What is the lingo in your area for calling route numbers?

[kkt]

Pfft.  When I lived in San Francisco, "The 5" was ubiquitous.

Did you hang out with a bunch of SoCal transplants?

[Avalanchez71]

Interstates here in Alabama (at least Huntsville) are called "I-xxx" with "xxx" being the route number.
Everything else is just called "highway xxx".

The practice is the same in Tennessee.  Well at least in Middle Tennessee.

[Rothman]

Pfft.  When I lived in San Francisco, "The 5" was ubiquitous.

Did you hang out with a bunch of SoCal transplants?

Nah.  I think he was right about "Highway 880" or whatever, but I definitely heard "the 5" from long-time residents.

[bing101]

I know in Sacramento its I-80 and I-5 for interstates

Business 80 for CA-51, I-305 and West end of US 50.
Sometimes in Sacramento Biz 80 in mentioned for Business routes.

Highway 99, US-50 is the lingo for Sacramento Valley and I-505.

[bing101]

Pfft.  When I lived in San Francisco, "The 5" was ubiquitous.

Did you hang out with a bunch of SoCal transplants?

Ok I think you are referring to I-505 from Vacaville? Its probably the only time people from  SoCal people talk about that in the Los Angeles way. Like The 405, The 505 freeway. I knew people from Los Angeles who stopped by Solano county on their way to Sacramento and then visit the Bay area.  I don't know if I-205 in Tracy gets the same lingo as Highway 205 or The 205 freeway.

[thenetwork]

Denver: 

Interstates:  I-xx or I-xxx
US Routes:  Highway xx
State Routes:  Highway xx -- lone exception is Highway 470 which is either C-470 (freeway section) or E-470 (tolled section).

[DTComposer]

Pfft.  When I lived in San Francisco, "The 5" was ubiquitous.

Did you hang out with a bunch of SoCal transplants?

Nah.  I think he was right about "Highway 880" or whatever, but I definitely heard "the 5" from long-time residents.

I can not think of an instance where I heard "the 5" from a Bay Area or Sacramento native or long-time resident.

[mrsman]

Pfft.  When I lived in San Francisco, "The 5" was ubiquitous.

Did you hang out with a bunch of SoCal transplants?

Nah.  I think he was right about "Highway 880" or whatever, but I definitely heard "the 5" from long-time residents.

I can not think of an instance where I heard "the 5" from a Bay Area or Sacramento native or long-time resident.

No, definitely not.  Using "the 5" will out you as a SoCal native if you use it there.

[roadfro]

Nevada - Very much emulates California, right down to the north/south divide...

Interstates: "I-80" or "80" in Reno, "the 15" in Vegas.

U.S. Routes: "US 395" or "395" in Reno, "the 95" in Vegas. Universally in rural areas (and often in news media and by people in the urban areas), it can be "Highway 50". 

State Routes: usually "State Route 306", or sometimes "Highway 306".


EDIT for an afterthought: "Highway X" is often used all over Nevada to refer to a portions of a route (especially US routes) that are not freeway.

[MVHighways]

What just dawned on me is that where I grew up in Massachusetts, yes, you heard "Root 9" and "Root 2" there was even a silly pride in pronouncing it that way.

However, I don't think "Root 91" was very common, but probably not unheard of.  My perception is that people called it just "91" more commonly and the Massachusetts Turnpike was just "the Pike."

Yup. Still called the Mass Pike today, and even I tend to call it that outside of roadgeek stuff. "Root", yes, New England pride.

As for 93 here, "Root 93", for the most part, is uncommon, similar to 91, but as you said, not unheard of. "Root 3" is more common (referring to US 3 north of Boston, MA 3 south of the city, don't ask me why it changes), since it is a 1 digit number. For instance, on a phone call, you might hear "Getting on Root 3", and then 10 miles up/down the road, "I'm getting onto 495", or "I'm getting onto 128" (I'm probably the only one who uses 95, but I use 128 when distinguishing 95 between being on and off the Yankee Division Highway.)

[Zeffy]

I've only ever heard it pronounced "root" around here - "rout" is the verb's pronunciation.

That's interesting, seeing as you're from the same general region I am ("central" New Jersey). When I worked at GameStop, they would always refer to the store in Bridgewater as "the one on 'rout' 22". It almost feels dependent on the number in question - for example, I always hear 'rout' 1, 'root' 31, 'rout' 202, 'root' 206, 'root' 22, etc.

