Worst state highway system

[hotdogPi]

I don't think single-county state routes should exist in most cases

MA 114?

[tq-07fan]

I am heavily in favor of smaller state highway systems. Dirt roads, or de facto dirt roads, shouldn't be state highways (with Alaska being the exception). Putting a brand new shield on a city street or parkway doesn't help anyone - though exceptions can be made for segments of major cross-country routes, or historic routes. I don't think single-county state routes should exist in most cases, with the exceptions being short freeways (WI-172, WI-441) or spurs to important attractions/destinations (MT-64).

It sure helps out a lot to put a shield on a city street if you drive a large vehicle. I drive buses and when we do change-offs (take a good bus to replace a bad one) or a substitutions we are allowed to use the route we think will be the fastest route, but one that a bus can to operate on. OH 264 is Glenway Ave in the city of Cincinnati then turns onto Bridgetown Rd in the county. It's been years ago but one evening I had to take a bus from Western Hills to Addyston Ohio. I took 264 just because it's a state route so I knew I'd have no problem with clearances or weight restrictions, even though I had never actually driven 264 in anything. I learned pretty early on that not all unknown roads are good for buses, in particularly in an area as hilly as Cincinnati and Hamilton County is so the shields help.

I also can say that before I lived here I was able to negotiate Cincinnati by following the shields for OH 561 to a job Interview. I like having state routes in cities, I think it helps for giving directions too.

Jim

[SkyPesos]

It sure helps out a lot to put a shield on a city street if you drive a large vehicle. I drive buses and when we do change-offs (take a good bus to replace a bad one) or a substitutions we are allowed to use the route we think will be the fastest route, but one that a bus can to operate on. OH 264 is Glenway Ave in the city of Cincinnati then turns onto Bridgetown Rd in the county. It's been years ago but one evening I had to take a bus from Western Hills to Addyston Ohio. I took 264 just because it's a state route so I knew I'd have no problem with clearances or weight restrictions, even though I had never actually driven 264 in anything. I learned pretty early on that not all unknown roads are good for buses, in particularly in an area as hilly as Cincinnati and Hamilton County is so the shields help.

I also can say that before I lived here I was able to negotiate Cincinnati by following the shields for OH 561 to a job Interview. I like having state routes in cities, I think it helps for giving directions too.

Jim

I forget OH 264 exists unless I'm actually on it, which is very rare. It's not signed on any BGS at all from both I-71 and I-75; only US 50 is signed.

And OH 561 makes way too many turns on its route that I lost track of them while driving on it. I guess this is why city street state routes exist. Here's a list of them from a look at google maps, from south to north:
- starts at junction with US 50/OH 32/OH 125
- slight left at some weird intersection with Delta Ave
- left from Linwood Ave to Observatory Ave
- right from Observatory Ave to Edwards Rd
- left from Edwards Rd to Edmonson Rd, which continues as Smith Rd after intersection with I-71 ramps
- left from Smith Rd to Maple Ave
- right from Maple Ave to Montgomery Rd (US 22/OH 3)
- junction with OH 562 while on Montgomery Rd
- left from Montgomery Rd to Ross Ave
- right from Ross Ave to Carthage Ave, which changes name to Seymour Ave mid way
- ends at junction with OH 4, with ramps to I-75

[US 89]

My experience with route numbers on surface streets in large metropolitan areas is that nobody uses them to navigate. Everyone in Atlanta knows where Piedmont Rd is, but you'll get a blank "WTF?" stare if you tell them to take GA 237.

The one possible exception is if it's a US highway that follows the same road for a long time - most people seem to understand that Santa Fe Drive in Denver is also US 85, or that State Street in Salt Lake is US 89. This seems to be less of a thing in Atlanta but that's probably more due to the large number of concurrencies and turns on the US highways there.

