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Per capita state highway mileage

Started by Duke87, January 13, 2013, 09:31:12 PM

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Duke87

I had been musing about how New Jersey has very few state highways, and had commented that it probably has the lowest per capita state highway mileage in the nation. Well, today I had some time and so I decided to research this. I went on over to CHM and pulled the total number of clinchable miles for each state and compared it to the population. I included US and Interstate highways and "state named freeways" in this (they're also signed by the states so why not).

Now, not all states have their state highways on CHM yet, so the data is incomplete. And we all know that "signed as a state highway" and "state maintained" are not the same thing - both categories segments of road which are not in the other. This, due to how CHM does things, goes by the former, but it's probably a safe assumption that with a couple notable exceptions (Pennsylvania and Virginia both have shitloads of unsigned state-maintained roads), the relative proportions would still be roughly the same if we went by the latter.

Anyways, here's what I've got:


As expected, New Jersey has the lowest figure in the US (except for DC, but that doesn't count). And, unsurprisingly, there also is a noticeable inverse correlation between population density and miles per capita.


If you always take the same road, you will never see anything new.


ap70621

You have to remember though, that in some states, the state DOT maintains just about everything. New Jersey however has it's state highway system and that is supplemented by a very extensive county highway system that acts as a second state network.

cpzilliacus

Quote from: ap70621 on January 13, 2013, 09:47:39 PM
You have to remember though, that in some states, the state DOT maintains just about everything. New Jersey however has it's state highway system and that is supplemented by a very extensive county highway system that acts as a second state network.

That's correct.  Consider states like Virginia and North Carolina, where most roads are state-maintained, even the secondaries.   Strangely, this applies to the District of Columbia as well, because DDOT (the "state" DOT) maintains very nearly all small streets, though the federal government, in the form of the National Park Service and the Architect of the Capitol, also maintain some parts of the D.C. street system.

Maryland only maintains the numbered highways.  Most of that network is maintained by the State Highway Administration, though the Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA) maintains the "toll" network (not all of which is tolled).  And Baltimore City maintains all roads and streets within its corporate limits except for I-95, I-395, I-695 and I-895 - all segments of those freeways that are in the city are maintained by MdTA.
Opinions expressed here on AAROADS are strictly personal and mine alone, and do not reflect policies or positions of MWCOG, NCRTPB or their member federal, state, county and municipal governments or any other agency.

NE2

pre-1945 Florida route log

I accept and respect your identity as long as it's not dumb shit like "identifying as a vaccinated attack helicopter".

Kacie Jane

Quote from: NE2 on January 13, 2013, 10:26:03 PM
No need to do the calculations: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2009/hm10.cfm (don't forget to add urban and rural)

The only problem I'd see with using that chart is how much of the "other jurisdictions" mileage you'd want to include.  Though I'd imagine it'd typically be most/all.

webfil

#5
Québec has 29,301 kilometres (18,206.8 mi) of province-maintained highways for a ratio of 23.04 mi/10k pop. Note that, like most provinces, it has no county routes system (though Prairies have numbered township roads), so one road is either municipal (most), provincial (less) or federal (least).

Bickendan

I find Yukon's per 10k figure to be interesting. Even once every field's been entered, I imagine Yukon will still have the highest figure in that column.

cpzilliacus

Quote from: webfil on January 14, 2013, 01:17:01 AM
Québec has 29,301 kilometres (18,206.8 mi) of province-maintained highways for a ratio of 23.04 mi/10k pop. Note that, like most provinces, it has no county routes system (though Prairies have numbered township roads), so one road is either municipal, provincial or federal.

Ridings are not counties (or county-equivilants) in Canada, right? 

Or are they?

Or are they just what some U.S. states call election districts?
Opinions expressed here on AAROADS are strictly personal and mine alone, and do not reflect policies or positions of MWCOG, NCRTPB or their member federal, state, county and municipal governments or any other agency.

webfil

#8
Ridings are election districts. They commonly translate into "comté" or county in french-speaking Canada, but I do not know why ― they probably bore the same boundaries at some point in history.

There are actually supralocal subdivisions, which naming and powers vary from a province to another. For example, Ontario counties have a road network, but it is not in a Québec MRC's jurisdiction to own and maintain roads.

Nova Scotia, PEI, New Brunswick have plain counties. Ontario have census subdivisions that can take the form of counties, regional municipalities, districts, etc., while Québec has administrative regions that subdivide into regional county municipalities (MRC), agglomerations, extra-MRC municipalities (such as Indian reserves, municipalities in an agglomeration, etc.) and municipalities with powers of a MRC (large territories containing several localities such as Laval, Mirabel, Côte-Nord-du-Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent, Baie-James, etc.).

