that it's county mileage and not state mileage. Green markers in NV are exclusively for state mileage and they are used for that purpose along Interstates. Nonzero states use typical MUTCD mile markers with county mileage and it can be confusing.

Georgia is one. Interstates always use state-level mileage, but especially on some of the bigger state highways it's a crapshoot whether you're looking at state or county level mileage because there's no way to tell the difference - most routes reset mileage at county lines but a small handful do not. Combine that with Georgia's small counties and resulting frequent mileage resets and you get a milepost that tells you very little. And you might not even know what route is being referred to thanks to the numerous concurrencies. All this to say - I really wish Georgia's mileposts had a mechanism to know whether it's state or county mileage, what route the milepost refers to, and what county that mileage is being counted in - all of which Nevada does.

They do now.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/52924768952
uS 319 in Kelltown.

I've seen some of those enhanced markers floating around. Still doesn't have the county.

Also, they always just have the SR underlay (as in your case above, which shows GA 35 instead of US 319). Often that is less than helpful as different underlay routes might hop on and off for different portions of the same US highway. It's only useful if the underlay route is better known than the US highway, which does happen (GA 400/US 19, GA 365/US 23, GA 6/US 278, etc) but is less common.

[cl94]

I like these for their weirdness, but a part of me wonders why they didn't just adopt the standard MUTCD enhanced mile marker (with the county code replacing the word MILE). The 90° rotated text is quirky but it's not exactly easy to read.

Probably to reinforce that it's county mileage and not state mileage. Green markers in NV are exclusively for state mileage and they are used for that purpose along Interstates. Nonzero states use typical MUTCD mile markers with county mileage and it can be confusing.

Georgia is one. Interstates always use state-level mileage, but especially on some of the bigger state highways it's a crapshoot whether you're looking at state or county level mileage because there's no way to tell the difference - most routes reset mileage at county lines but a small handful do not. Combine that with Georgia's small counties and resulting frequent mileage resets and you get a milepost that tells you very little. And you might not even know what route is being referred to thanks to the numerous concurrencies. All this to say - I really wish Georgia's mileposts had a mechanism to know whether it's state or county mileage, what route the milepost refers to, and what county that mileage is being counted in - all of which Nevada does.

They do now.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/52924768952
uS 319 in Kelltown.

I've seen some of those enhanced markers floating around. Still doesn't have the county.

Also, they always just have the SR underlay (as in your case above, which shows GA 35 instead of US 319). Often that is less than helpful as different underlay routes might hop on and off for different portions of the same US highway. It's only useful if the underlay route is better known than the US highway, which does happen (GA 400/US 19, GA 365/US 23, GA 6/US 278, etc) but is less common.

Georgia is probably the most egregious example of these cases. Though other states out east aren't much better. Ohio used to have county-based exit numbers in some places. Those are finally being changed to statewide mileage.

[roadfro]

I am driving thru Nevada on US-93, US-6 and NV-375 and they have CA style mile markers on the rural highways that show the route number, county abbreviation {2 letters} and miles from the county line.  In some counties it is more similar to the basic CA style with stenciled text-based route numbering but other counties they have and updated (and easier to read for sure) version with an outline style route marker, two-letter county code and miles in much larger text.

I assume the updated version will eventually be installed in Lincoln County and the others. I have pics but they are still on my phone so maybe when I get home I will get them posted up.

For reference, here's a thread I started back in 2014 about NDOT's testing of and eventual transition to using enhanced mileposts: New style of mileposts in test trials on Nevada highways

Since then, these are pretty standard. If you came across mileposts with stenciled black lettering, those are really old panels and increasingly rare. Before the transition to the enhanced mileposts, standard mileposts had been using printed text for some time.

But also your report of even encountering stenciled mileposts makes me think that NDOT may not have been replacing mileposts with enhanced versions as aggressively as I thought. It could also be that maybe they were focusing on the more highly traveled routes with such replacements. Of which, SR 375 & US 6 are not highly traveled.

[roadman65]

When on I-94 in MN, do people get confused near the Twin Cities when mile posts change in favor of the I-494/694 beltway mileage?

Do people in Atlanta on I-85 get fooled when I-75 mileage takes over for a brief period?

Nothing is perfect just as the grid for US routes isn’t.  US 20 between US 4 and 6 or 44 between 6 and 20.

You can’t have perfect mile posts either.

