Indiana highway reroutes

[dvferyance]

SR 252 is scheduled to be decommissioned after it is reconstructed between I-65 and SR 9

I'd actually be kinda okay with that decommissioning.

It's not as bad as some of the other decommissionings like splitting up IN-26 IN -44 IN-267 ect that was just so idiotic. But they have decommissioned so much soon there will be nothing left.

[NWI_Irish96]

SR 252 is scheduled to be decommissioned after it is reconstructed between I-65 and SR 9

I'd actually be kinda okay with that decommissioning.

It's not as bad as some of the other decommissionings like splitting up IN-26 IN -44 IN-267 ect that was just so idiotic. But they have decommissioned so much soon there will be nothing left.

Turning local roads over to local control makes sense.
Not having roads under local control signed as state highways makes sense.

Yet when you combine the two together, you get a state highway network that does not make sense.

Not sure what the solution is

[silverback1065]

SR 252 is scheduled to be decommissioned after it is reconstructed between I-65 and SR 9

I'd actually be kinda okay with that decommissioning.

It's not as bad as some of the other decommissionings like splitting up IN-26 IN -44 IN-267 ect that was just so idiotic. But they have decommissioned so much soon there will be nothing left.

Turning local roads over to local control makes sense.
Not having roads under local control signed as state highways makes sense.

Yet when you combine the two together, you get a state highway network that does not make sense.

Not sure what the solution is

Business routes or "to SR XX" signage all maintained but the lpa

[westerninterloper]

SR 252 is scheduled to be decommissioned after it is reconstructed between I-65 and SR 9

I'd actually be kinda okay with that decommissioning.

It's not as bad as some of the other decommissionings like splitting up IN-26 IN -44 IN-267 ect that was just so idiotic. But they have decommissioned so much soon there will be nothing left.

Turning local roads over to local control makes sense.
Not having roads under local control signed as state highways makes sense.

Yet when you combine the two together, you get a state highway network that does not make sense.

Not sure what the solution is

Business routes or "to SR XX" signage all maintained but the lpa

There are a lot of ways these routes could be marked - particularly the ones that go into or through towns/cities. As others have mentioned, business routes are the most common. There could also be Historic routes, Alternative Routes, Emergency Routes, and some cities like Fremont, Ohio have "City Routes" on old federal and state highways that have been moved to bypasses.

[cjw2001]

In the age of Internet mapping and navigation services does it really matter what the road is called?

[tdindy88]

A lot of people don't use such devices every day and Indiana does have a slightly older population that may not be as savvy with phones or computers (there are many though who are even in that group.) I have a friend who lives off of former SR 267 in Avon and had to redirect his friend one night who had driven US 36 west out of Indy and ended up past Danville before being directed back toward Avon and told to find "Avon Avenue." Needless to say, my friend and I would imagine many people have never referred to that highway was Avon Avenue. Some road names like Washington Street (former US 40) or Meridian Street (US 31) have standing power because they were from the original city plan for Indianapolis. But a Whitestown Parkway, Campus Parkway, Sagamore Parkway or Avon Avenue, with the exception of maybe the Sagamore I would guess they aren't household names yet.

[dvferyance]

SR 252 is scheduled to be decommissioned after it is reconstructed between I-65 and SR 9

I'd actually be kinda okay with that decommissioning.

It's not as bad as some of the other decommissionings like splitting up IN-26 IN -44 IN-267 ect that was just so idiotic. But they have decommissioned so much soon there will be nothing left.

Turning local roads over to local control makes sense.
Not having roads under local control signed as state highways makes sense.

Yet when you combine the two together, you get a state highway network that does not make sense.

Not sure what the solution is

Simple solution turn the road over but keep the signs up. That way motorist won't be confused. It makes perfect sense.

[NWI_Irish96]

SR 252 is scheduled to be decommissioned after it is reconstructed between I-65 and SR 9

I'd actually be kinda okay with that decommissioning.

It's not as bad as some of the other decommissionings like splitting up IN-26 IN -44 IN-267 ect that was just so idiotic. But they have decommissioned so much soon there will be nothing left.

Turning local roads over to local control makes sense.
Not having roads under local control signed as state highways makes sense.

Yet when you combine the two together, you get a state highway network that does not make sense.

Not sure what the solution is

Simple solution turn the road over but keep the signs up. That way motorist won't be confused. It makes perfect sense.