Newfoundland & Labrador, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have census subdivisions, although I doubt there is any form of supralocal administration.

British Columbia, Northwest Territories and Nunavut Territory have regions or regional districts.

Yukon Territory has no upper-tier subdivision.

english si

Riding mean 'a third'  (or do back this side of the world, in places with Old Norse influence), and in English English, they refer to 'a third of a county' (specifically Yorkshire and also Lindsey - one of the three 'parts' of Lincolnshire, though oddly Tipperary in Ireland was split into two ridings in the mid-1800s). The thorn at the beginning of thriding (as we'd have now spelt it in the Latin alphabet) was transliterated into t when making it Latin, and then dropped over time. Farthing is the divide-in-to-four equivalent - for instance the four medieval divisions of Iceland (or the divisions of The Shire), or the coin worth a quarter of a penny.

From wikipedia on French Canadian translation of the word: "In colloquial Canadian French, a riding is confusingly known as comté, i.e., "county", as the electoral districts in Quebec were historically identical to its counties; the official French term is circonscription."

And speaking of county subdivisions, be glad that the Canadians recycled the Yorkshire word: Sussex had 6 'rapes'.

Duke87

Going by who maintains the road rather than what it's signed as, based on the numbers in NE2's link:


New Jersey is still at the bottom. At the top is... West Virginia, where 89.41% of all road mileage is state maintained. Huh, who knew?
If you always take the same road, you will never see anything new.

corco

#11
Whoa... that link is amazing. Except I have trouble believing that Arizona has more highway mileage than Wyoming. Haven driven the entirety of both systems and Washington's, Wyoming's was a beast to drive and Arizona's was pretty simple. Washington's seemed very close to Wyoming's.

I mean, I have no reason to doubt that the FHWA is right on that, but that really blows my mind.

NE2

pre-1945 Florida route log

I accept and respect your identity as long as it's not dumb shit like "identifying as a vaccinated attack helicopter".

J N Winkler

Quote from: corco on January 14, 2013, 09:37:26 PMWhoa... that link is amazing. Except I have trouble believing that Arizona has more highway mileage than Wyoming. Haven driven the entirety of both systems and Washington's, Wyoming's was a beast to drive and Arizona's was pretty simple. Washington's seemed very close to Wyoming's.

For me the real surprise was that Washington came so close to Arizona and Wyoming in terms of state highway mileage--I would have expected Washington to be another 10,000-mile state like Kansas, with all the suburban state highways in the Seattle vicinity making up for the mileage deficits in the empty-square country east of the Cascades.

New Mexico tipping the scales at almost 12,000 miles was another mild surprise.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

oscar

Quote from: webfil on January 14, 2013, 10:17:12 AM
Newfoundland & Labrador, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have census subdivisions, although I doubt there is any form of supralocal administration.

Alberta definitely has counties and other county-equivalents (including some independent cities like Virginia only not so many, province-run "special areas" in some of the more rural areas, and uninhabited "improvement districts" in national or provincial parks).
my Hot Springs and Highways pages, with links to my roads sites:
http://www.alaskaroads.com/home.html

webfil

Yes indeed, there are administrative subdivisions called counties in Alberta, but I understand they are more local municipalities rather than supra-local governments, as there is a single level of local administration throughout Alberta.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipal_districts_in_Alberta

corco

QuotePart of the apparent difference may be because Arizona has 450 miles more Interstate than Wyoming, and Wyoming has a lot of minor spurs.

That must be it- I had to drive a lot of Wyoming in both directions because so much of the highway system dead-ends. Arizona was a lot more efficient.

oscar

Quote from: webfil on January 14, 2013, 10:45:16 PM
Yes indeed, there are administrative subdivisions called counties in Alberta, but I understand they are more local municipalities rather than supra-local governments, as there is a single level of local administration throughout Alberta.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipal_districts_in_Alberta

I was just contrasting Alberta with Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which have only census divisions and aren't otherwise carved up into local/regional areas used for local/regional/other sub-provincial governance.  Certainly Alberta has county-level administration offices (I visited the one in Vulcan County, and photographed the one in Special Area No. 3), and county-line signs posted on roads, while Saskatchewan and Manitoba seem to have neither. 

