National Boards > General Highway Talk

What’s in a name?

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1995hoo:
Out west, the word "highway" is sometimes combined with a route number as a proper noun—for example, "take Highway 29 south for two hours." I have a brother-in-law in Phoenix whose wife uses that style and it threw me off briefly when she was riding with us here and she said something about "Highway 7" when we were on I-395—it took me a second to realize what she meant because Virginia Route 7 in that area is an arterial (with that portion of said route ordinarily referred to as King Street), and in this part of the country "highway" is a generic term used more to refer to Interstates or similar (example from when I was in law school: "751 was blocked by an accident, so I had to take the highway," with "the highway" meaning US-15/501).

bwana39:
In Texas ROUTE is never used. We laugh about it pronounced ROOT.

Interstates are almost always called "Interstate X", just "X", or by the local freeway name inside the cities. (Such as LBJ Freeway for IH-635 and the part of I-20 that used to be 635.).

US Highways and State Highways generally are called "Highway X" or Just "X". Of course there are local freeway names (EX US-175 is Hawn Freeway in Dallas. SH-183 is the Airport Freeway in Irving). Except when they are freeways, they are more often referred to by their street names within towns and cities.

Farm to Market Roads are generally called "Farm to Market X", "Farm Road X", or "FM-X" In a couple of cases there are local freeway names attached. (emmett f lowry expressway on FM-1764 in Texas City). In my corner of NE Texas it is generally said FarmMarket -X, leaving out the "to". Sometimes the JUST "X" is used for FM roads.  Generally the street name prevails within a city of town.

Highway is generally anything maintained by the state less than a freeway ; even some rural FM roads. Highways are usually rural.
Freeway is anything controlled access. It may or may not include the tollways.
Street is generally every paved street in a city that is not freeway or tollway.
Turnpike is the universal name for free standing tollways (as opposed to tolled lanes of existing freeways.)

Frontage roads: IN north Texas they are called frontage roads or service roads.  In Houston, they are called feeder roads.

Ketchup99:
In Pennsylvania, it's never "Highway XX," and indeed, "highway" is only really ever used to talk about "big roads" - any freeway, or a divided road with a high speed limit. Typically, we refer to "Route XX" or just "XX" (for instance, "Harrisburg's down 322, while Huntingdon is down Route 26". For interstates, when we give it any prefix (which is rare), it's usually "I-XX" and not "Interstate XX." I'm much more likely to call something "99" than "I-99" or "Interstate 99," and in the same vein, likelier to say "22" than "Route 22" or "US 22".

NWI_Irish96:
In Indiana, state highways are commonly referred to as State Road XX, or SR XX. Very few roads are known by their name over their number. The Lloyd Expwy in Evansville and the Indiana Toll Road are the most common ones.

In northern Lake County, you tend to hear Calumet Ave, Indianapolis Blvd, Broadway, and Cline Ave referred to by name more than route number, but by the time you get south of Ridge Rd you're more likely to hear route numbers.

Bruce:
In the Seattle area, it varies but "Highway XX" is more common than "Route [rout] XX". They are also abbreviated to SR on signs and in some news reports.

U.S. Routes are commonly called "Highway XX" and "US XX", presumably to reduce confusion with the state routes.

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