First of all, who maintains the signs?  If INDOT no longer maintains the roads, the very likely won't check on the condition of the signage. 

Secondly, drivers need to know who is responsible for a road when reporting road conditions.  If some signed roads are INDOT but others aren't, drivers won't know where to report problems. 

[theline]

SR 252 is scheduled to be decommissioned after it is reconstructed between I-65 and SR 9

I'd actually be kinda okay with that decommissioning.

It's not as bad as some of the other decommissionings like splitting up IN-26 IN -44 IN-267 ect that was just so idiotic. But they have decommissioned so much soon there will be nothing left.

Turning local roads over to local control makes sense.
Not having roads under local control signed as state highways makes sense.

Yet when you combine the two together, you get a state highway network that does not make sense.

Not sure what the solution is

Simple solution turn the road over but keep the signs up. That way motorist won't be confused. It makes perfect sense.

First of all, who maintains the signs?  If INDOT no longer maintains the roads, the very likely won't check on the condition of the signage. 

Secondly, drivers need to know who is responsible for a road when reporting road conditions.  If some signed roads are INDOT but others aren't, drivers won't know where to report problems.

The point about maintaining the signs is well worth consideration.

Regarding reporting road conditions, could we taxpayers hope that the agencies communicate with each other? Even as things stand now, I'm sure that many (most?) citizens draw no distinction between INDOT, the county road department and city street department, with little awareness of who maintains what. The people who work for those departments should know the distinction and should be able to route complaints to the right place.

[dvferyance]

SR 252 is scheduled to be decommissioned after it is reconstructed between I-65 and SR 9

I'd actually be kinda okay with that decommissioning.

It's not as bad as some of the other decommissionings like splitting up IN-26 IN -44 IN-267 ect that was just so idiotic. But they have decommissioned so much soon there will be nothing left.

Turning local roads over to local control makes sense.
Not having roads under local control signed as state highways makes sense.

Yet when you combine the two together, you get a state highway network that does not make sense.

Not sure what the solution is

Simple solution turn the road over but keep the signs up. That way motorist won't be confused. It makes perfect sense.

First of all, who maintains the signs?  If INDOT no longer maintains the roads, the very likely won't check on the condition of the signage. 

Secondly, drivers need to know who is responsible for a road when reporting road conditions.  If some signed roads are INDOT but others aren't, drivers won't know where to report problems.

Signs have to be replaced like what? Once every 25 years big deal. Not to mention the cost of replacing sings are very minimal. It makes perfect sense no more illogical split up routes and no more drivers getting lost or confused trying to find a route that isn't there. As far as who maintains what I don't think most drivers even give one thought about it. And even if they do finding out isn't hard at all.

[billtm]

A lot of people don't use such devices every day and Indiana does have a slightly older population that may not be as savvy with phones or computers (there are many though who are even in that group.) I have a friend who lives off of former SR 267 in Avon and had to redirect his friend one night who had driven US 36 west out of Indy and ended up past Danville before being directed back toward Avon and told to find "Avon Avenue." Needless to say, my friend and I would imagine many people have never referred to that highway was Avon Avenue. Some road names like Washington Street (former US 40) or Meridian Street (US 31) have standing power because they were from the original city plan for Indianapolis. But a Whitestown Parkway, Campus Parkway, Sagamore Parkway or Avon Avenue, with the exception of maybe the Sagamore I would guess they aren't household names yet.

Sagamore is barely a household name. About half of the kids I talk to in my school know the road is called that, and for most of them "52" is still the primary name in their heads.

I feel like the state should allow people at the local level to rebuild/build state roads, but maintenance should be taken care of by the states. These shared state roads would be repaved, lined, and signed by the state but any major reconstruction could be taken care of by the city/county. This would be the best of both worlds, the route will be signed and the state can save money. Under this system US 52 would be taken care of, and CR-17 in Elkhart could become part of the state road system. And for those roads that won't be rebuilt, they can be signed as business routes if the former routing is unclear. I bet there are some flaws to this idea, but to me this seems perfect.

[cjw2001]

Or we could just move on and accept that these are no longer state highways.

[paulthemapguy]

Guys.
Every road is under some public jurisdiction.  State, municipal, county, or township.  Whoever has jurisdiction of the road will be in charge of maintaining the signs as well.

[dvferyance]

Or we could just move on and accept that these are no longer state highways.

Your perfectly fine with routes being split up? It makes no sense to me and it does lead to problems.