[kphoger]

I drive buses and when we do change-offs (take a good bus to replace a bad one) or a substitutions we are allowed to use the route we think will be the fastest route, but one that a bus can to operate on. OH 264 is Glenway Ave in the city of Cincinnati then turns onto Bridgetown Rd in the county. It's been years ago but one evening I had to take a bus from Western Hills to Addyston Ohio. I took 264 just because it's a state route so I knew I'd have no problem with clearances or weight restrictions, even though I had never actually driven 264 in anything. I learned pretty early on that not all unknown roads are good for buses, in particularly in an area as hilly as Cincinnati and Hamilton County is so the shields help.

Heh.  I was once on a Greyhound bus approaching Chicago from the south.  This was a run that made stops at a couple of minor stations along the way before getting to downtown.  At one point, the driver looked back and asked the passengers what the best way was to the station!  A couple of guys moved up to the front row and gave him turn-by-turn directions.

[tq-07fan]

I drive buses and when we do change-offs (take a good bus to replace a bad one) or a substitutions we are allowed to use the route we think will be the fastest route, but one that a bus can to operate on. OH 264 is Glenway Ave in the city of Cincinnati then turns onto Bridgetown Rd in the county. It's been years ago but one evening I had to take a bus from Western Hills to Addyston Ohio. I took 264 just because it's a state route so I knew I'd have no problem with clearances or weight restrictions, even though I had never actually driven 264 in anything. I learned pretty early on that not all unknown roads are good for buses, in particularly in an area as hilly as Cincinnati and Hamilton County is so the shields help.

Heh.  I was once on a Greyhound bus approaching Chicago from the south.  This was a run that made stops at a couple of minor stations along the way before getting to downtown.  At one point, the driver looked back and asked the passengers what the best way was to the station!  A couple of guys moved up to the front row and gave him turn-by-turn directions.

I've gave directions to a Greyhound driver to get the station in Middletown Ohio when it had one. I have had also to ask passengers for clarification when I was driving routes that come out of our other garage or if it's been years since I drove a particular route from my own. I guess I paid it forward on the Greyhound!

Jim

[ahj2000]

In quality alone, SC takes the cake. I've driven all across that state and I've barely ever had a good experience with it.
Just incredibly underfunded all the wat around. I-73 being something that their DOT wants very badly but just can't work out the funding for is sad.
They also did end up with some crap luck in that 95 kind of misses all their population centers except Florence.

[sparker]

California's system has several problems. Despite being the most populous state and third largest land area, its route numbers only go into the 200s, leaving most suburban major roads unnumbered. In addition, there are gaps in the routes, and some of them are solely because they enter a city that the city refuses to sign. [...] whether a route gets a number or not is based on state maintenance and not whether it's actually useful.

I don't know that any of that is necessarily a problem. If state routes are always state-maintained, it shouldn't matter whether a city is on board with it because the state is the only one responsible for maintaining signage. Also, I don't think major suburban roads (that aren't freeways) necessarily need to carry numbers. In my experience, people will always refer to suburban surface roads with their name anyway (nobody in Norman knows or cares where US-77 is, it's always referred to as "12th" or "Tecumseh") and do not use the numbers for navigation purposes.

Some of California's state routes are locally maintained, though. I believe Caltrans will often relinquish segments of routes to local jurisdictions while keeping the legal definitions of those routes unchanged. These local jurisdictions are then theoretically responsible for maintaining signage on these relinquished route segments...though they often don't.

That may explain a faded CA 82 shield I observed in Millbrae on the El Camino Real.

