It's my understanding that Texas' Ranch Road 1, the old alignment of US 290 that leads to LBJ's ranch, is a separate designation from Ranch to Market Road 1. Is RR 1 signed with a typical RM shield, or does it use a white square like a park road?
No to both. The standard independent-mount Ranch Road shield is similar to a RM shield except the background is brown (not black) and "RANCH" to the upper left of the Texas state silhouette is replaced with a large "R." As far as I am aware, there is no standard guide-sign design. (There is no statewide standard design for either the independent-mount or guide-sign NASA 1 shields, either. They are covered by a Houston District standard.)
Quote from: J N Winkler on March 24, 2010, 11:37:19 AM
No to both. The standard independent-mount Ranch Road shield is similar to a RM shield except the background is brown (not black) and "RANCH" to the upper left of the Texas state silhouette is replaced with a large "R." As far as I am aware, there is no standard guide-sign design. (There is no statewide standard design for either the independent-mount or guide-sign NASA 1 shields, either. They are covered by a Houston District standard.)
the brown R Road shield you described is a Recreation Road, not a Ranch Road.
LBJ's ranch, as of a week or two ago, is signed with a standard Ranch Road 1 shield - Texas state outline.
I stand corrected.
It seems TxDOT eliminates the possibility of clash with a RM 1 simply by not having any RMs numbered between 1 and 10, and possibly not any RMs with a number less than 100. (As an aside, it is irritating not to be able to get a full route log for Texas state highways without making a rainbow table.)
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 24, 2010, 01:37:05 PM
Quote from: J N Winkler on March 24, 2010, 11:37:19 AM
No to both. The standard independent-mount Ranch Road shield is similar to a RM shield except the background is brown (not black) and "RANCH" to the upper left of the Texas state silhouette is replaced with a large "R." As far as I am aware, there is no standard guide-sign design. (There is no statewide standard design for either the independent-mount or guide-sign NASA 1 shields, either. They are covered by a Houston District standard.)
the brown R Road shield you described is a Recreation Road, not a Ranch Road.
LBJ's ranch, as of a week or two ago, is signed with a standard Ranch Road 1 shield - Texas state outline.
Did you visit the ranch when you went by? We stopped there in October - the historical working farm on the 290 side of the Perdenales was rather enjoyable as was the former entrance to the ranch where vehicles had to drive through the water at the dam.
Pretty sure there are FM's under 100. I always thought RM's and FM's were interchangeable, but I don't know why roads would be signed as one vs. the other.
Yes, there are several FM's under 100...I saw FM 75, FM 64, and FM 71 on a trip to East Texas two weekends ago.
QuotePretty sure there are FM's under 100. I always thought RM's and FM's were interchangeable, but I don't know why roads would be signed as one vs. the other.
It's a regional thing- south and southwest Texas is RM, the rest is FM. The claim on wikipedia is "west of US-281 is RM, east is FM" but that's just not true. I was pretty close to the actual line when I drove US-87 down to San Angelo- I saw a couple RMs that branched off US-87 south of I-20, but that was it. The panhandle is all FM. There's FMs in San Antonio, but RM country is just west of that. It looks like the Midland-Odessa area is RM (edit: actually it looks like I-20 is the divider there), but I'm not quite sure how north it goes, only that on US-87 north of I-20 everything was FM.
LBJ is the exception I think because his ranch is a ranch, not a farm.
Quote from: CanesFan27 on March 24, 2010, 03:59:22 PM
Did you visit the ranch when you went by? We stopped there in October - the historical working farm on the 290 side of the Perdenales was rather enjoyable as was the former entrance to the ranch where vehicles had to drive through the water at the dam.
I did not; I was kinda taking a beeline out of the Clearview state.
Quote from: AlpsROADS on March 24, 2010, 07:13:33 PM
Pretty sure there are FM's under 100. I always thought RM's and FM's were interchangeable, but I don't know why roads would be signed as one vs. the other.
There is an FM1. The FM/RM/UR set is a single system. If the number is an FM, there won't be an RM of that number and vice versa. UR is a continuation of one of the other two into urban areas. FM seems to be the default while RM is used regionally in places where ranching is (or was at some time) more prevalent.
--Andy
After playing with TxDOT's search engine for highway designation files, I have discovered how to obtain a complete listing of all designation files for a given route system. The lowest-numbered ranch-to-market road is RM 12. There are just four RM roads with numbers less than 100: RM 12, RM 32, RM 33, and RM 42. In total there are just 187 ranch-to-market roads, as opposed to 3641 farm-to-market roads. RM 3474 is the highest-numbered ranch-to-market road.
how do you get that listing? And can you give us similar statistics for the farm roads? Highest number, how many less than 100, etc?
I believe there is a farm road 69. At least, people have been ordering replicas of that from me with alarming frequency. Wonder what people in Texas do in their spare time...
Quote from: andytom on March 25, 2010, 01:07:16 AM
There is an FM1. The FM/RM/UR set is a single system. If the number is an FM, there won't be an RM of that number and vice versa. UR is a continuation of one of the other two into urban areas. FM seems to be the default while RM is used regionally in places where ranching is (or was at some time) more prevalent.
--Andy
are there any roads signed as urban road? I have seen only FM roads signed in downtown Houston where a cow would be an unlikely sight.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 25, 2010, 01:41:53 PM
are there any roads signed as urban road? I have seen only FM roads signed in downtown Houston where a cow would be an unlikely sight.