[billtm]

Or we could just move on and accept that these are no longer state highways.

Your perfectly fine with routes being split up? It makes no sense to me and it does lead to problems.

Amen! Not everyone in the world has a GPS, and numbers are often easier to work with than names for those new to an area. Also, when giving directions, it is much simpler if I can tell someone to follow a numbered route through a city instead of naming all the streets that the route takes the name of.

[cjw2001]

Or we could just move on and accept that these are no longer state highways.

Your perfectly fine with routes being split up? It makes no sense to me and it does lead to problems.

Yes I'm perfectly fine with it.   Just because it once existed doesn't mean it always has to exist.  I'm more than happy for the state to spend my tax dollars on the highways that make sense to maintain long term, and stop spending them on those that don't.   Once they aren't maintaining those roads they are no longer state highways and should no longer have state highway numbers.

[dfwmapper]

One solution would be to differentiate between state routes and state roads. State roads being the physical surfaces that are owned and maintained by the state, while state routes are the numbered designations that run along both those state roads and other roads owned and maintained by cities and counties. Routes remain continuous even when road ownership changes, although they can be moved to different alignments to improve traffic flow if the state and local governments agree to it. Require city and county governments to maintain roads carrying state routes to certain minimum standards (e.g. sufficient turning radii for trucks) but otherwise let them make design decisions. State provides the signage but leaves it up to the locals to install.

[PurdueBill]

Or we could just move on and accept that these are no longer state highways.

Your perfectly fine with routes being split up? It makes no sense to me and it does lead to problems.

Yes I'm perfectly fine with it.   Just because it once existed doesn't mean it always has to exist.  I'm more than happy for the state to spend my tax dollars on the highways that make sense to maintain long term, and stop spending them on those that don't.   Once they aren't maintaining those roads they are no longer state highways and should no longer have state highway numbers.

Numbered routes are the modern equivalent of blazed trails--would you want to have the blazes stop because jurisdiction changes for a tract of land?  Sure there is GPS, but GPS is not GOD. It screws up, it isn't updated sometimes, etc. etc. etc.

Motorists don't care if it's INDOT, Tippecanoe County, Lafayette, or West Lafayette that owns the roadway.  What they care about is something like being able to follow SR 25 (or SR 26) through without it turning into worrying about the GPS saying south on Schuyler Ave, south on Sagamore Parkway North, south on Sagamore Parkway South, west on Teal Road (well, now west on US 52, if it knows that), south on South 4th Street, and so on, just to get to the other part of SR 25.  Why interrupt the route number just because of who owns the pavement?  If GPS is going to route people that way anyway (and if locals and onetime locals like me still go that way), there isn't any significant reduction in traffic volume by removing the route number.  It's entirely a paperwork thing to insist on removing shields because the state gave the road to the county or city. 

Telling people to stay on South Street isn't easy when the signs for it are perpendicular to the traffic, facing intersecting roadways.  That is where shields for the road you are actually on come into play.  Telling someone how to get from Meijer on the east side of Lafayette to the Purdue campus used to be easy--take 26 west.  Now it's slightly less easy--take South Street until the five-way corner past the Walgreens, bear right onto Main, then left on Columbia, follow that across the river and now it's State Street but you wouldn't know it easily, follow up the hill.  Easier with route numbers for sure.  Not impossible, but it is illogical that 26 magically reappears on the other side of town at US 231/52.

INDOT could leave the signage for the route numbers; there are states like Massachusetts that run state route numbers (and even US route numbers) over city and town roads.  Sure makes navigating easier, and THAT is the point of the route numbers--navigation, NOT indicating who owns the pavement and is responsible for maintenance.

[mukade]

The best solution given INDOT will be turning back so many miles of roads is to provide signage (trailblazer or state route) on newly decommissioned sections for a period of time. Still, I don't think it is a huge issue if they don't - this is mainly a reflection of an evolution of technology, budgets, and the way we travel.