Jim

Pretty much that is run of the mill on CA 82, the only segment that has been relinquished Post-1964 is in San Jose:

https://www.cahighways.org/ROUTE082.html

Although CA 82 has officially been relinquished south of its junction with I-880 -- and the city of San Jose, in a similar fashion to CA 130 as cited in a previous post, simply removed all the signage (although one quite new and oversize CA 82 shield was posted EB on The Alameda near Sunol Street for years until it just disappeared in 2018).  Nevertheless, trailblazer signage remains on the intersecting freeways (CA 87 at San Carlos, I-280 at the 7th Street interchange -- although former CA 82 was six blocks distant! -- and US 101 at Blossom Hill Road, which was originally utilized to shunt CA 82 over to its US 101 terminus from its nominal path down Monterey Road).  But that's SOP for D4 -- contradictory actions and a penchant for looking the other way when local jurisdictions simply decide to erase any trace of a former through route (in this case, the driver-less-than-friendly City of San Jose; ironically, the exception to the lack of 82 signage is the remnant "end" assembly on Blossom Hill Rd. at the US 101 interchange).  They won't even sign or even trailblaze the few blocks north of 82's current south terminus, although neighboring Santa Clara is replete with nice shiny new shields!  In fact, except for freeway trailblazers, there's not a single surface-street reassurance shield within San Jose city limits except a couple of CA 130 examples on Mount Hamilton Road east of Alum Rock Rd, which is no longer Caltrans-maintained nor signed; signed CA 130 is duly orphaned!

Personally, IMO there's really no need for CA 82 through central San Jose; the historic US 101 route it followed was interrupted in the '80's when the Montgomery/Autumn duplex was pressed into service to remove the through route from downtown San Jose.  More to the point would be to sign "Historic US 101" prominently along the original route through downtown -- and march it right down through Morgan Hill & Gilroy (along with actually posting the end of CA 82 at I-880).       

[Max Rockatansky]

California's system has several problems. Despite being the most populous state and third largest land area, its route numbers only go into the 200s, leaving most suburban major roads unnumbered. In addition, there are gaps in the routes, and some of them are solely because they enter a city that the city refuses to sign. [...] whether a route gets a number or not is based on state maintenance and not whether it's actually useful.

I don't know that any of that is necessarily a problem. If state routes are always state-maintained, it shouldn't matter whether a city is on board with it because the state is the only one responsible for maintaining signage. Also, I don't think major suburban roads (that aren't freeways) necessarily need to carry numbers. In my experience, people will always refer to suburban surface roads with their name anyway (nobody in Norman knows or cares where US-77 is, it's always referred to as "12th" or "Tecumseh") and do not use the numbers for navigation purposes.

Some of California's state routes are locally maintained, though. I believe Caltrans will often relinquish segments of routes to local jurisdictions while keeping the legal definitions of those routes unchanged. These local jurisdictions are then theoretically responsible for maintaining signage on these relinquished route segments...though they often don't.

That may explain a faded CA 82 shield I observed in Millbrae on the El Camino Real.

Jim

Pretty much that is run of the mill on CA 82, the only segment that has been relinquished Post-1964 is in San Jose:

https://www.cahighways.org/ROUTE082.html

Although CA 82 has officially been relinquished south of its junction with I-880 -- and the city of San Jose, in a similar fashion to CA 130 as cited in a previous post, simply removed all the signage (although one quite new and oversize CA 82 shield was posted EB on The Alameda near Sunol Street for years until it just disappeared in 2018).  Nevertheless, trailblazer signage remains on the intersecting freeways (CA 87 at San Carlos, I-280 at the 7th Street interchange -- although former CA 82 was six blocks distant! -- and US 101 at Blossom Hill Road, which was originally utilized to shunt CA 82 over to its US 101 terminus from its nominal path down Monterey Road).  But that's SOP for D4 -- contradictory actions and a penchant for looking the other way when local jurisdictions simply decide to erase any trace of a former through route (in this case, the driver-less-than-friendly City of San Jose; ironically, the exception to the lack of 82 signage is the remnant "end" assembly on Blossom Hill Rd. at the US 101 interchange).  They won't even sign or even trailblaze the few blocks north of 82's current south terminus, although neighboring Santa Clara is replete with nice shiny new shields!  In fact, except for freeway trailblazers, there's not a single surface-street reassurance shield within San Jose city limits except a couple of CA 130 examples on Mount Hamilton Road east of Alum Rock Rd, which is no longer Caltrans-maintained nor signed; signed CA 130 is duly orphaned!