[cl94]

Replacements really come down to district. Some districts have been more proactive than others with replacements. District 3 has replaced most of its markers with enhanced versions. District 2, on the other hand, is quite slow and old-style markers may dominate here. Ironically, one of the few roads in Diatrict 2 that has them is SR 877, which is a little-used secondary. District 1 (southern NV) is somewhere in between.

In most of the state, enhanced mile markers are being installed with repaving and other projects, not as a one-off. This makes the rollout slower. 6 has them in parts of Nye County, but not everywhere. SR 431 is slowly getting them with the Tahoe projects.

[jrouse]

Yeah, when I drove 93 from Wells up to Idaho back in early June I only saw a few of those new markers up. 

[Henry]

When on I-94 in MN, do people get confused near the Twin Cities when mile posts change in favor of the I-494/694 beltway mileage?

Do people in Atlanta on I-85 get fooled when I-75 mileage takes over for a brief period?

Nothing is perfect just as the grid for US routes isn't.  US 20 between US 4 and 6 or 44 between 6 and 20.

You can't have perfect mile posts either.

At least people driving on I-95/I-495 in the MD parts of the DC area won't get the confusion factor because they use the exact same mileposts and exits from VA up to College Park, and will keep their respective mileages after the split. And those on I-495 in VA probably won't care when they get to the part where I-95 comes in and the miles/exits jump from 57 to 170 either.

Seems to me that NV is taking notes from CA and improving on them too!

[ran4sh]

I like these for their weirdness, but a part of me wonders why they didn't just adopt the standard MUTCD enhanced mile marker (with the county code replacing the word MILE). The 90° rotated text is quirky but it's not exactly easy to read.

Probably to reinforce that it's county mileage and not state mileage. Green markers in NV are exclusively for state mileage and they are used for that purpose along Interstates. Nonzero states use typical MUTCD mile markers with county mileage and it can be confusing.

"Nonzero states use typical MUTCD mile markers with county mileage and it can be confusing."

Not really? The MUTCD only standardizes how miles are to be measured, along Interstates. There is no "standard" for how to number the miles for state/US routes, so it shouldn't be confusing if different states do different things. Even here in the Southeast, the Carolinas usually omit mile markers on state/US routes while Georgia marks county mileage on those routes.

[US 89]

I like these for their weirdness, but a part of me wonders why they didn't just adopt the standard MUTCD enhanced mile marker (with the county code replacing the word MILE). The 90° rotated text is quirky but it's not exactly easy to read.

Probably to reinforce that it's county mileage and not state mileage. Green markers in NV are exclusively for state mileage and they are used for that purpose along Interstates. Nonzero states use typical MUTCD mile markers with county mileage and it can be confusing.

"Nonzero states use typical MUTCD mile markers with county mileage and it can be confusing."

Not really? The MUTCD only standardizes how miles are to be measured, along Interstates. There is no "standard" for how to number the miles for state/US routes, so it shouldn't be confusing if different states do different things. Even here in the Southeast, the Carolinas usually omit mile markers on state/US routes while Georgia marks county mileage on those routes.

Omitting posted mile markers is a whole different ballgame than using a standard mile marker to mean something else. Everyone but California uses the MUTCD standard milepost to count statewide mileage on interstates. Some states don't have mileposts at all on US or state highways, but many use the same MUTCD milepost on them in the same way as it's used on interstates. Other states use some other state-specific variant of milepost or reference marker, which might track county or state based mileage or perhaps something weirder. At any rate, the use of a marker different from the standard is enough to know that you might be dealing with a system that doesn't necessarily track statewide mileage.

The issue is that while lots of states have different ways of counting and displaying mileage, Georgia is one of the only states (if not the only one) where the MUTCD marker has a different meaning depending on what kind of road it's on. And they aren't even totally consistent about it - several non-interstates have posted mileage that doesn't reset at county lines.

[cl94]

At minimum, Nevada is explicitly trying to reduce confusion by making county-specific mileage a separate color and format from statewide mileage. Green is reserved for statewide in Nevada.

I commend Nevada for doing something that is more intuitive to drivers than the old method but also didn't require many expensive changes. While NDOT maintains a statewide mileage GIS file, exactly two roads in the state are posted with statewide mileage that differs from county mileage (I-80 and I-580). Every other Interstate is within a single county and only Interstates get statewide mileage, with every other road having mileage measured by county. In order to accurately place statewide mileage along other roads that cross county lines, you'd need to resurvey those roads. Surveying isn't cheap and we're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 centerline miles where the posted mileage would need to change (not including the first county along the road, which would remain the same). The net benefit of doing such isn't worth the cost.