Here are some thoughts:
- The state roads being decommissioned are generally not ones that would carry much inter-city traffic. SR 26 and SR 25 in Lafayette and SR 22 in Kokomo are two typical examples. I bet less than 1% of the traffic on those roads is thru traffic.
- I am not a GPS navigation person, but I don't think I have ever gotten lost when I decide to not follow a state highway in an unfamiliar city. I try to look at maps before I travel, and navigating city streets is really no harder than navigating state highways. For GPS users, and there are many of them, the main issue is when the navigation system is not up-to-date so that the road name references are old. Otherwise, they're all set, and this method of navigation will only become more common.
- The current or former state highway routing is not necessarily better than alternate routes. For example, 146th Street in Hamilton County is a better route across the county than SR 32 so defaulting to using state roads as a crutch is not always a good thing.
- The issue of discontinuous numbers or names has always existed in some cities and counties. For example, in Howard County, CR 300S becomes Center Road only to pick up as CR 300S again. Fort Wayne/Allen County has streets that change names when crossing township lines. For example, Mapelcrest Rd. is the same road as Adams Center Rd. and Marion Center Rd. and Washington Center Rd. is the same as St. Joe Center Rd., Irving Rd, and Maumee Center Rd. County road names always change at county lines. So the discontinuous state roads aren't any more confusing that those examples.
- When major locally-controlled thoroughfares in a city are improved, would the state highway signage move? Or would they stay on the old state road routing forever?

Maybe we just learn to deal with this new reality.

[english si]

As far as who maintains what I don't think most drivers even give one thought about it. And even if they do finding out isn't hard at all.

This. A million times this.

In the UK, while you might have a few strategically placed signs on trunk roads (almost always placed by the DBFO* or franchised contractors operating/maintaining the road on behalf of the trunk road body saying that they maintain it), there's usually no way of knowing who maintains the road, be it Highways England, Transport for London**, Transport Wales, Transport Scotland or a local council***.

France's frequent divestment of N roads has created much annoyance as ancient routes loose their iconic number, even among the French, despite departments renumbering them in ways that preserve the number in the new D road number. Norway just change shield colour, and there are lots of mistakes where new signs use the wrong colour shield, and lots of old signs not changed at the decommission. Both strike me as stupid. Remove numbers wholly gone, sure, but where a city has taken over a short middle section, either reroute the state highway on state highway system routes around the city (eg Layfayette for IN25 and IN26), or leave the signs up.


*Design, Build, Finance and Operate.
**It doesn't help that the borough councils don't always sign their boundaries, and that TfL maintain every signallised junction in London. Though it should be the easiest as TfL roads are Red Routes, with red lines along the edge rather than the standard yellow ones to indicate 'no parking' or 'no waiting'.
***Whose boundaries get tweaked frequently, new top-level councils created, etc. And this is before we deal with the incoming Combined Authorities that will further complicate things.

[silverback1065]

The best solution given INDOT will be turning back so many miles of roads is to provide signage (trailblazer or state route) on newly decommissioned sections for a period of time. Still, I don't think it is a huge issue if they don't - this is mainly a reflection of an evolution of technology, budgets, and the way we travel.

Here are some thoughts:
- The state roads being decommissioned are generally not ones that would carry much inter-city traffic. SR 26 and SR 25 in Lafayette and SR 22 in Kokomo are two typical examples. I bet less than 1% of the traffic on those roads is thru traffic.
- I am not a GPS navigation person, but I don't think I have ever gotten lost when I decide to not follow a state highway in an unfamiliar city. I try to look at maps before I travel, and navigating city streets is really no harder than navigating state highways. For GPS users, and there are many of them, the main issue is when the navigation system is not up-to-date so that the road name references are old. Otherwise, they're all set, and this method of navigation will only become more common.
- The current or former state highway routing is not necessarily better than alternate routes. For example, 146th Street in Hamilton County is a better route across the county than SR 32 so defaulting to using state roads as a crutch is not always a good thing.
- The issue of discontinuous numbers or names has always existed in some cities and counties. For example, in Howard County, CR 300S becomes Center Road only to pick up as CR 300S again. Fort Wayne/Allen County has streets that change names when crossing township lines. For example, Mapelcrest Rd. is the same road as Adams Center Rd. and Marion Center Rd. and Washington Center Rd. is the same as St. Joe Center Rd., Irving Rd, and Maumee Center Rd. County road names always change at county lines. So the discontinuous state roads aren't any more confusing that those examples.
- When major locally-controlled thoroughfares in a city are improved, would the state highway signage move? Or would they stay on the old state road routing forever?

Maybe we just learn to deal with this new reality.

All valid points, in my own experience I have driven in an unfamiliar city before and was able to navigate through following a posted us route. I don't use gps ever (just don't want to), so in these situations it's nice to have a numbered route to get you through the city.