Personally, IMO there's really no need for CA 82 through central San Jose; the historic US 101 route it followed was interrupted in the '80's when the Montgomery/Autumn duplex was pressed into service to remove the through route from downtown San Jose.  More to the point would be to sign "Historic US 101" prominently along the original route through downtown -- and march it right down through Morgan Hill & Gilroy (along with actually posting the end of CA 82 at I-880).     

That 130 shield from the overhead sign on 101 northbound ever get removed?  I know it did from 101 southbound approaching Alum Rock.

[Road Hog]

Arkansas isn't horrible but can be a lot better. A lot of major state highways are crookeder than some Texas FM roads. That was how they were laid out in the 1930s or whenever. They keep the pavement mostly in good shape, but I would kick just about any triple-digit route numbered above 200 to the counties. Exception: AR 247 from North Dardanelle to Pottsville, which is my US 266 extension.

[kenarmy]

Arkansas isn't horrible but can be a lot better. A lot of major state highways are crookeder than some Texas FM roads. That was how they were laid out in the 1930s or whenever. They keep the pavement mostly in good shape, but I would kick just about any triple-digit route numbered above 200 to the counties. Exception: AR 247 from North Dardanelle to Pottsville, which is my US 266 extension.

Arkansas is so dramatic.. Like just look at the routings of the US highways. Gross.

[tq-07fan]

Arkansas isn't horrible but can be a lot better. A lot of major state highways are crookeder than some Texas FM roads. That was how they were laid out in the 1930s or whenever. They keep the pavement mostly in good shape, but I would kick just about any triple-digit route numbered above 200 to the counties. Exception: AR 247 from North Dardanelle to Pottsville, which is my US 266 extension.

I've only been on I-40, US 70 and AR 261 in between. The roads in Arkansas are kept up nice. I took a look at the roadmap and wow, there's a lot going on there!

Arkansas State Map

I especially like how 139 ends at the Missouri state line, then starts up again. Some of the other routes do some really weird stuff... 

Jim

[US 89]

In quality alone, SC takes the cake. I’ve driven all across that state and I’ve barely ever had a good experience with it.
Just incredibly underfunded all the wat around. I-73 being something that their DOT wants very badly but just can’t work out the funding for is sad.
They also did end up with some crap luck in that 95 kind of misses all their population centers except Florence.

I imagine at least part of SC's problem is that just about every paved road outside city limits (and many roads in them!) is a secondary state highway. The primary state highway system on its own is not small, but when combined with secondaries...that's a hell of a lot of mileage SCDOT has to maintain.

[fillup420]

Numbering and boring white circles?  I hardly think that qualifies a state for "worst state highway system".  That's just little metal signs on posts.

So it's ok if we renumber everything to 74?   

I'm fine with it, considering there's already two highway 74s in my area (and yes "Old State Route 74"  counts)

If its 74s you want, NC is the place to be. US 74, I-74, and now NC 74!

[fillup420]

In quality alone, SC takes the cake. I've driven all across that state and I've barely ever had a good experience with it.
Just incredibly underfunded all the wat around. I-73 being something that their DOT wants very badly but just can't work out the funding for is sad.
They also did end up with some crap luck in that 95 kind of misses all their population centers except Florence.

I imagine at least part of SC's problem is that just about every paved road outside city limits (and many roads in them!) is a secondary state highway. The primary state highway system on its own is not small, but when combined with secondaries...that's a hell of a lot of mileage SCDOT has to maintain.

The SC secondary system (S-xx-xxx) is rather similar to NC's secondary system (SR xxxx) in terms of responsibilities. NC DOT maintains a vast majority of all paved roads in the state. Difference is, NC DOT does a pretty good job of maintaining the secondary roads, as well as the primary highways. I lived in SC for a bit, I can agree that the quality is not nearly on par with NC. Its a common joke that there doesn't need to be welcome signs for SC, as the sudden decrease in pavement quality is so noticeable. Also, the signage in SC is pretty hit or miss. I have noticed a habit of SC DOT is to mount guide sign assemblies at intersections in such a way that one is visible from multiple directions. Thus decreasing the amount of signage needed. However this can make the directions a bit confusing at times. They seem to be getting away from this practice, but many older setups remain out in the sticks, which i spent a lot of time driving around when i lived there.