Of course, the better way is to just drop the prefix and say the number.

[bzakharin]

I've only ever heard it pronounced "root" around here - "rout" is the verb's pronunciation.

That's interesting, seeing as you're from the same general region I am ("central" New Jersey). When I worked at GameStop, they would always refer to the store in Bridgewater as "the one on 'rout' 22". It almost feels dependent on the number in question - for example, I always hear 'rout' 1, 'root' 31, 'rout' 202, 'root' 206, 'root' 22, etc.

Of course, the better way is to just drop the prefix and say the number.

I've lived in many parts of NJ, but I think we've established that I have some misperceptions about what is said around me since I am both originally from Russia and have more than a passing interest in roads, but I personally always say "root" when it is followed by a number, but use both pronunciations elsewhere. At any rate, when talking about an interstate, I'll say "I-", but, for whatever reason, I cannot imagine anyone saying "Route 95". It just sounds wrong, but other interstates sound ok. Just saying the number is common too, including in my own speech. Less so when the route in question is a single syllable. I "go on route 9 to get to my bank", but "take 295 and 42 to work".

"Highway" is an infuriatingly vague term here, but is the *only* one understood when talking about a divided (sometimes even an undivided) highway in general (not with a specific number). "Freeway" and "Expressway" may be in names of various routes around here, but apparently mean nothing to most people by themselves (well "the freeway" is sometimes short for the 42 freeway, which is also oddly the only time you hear "the" before a number). Don't these people need a way to differentiate between a full freeway and a divided highway with traffic lights?

[cbeach40]

Ontario: "Highway (number)" for current and former King's Highways, and "County Road (number)" for other city and county roads.

Ontario:
400-series and Hwy 115 "The ###"
Other Provincial Highways "Highway ##"
Former provincial highways with no local name (or at least not well known) "Highway ##"
County/Regional roads with no local name "Road ##"
Municipal roadways (including county/regional roads, and most former provincial highways) - route name (Elgin Rd, Essa Rd, Hurontario St, Dundas St, Markham Rd, etc)

[bing101]

Pfft.  When I lived in San Francisco, "The 5" was ubiquitous.

Did you hang out with a bunch of SoCal transplants?

Nah.  I think he was right about "Highway 880" or whatever, but I definitely heard "the 5" from long-time residents.

I can not think of an instance where I heard "the 5" from a Bay Area or Sacramento native or long-time resident.

No, definitely not.  Using "the 5" will out you as a SoCal native if you use it there.

I-505 seems to be the odd one where SoCal People looking for a direction to Bay Area , Sacramento and Lake Tahoe where they call it "the 505 freeway" based on how they call their freeways at home.  I never heard of anybody refer to I-205 in Tracy as "The 205 Freeway" as far as I know.

[myosh_tino]

I-505 seems to be the odd one where SoCal People looking for a direction to Bay Area , Sacramento and Lake Tahoe where they call it "the 505 freeway" based on how they call their freeways at home.  I never heard of anybody refer to I-205 in Tracy as "The 205 Freeway" as far as I know.

I've personally never heard of anyone refer to I-505 as "The 505 Freeway".  Local media in the San Francisco Bay Area generally refer to the freeway as "Interstate 505" or just "505".

[machias]

New York depends. Western New York is "the" for everything with no other prefix before the route number. From what I've heard, on Long Island in the very rare occasion a number is used, it is just the number. In most other places, it's "I-" for Interstates and "route" for everything else. I do know a couple people from Central New York who call everything "highway xx", but I don't know how prevalent that is.

In Central New York and the North Country I've mostly heard "Route XX" (root) regardless of what kind of highway it is.  "Route 481", "Route 11", "Route 81", "Route 13".

[corco]

I've noticed in Montana people tend to just avoid using route numbers altogether- in the rare instances they are used, it's just the number or I-number (take 287 to I-90).

Generally, though, if somebody were going to, say, Glasgow from Helena, they'd say "I'm going through Great Falls and Havre" (I-15 to US 87 to US 2) or "I'm going through White Sulphur, Lewistown, and Jordan." (US 12 to US 191 to MT 200 to MT 24- realizing "Jordan" is just an approximation for where MT 24 is). Giving directions by highway number is useless- I was meeting some folks in Winnett last week, and we were discussing the best route to get back to Helena, and it was "go through Roundup" as opposed to "take 244 south to 87 south to 12 west."