It's farm-to-
market. I for one would find it very likely to find steakeries or other places where fine cattle products are sold in downtown Houston. :-P
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 25, 2010, 01:33:37 PMhow do you get that listing? And can you give us similar statistics for the farm roads? Highest number, how many less than 100, etc?
The search form feeds the parameters of the search through the URL and I basically removed the parameters (including an expression of the form "is near [route number you type into the search box]") until I got a search open enough to include all routes on a given system. The specimen URL pattern is as follows:
http://www.dot.state.tx.us/tpp/search/query1.idq?Route=SH&CiScope=%2Ftpp%2Fhwy&CiMaxRecordsPerPage=1000&TemplateName=query1&CiSort=FileName+[a]&QueryText=SH&HTMLQueryForm=query.htm
Translation: List all routes on the SH system, up to 1000 hits per page.
Change SH to FM for Farm to Market roads, Urban Roads linked to FM designations, etc. (I haven't found a way to get the query program to accept a query which does not specify route system--if such a way existed, this would be useful for getting all the designation files linked to from a single Web page.)
There is indeed a FM 69:
http://www.dot.state.tx.us/tpp/hwy/fm/fm0069.htm
(I don't understand the popularity of "69" designations--it's not as if you can look in her eyes in that position, can you?)
It looks like there are 94 FM roads with designations less than 100. In addition to the four sub-100 RM designations which have no corresponding FM designation, there is no FM 79.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 25, 2010, 01:41:53 PMare there any roads signed as urban road? I have seen only FM roads signed in downtown Houston where a cow would be an unlikely sight.
AFAIK, TxDOT has never had a specific shield for Urban Routes, and those instead get the shields of the corresponding FM or RM route. There are Urban Route continuations for both FM and RM routes. It looks like the highest-numbered FM is FM 3549.
This said, a quick look at the full hits for the FM search turns up Urban Routes which have been created as such apparently
de novo--in other words, the designation orders don't mention FM or RM mileage which had to be turned into Urban Route mileage because it became built-up.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 25, 2010, 01:41:53 PM
Quote from: andytom on March 25, 2010, 01:07:16 AM
There is an FM1. The FM/RM/UR set is a single system. If the number is an FM, there won't be an RM of that number and vice versa. UR is a continuation of one of the other two into urban areas. FM seems to be the default while RM is used regionally in places where ranching is (or was at some time) more prevalent.
--Andy
are there any roads signed as urban road? I have seen only FM roads signed in downtown Houston where a cow would be an unlikely sight.
I heard from someone that TxDOT tried it with a shield other than the state outline and it was so hated by texans that they pulled them and left the old FM or RM shields in place. I guess texans like the state outline shield for their secondary hwy system shields.
--Andy
Quote from: andytom on March 25, 2010, 10:52:33 PM
I heard from someone that TxDOT tried it with a shield other than the state outline and it was so hated by texans that they pulled them and left the old FM or RM shields in place. I guess texans like the state outline shield for their secondary hwy system shields.
--Andy
I wonder if the Urban Road was just a boring square like Park Road... I'd hate it too.
Speaking of boring squares, do Texans love their primary route markers? that's one that needs to get changed. The 1921 lone star design has the number far too small, but this variant seems like it would work well today.
(//www.aaroads.com/shields/img/TX/TX19270771i1.jpg)
FM 1472 in Laredo (connecting to the Camino Columbia Toll Road is now an Urban Road, but last check they still had Farm Road 1472 shields up.
As for Texas, their FM shields are the best. Their BGS signs are the worst.
Their primary state route shields and BGS signs are boring.
It's nice to see in several places in Texas that they've put FM shields up on their BGSs but generally not overhead, just mounted off the side of the road (distance to exit BGS, etc)
Sykotyk
Here is the way it was explained to me. A rancher, primarily in West TX, does NOT want to be on a FARM Road.
He wants to be on a RANCH road, and as a big land owner WILL ask the DOT for a RANCH Road designation.
Quote from: okroads on March 24, 2010, 07:28:58 PM
Yes, there are several FM's under 100...I saw FM 75, FM 64, and FM 71 on a trip to East Texas two weekends ago.
To follow up on this; I saw a FM 1 in Sabine County today.
To follow up on this; I saw a FM 1 in Sabine County today.
[/quote]
Yep, it runs from Pineland in Sabine Co to TX 21 east of San Augustine
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 24, 2010, 01:37:05 PM
Quote from: J N Winkler on March 24, 2010, 11:37:19 AM
No to both. The standard independent-mount Ranch Road shield is similar to a RM shield except the background is brown (not black) and "RANCH" to the upper left of the Texas state silhouette is replaced with a large "R." As far as I am aware, there is no standard guide-sign design. (There is no statewide standard design for either the independent-mount or guide-sign NASA 1 shields, either. They are covered by a Houston District standard.)
the brown R Road shield you described is a Recreation Road, not a Ranch Road.
LBJ's ranch, as of a week or two ago, is signed with a standard Ranch Road 1 shield - Texas state outline.
Yeah, cause I've been on a Recreation Road that goes to Lake Ivie, near San Angelo, those shields are brown, and I've also been on some down by Amistad Reservoir. And then there's several Ranch to Market roads around San Angelo, the shields look alike accept for the words...
BigMatt