[andrepoiy]

I'm going to have to say Ontario.

Why?

Due to the provincial downloading of provincial roads in 1998 (downloading means transferring responsibility of roads to local municipalities and counties) in order to pursue austerity, we now have a smaller density of provincial roads, with discontinuties and stubs.

Example: Highway 7 is broken into two because the section in Brampton and York Region were transferred. (Now they're Peel Regional Road 107 and York Regional Road 7). Red is current, green is formerly Hwy 7.



Another example: Highway 2 in Gananoque. It used to go from Windsor to Quebec, and now it's a 2 km stub.



Another example: The City of Toronto, the most populous city in the province, has no non-freeway provincial highways that go through it.

It used to have Highway 2 (Lakeshore Blvd), Highway 11 (Yonge Street), Highway 11A (Avenue Road), Highway 5 (Dundas Street), Highway 48 (Markham Road), Highway 27, Highway 50 (Albion Road). All have been transferred to the City for maintenance.

Map in 1994:

[Crown Victoria]

I'm very surprised. In all the years this thread has existed, not one person has suggested Pennsylvania.

The road numbering is not all that bad. The quality of the roads in the system leaves much to be desired...overall though, I would not consider PA's system the "worst".

[Rothman]

I'm very surprised. In all the years this thread has existed, not one person has suggested Pennsylvania.

The road numbering is not all that bad. The quality of the roads in the system leaves much to be desired...overall though, I would not consider PA's system the "worst".

If you don't think PA is the worst, then why are you surprised no one has mentioned it in a thread about the worst?

[hotdogPi]

I'm very surprised. In all the years this thread has existed, not one person has suggested Pennsylvania.

The road numbering is not all that bad. The quality of the roads in the system leaves much to be desired...overall though, I would not consider PA's system the "worst".

If you don't think PA is the worst, then why are you surprised no one has mentioned it in a thread about the worst?

Because those going by pavement quality and not route numbering would have a legitimate case.

[Rothman]

I'm very surprised. In all the years this thread has existed, not one person has suggested Pennsylvania.

The road numbering is not all that bad. The quality of the roads in the system leaves much to be desired...overall though, I would not consider PA's system the "worst".

If you don't think PA is the worst, then why are you surprised no one has mentioned it in a thread about the worst?

Because those going by pavement quality and not route numbering would have a legitimate case.

But no one's done that.

[kphoger]

...which is surprising.   

[Crown Victoria]

I'm very surprised. In all the years this thread has existed, not one person has suggested Pennsylvania.

The road numbering is not all that bad. The quality of the roads in the system leaves much to be desired...overall though, I would not consider PA's system the "worst".

If you don't think PA is the worst, then why are you surprised no one has mentioned it in a thread about the worst?

Because, generally, any discussion about bad roads inevitably involves Pennsylvania, my personal opinion notwithstanding.

[Ketchup99]

Perhaps "worst highway system" ought to include some discussion of road quality and not arbitrary numbers... certainly, I'd not mind if PA renumbered their highways to make a little more sense, but my real preference would be to drop the number of curvy-for-no-reason shoulderless highways posted at 35mph.

[US 89]

If you read up the thread a bit, much of the discussion on NM centered on their terrible road quality...

[epzik8]

I'm very surprised. In all the years this thread has existed, not one person has suggested Pennsylvania.

The road numbering is not all that bad. The quality of the roads in the system leaves much to be desired...overall though, I would not consider PA's system the "worst".

I was going to say this. Every time I come back into Maryland from there the roads are just better and it feel refreshing.

Also, why do people here like reviving 12-year-old threads?