I don't really know of anybody that uses the route numbers. Even if referring to a road in isolation, the road is identified by the two cities it connects.  Montana 16, for instance, would be "the road from Sidney to Glendive." If for some reason somebody were talking about the entire length of Montana 16, they'd say "16" but that's usually because in that context you're talking about the road itself and not travelling on the road. Secondaries nearly always have a name and are nearly always referred to by their name as opposed to their numeric designation.

I think it's because there aren't that many paved roads in most of Montana outside of major highways and city centers, so no real reason to distinguish between route numbers.

[bing101]

I-505 seems to be the odd one where SoCal People looking for a direction to Bay Area , Sacramento and Lake Tahoe where they call it "the 505 freeway" based on how they call their freeways at home.  I never heard of anybody refer to I-205 in Tracy as "The 205 Freeway" as far as I know.

I've personally never heard of anyone refer to I-505 as "The 505 Freeway".  Local media in the San Francisco Bay Area generally refer to the freeway as "Interstate 505" or just "505".

Yes Solano County residents and Sacramento Valley residents call interstate 505 as I-505. Bay area residents call it highway 505. You are correct.

[J Route Z]

Do they call I-10 in Florida "the 10?" or "the 10 freeway"? When I visited California, they refer to the freeways over there as just simply the route numbers, like "the 10", "the 101", "the 5", etc.

[dfwmapper]

I-10 is called I-10, or maybe "the Interstate" in areas where there isn't any other nearby.

[Rothman]

Pfft.  When I lived in San Francisco, "The 5" was ubiquitous.

Did you hang out with a bunch of SoCal transplants?

Nah.  I think he was right about "Highway 880" or whatever, but I definitely heard "the 5" from long-time residents.

I can not think of an instance where I heard "the 5" from a Bay Area or Sacramento native or long-time resident.

No, definitely not.  Using "the 5" will out you as a SoCal native if you use it there.

All I can say is that I lived in San Francisco (right in the Sunset District) for over a year and definitely heard "the 5" frequently.

[roadfro]

All I can say is that I lived in San Francisco (right in the Sunset District) for over a year and definitely heard "the 5" frequently.

Which is interesting because "the 5" is a significant distance away from San Francisco... Enough so that I feel nobody living in/around San Francisco should really have any reason to refer to I-5 on a regular basis unless going to Sacramento or SoCal.

[Rothman]

All I can say is that I lived in San Francisco (right in the Sunset District) for over a year and definitely heard "the 5" frequently.

Which is interesting because "the 5" is a significant distance away from San Francisco... Enough so that I feel nobody living in/around San Francisco should really have any reason to refer to I-5 on a regular basis unless going to Sacramento or SoCal.

There you have it.

[mrsman]

All I can say is that I lived in San Francisco (right in the Sunset District) for over a year and definitely heard "the 5" frequently.

Which is interesting because "the 5" is a significant distance away from San Francisco... Enough so that I feel nobody living in/around San Francisco should really have any reason to refer to I-5 on a regular basis unless going to Sacramento or SoCal.

There you have it.

Right, so people would refer to "the 5" because it is the road to LA.  But you are much less likely to hear "the 280" or "the 80" in SF because the road does not go to LA.

[realjd]

I lived in NJ for half of my life as I am 50 now and moved to Florida when I was 25.  I noticed big changes down here from up there.  Some I had to adjust to in my reference of some roads here.  For example I had to learn to say "I-4" rather than "Route 4" and use the term "highway" to identify US, State, and County designations as well.

In New Jersey all designations whether Interstate, US, State, and county are all called "Route x" regardless.  I believe PA and NY followed the same calling I-80 as "Route 80" or I-81 as "Route 81" rather than I-80 or I-81 as well.

In Florida we say I-4, I-10, I-75, and I-95 for the four major interstates.  Then US 1 exclusively as no one ever says Highway One or just plain ole One as even US 17 will be called either "US 17" or "Highway 17" and the same for State Road 50 having both "State Road 50" or "Highway 50" and so on.

What does your area you live in call its route numbers?  I am curious to know who says Route, who says Highway, or who uses letter prefixes.

Don't forget that us Floridians generally use "the" to refer to non-interstate freeways like "the 417".