If Alberta has just one level of local administration, that makes it just like Hawaii, which has no local governments below the county level.
my Hot Springs and Highways pages, with links to my roads sites:
http://www.alaskaroads.com/home.html

agentsteel53

okay, I'll bite.  who maintains the remainder of the DC roads which are not maintained by DC?

also, really, so many percent of all roads are state highways?  here I had thought that the number of small residential streets would be incredibly high compared to the number of through routes. 
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

Road Hog

Quote from: english si on January 14, 2013, 12:47:52 PM
Riding mean 'a third'  (or do back this side of the world, in places with Old Norse influence), and in English English, they refer to 'a third of a county' (specifically Yorkshire and also Lindsey - one of the three 'parts' of Lincolnshire, though oddly Tipperary in Ireland was split into two ridings in the mid-1800s). The thorn at the beginning of thriding (as we'd have now spelt it in the Latin alphabet) was transliterated into t when making it Latin, and then dropped over time. Farthing is the divide-in-to-four equivalent - for instance the four medieval divisions of Iceland (or the divisions of The Shire), or the coin worth a quarter of a penny.

From wikipedia on French Canadian translation of the word: "In colloquial Canadian French, a riding is confusingly known as comté, i.e., "county", as the electoral districts in Quebec were historically identical to its counties; the official French term is circonscription."

And speaking of county subdivisions, be glad that the Canadians recycled the Yorkshire word: Sussex had 6 'rapes'.

That's interesting. I always thought "riding" came from the course a Canadian MP had to ride on a horse to campaign back in the day.

cpzilliacus

Quote from: agentsteel53 on January 15, 2013, 12:53:36 PM
okay, I'll bite.  who maintains the remainder of the DC roads which are not maintained by DC?

As I said above, the federal government.

The National Park Service maintains several sections of the D.C. street system around and near the National Mall.  The two biggest of those being Constitution Avenue, N.W. and Independence Avenue, S.W. west of about 14th Street.

A long section of Constitution Avenue, N.W. (including that segment under NPS maintenance) is also U.S. 50.

NPS also maintains all of the roads within the D.C. part of Rock Creek Park, the largest of which is the Rock Creek Parkway (4 lanes).   

The Architect of the Capitol maintains the streets that are near the  Capitol itself, and around the Senate and House office buildings.

The Department of Defense (I think) informally maintains a few short sections of D.C. streets that lead directly to one of the several military bases within the city, such as the Washington Navy Yard, Joint Base Anacostia Bolling (JBAB, a Navy base), the Naval Research Laboratory, Fort McNair (Army), the Marine Corps Barracks at 8th and I Streets, S.E. and the Naval Observatory (where the official Vice Presidential residence is located).
Opinions expressed here on AAROADS are strictly personal and mine alone, and do not reflect policies or positions of MWCOG, NCRTPB or their member federal, state, county and municipal governments or any other agency.

cpzilliacus

Quote from: english si on January 14, 2013, 12:47:52 PM
Riding mean 'a third'  (or do back this side of the world, in places with Old Norse influence), and in English English, they refer to 'a third of a county' (specifically Yorkshire and also Lindsey - one of the three 'parts' of Lincolnshire, though oddly Tipperary in Ireland was split into two ridings in the mid-1800s). The thorn at the beginning of thriding (as we'd have now spelt it in the Latin alphabet) was transliterated into t when making it Latin, and then dropped over time. Farthing is the divide-in-to-four equivalent - for instance the four medieval divisions of Iceland (or the divisions of The Shire), or the coin worth a quarter of a penny.

From wikipedia on French Canadian translation of the word: "In colloquial Canadian French, a riding is confusingly known as comté, i.e., "county", as the electoral districts in Quebec were historically identical to its counties; the official French term is circonscription."

And speaking of county subdivisions, be glad that the Canadians recycled the Yorkshire word: Sussex had 6 'rapes'.

Curiously, when  I think of older-style low-level subdivisions, I think of "hundreds," common in the British colonies that were destined to become the United States.  There's an Old Hundred Road in my home county (Montgomery County, Maryland). 

And "hundreds" were somewhat common in some of the Nordic nations as well.
Opinions expressed here on AAROADS are strictly personal and mine alone, and do not reflect policies or positions of MWCOG, NCRTPB or their member federal, state, county and municipal governments or any other agency.

NE2

Quote from: cpzilliacus on January 15, 2013, 01:13:08 PM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on January 15, 2013, 12:53:36 PM
okay, I'll bite.  who maintains the remainder of the DC roads which are not maintained by DC?

As I said above, the federal government.
Er no. DC has two nonzero columns, "federal agency" and "other jurisdictions".
pre-1945 Florida route log

I accept and respect your identity as long as it's not dumb shit like "identifying as a vaccinated attack helicopter".



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