[roadman65]

This here at least let's motorists know that mile markers reset.
https://goo.gl/maps/Dc2M5tPDn5FjWcBD7
The zero mm is attached to the county line sign.

[roadfro]

At minimum, Nevada is explicitly trying to reduce confusion by making county-specific mileage a separate color and format from statewide mileage. Green is reserved for statewide in Nevada.

I commend Nevada for doing something that is more intuitive to drivers than the old method but also didn't require many expensive changes. While NDOT maintains a statewide mileage GIS file, exactly two roads in the state are posted with statewide mileage that differs from county mileage (I-80 and I-580). Every other Interstate is within a single county and only Interstates get statewide mileage, with every other road having mileage measured by county. In order to accurately place statewide mileage along other roads that cross county lines, you'd need to resurvey those roads. Surveying isn't cheap and we're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 centerline miles where the posted mileage would need to change (not including the first county along the road, which would remain the same). The net benefit of doing such isn't worth the cost.

The previous method, as with Caltrans' postmiles, was meant primarily for maintenance purposes and not really meant to be used by the motoring public. The newer enhanced milepost is more intuitive to drivers and specifically designed to give drivers more location information. I appreciate the redesign.

NDOT probably could have designed a county-based milepost reference sign more similar to MUTCD using white on green, but I do kinda like how the two systems use different colors. My only gripe with the enhanced milepost signs is the mileage number turned 90°. Except when you get to three digit mileages in a county (IIRC, something that only happens on US 95 in Clark and Nye Counties and US 93 in Lincoln County), two digits would seem to fit together right side up.


With that said, I could see a case for posting statewide mileage on at least the US highways... My drive between Reno and Las Vegas would be a little easier knowing the countdown/up to various milepoints along US 95, instead of trying to remember what the various county mileages are to figure out how far I am from a town, etc. But that would be a big task to implement–for one case: US 95 in Nevada is nearly 650 miles with over 500 miles of independent alignment, about 400 of which would need to be surveyed and mileposted independently from the existing county markers).

[vdeane]

With that said, I could see a case for posting statewide mileage on at least the US highways... My drive between Reno and Las Vegas would be a little easier knowing the countdown/up to various milepoints along US 95, instead of trying to remember what the various county mileages are to figure out how far I am from a town, etc. But that would be a big task to implement–for one case: US 95 in Nevada is nearly 650 miles with over 500 miles of independent alignment, about 400 of which would need to be surveyed and mileposted independently from the existing county markers).

Sounds like a good reason to finish I-11! 

[ethanhopkin14]

My wife and I recently drove US-95 from Las Vegas to the US-95/US-95A junction and were commenting on the county mile posts (my wife who is nowhere near a road nerd was actually intrigued and watching them).  My personal opinion, I hate the postmiles/county-based markers.  I understand in California they are more for internal purposes, but as I drive a highway and want to know about how much more time I have until my next break (because I am judging off the mile posts to my next major city/junction/rest area), the county milage does very little good for me calculating that.  In fact, it does make it much worse than having nothing posted at all, because now you have something posted that confuses everyone except though who actually know how many miles are in a given county.  I know I am in the minority on this forum when I say, I really don't give a crap about counties.  For work, I have to know what towns are in counties and what the seat of each county is, but as for driving, or actually being in the county, I don't care.  If my friend gets arrested in X town and wants me to bail him out, I need to know what county X town is in and what the seat of that county is so I can pick him up.  Thats the end of my use of counties in my non-work life, and it's not like I have had to do that.  I do like taking pictures of courthouses since the architecture is so amazing, so I guess I need to know what the seat of each county is, but that one can be obvious even if you don't know because some counties only have one town of significance. 

Unless you are driving south in the southernmost county in the state or west in the westernmost county of the state, or the county those roads end in going south or west, I find the postmiles useless for navigation.

[kkt]

They aren't supposed to be for navigation.  I hope Nevada still puts up occassional signs with distances to control cities.

[Scott5114]

Nevada's counties are bigger than many states, so I don't really see why mileage resetting at county lines is necessarily a problem unless you want it to be.