Frontage Road Numbering Systems?

[Takumi]

Virginia has a numbering system for its frontage roads, with each frontage numbered "F-XXX". Most are posted with the ubiquitous white rectangle, but a few have a secondary route shield. You can read more about Virginia's here. Do any other states have a separate numbering systems for their frontage roads, and if so, how are they signed, if at all?

[pianocello]

I think Kentucky has some of their frontage roads as part of the state numbering system, but I have no idea if they're actually signed.

[agentsteel53]

New Mexico numbers them.  I think it's mostly for internal purposes, but they do get this cool shield posted every once in a while. 



I believe all the ones I've seen have numbers in the low 1000s like this one.  I've only seen a handful and I feel like their posting is unintentional, and just a quirk of New Mexico's somewhat sloppy approach to signage.

[bsmart]

Virginia has a numbering system for its frontage roads, with each frontage numbered "F-XXX". Most are posted with the ubiquitous white rectangle, but a few have a secondary route shield. You can read more about Virginia's here. Do any other states have a separate numbering systems for their frontage roads, and if so, how are they signed, if at all?

When I lived in Newport News VA I HATED the frontage roads they had in the region.  Some were unidirectional, matching the main lanes and some were Bidirectional  I was stationed at Langley AFB and they used to make a big point of warning incoming personnel because we would regularly have head on collisions when someone either went the wrong way on the unidirectional ones or forgot it was bidirectional and used the oncoming lane as a second lane

[Brandon]

Never seen any numbering system for them in Illinois.

[agentsteel53]

When I lived in Newport News VA I HATED the frontage roads they had in the region.  Some were unidirectional, matching the main lanes and some were Bidirectional  I was stationed at Langley AFB and they used to make a big point of warning incoming personnel because we would regularly have head on collisions when someone either went the wrong way on the unidirectional ones or forgot it was bidirectional and used the oncoming lane as a second lane

in Texas, one has bidirectional frontage roads on which traffic going against the mainline direction has to yield to off-ramp traffic.  that just seems like a terrible thing waiting to happen.

[hbelkins]

I think Kentucky has some of their frontage roads as part of the state numbering system, but I have no idea if they're actually signed.

There aren't many of them in the state system, and we certainly don't have frontage roads like other states like Texas. I have only seen two of them signed, as 6000-series numbers, and the signs for one of them have been removed. I think the other one that I've seen signed was actually signed by a contractor and not KYTC.

[Eth]

Nothing in Georgia as far as I'm aware...except for one thing.

I've seen a mile marker (84) along one of the I-20 frontage roads in Conyers.  Might try to go out and grab a pic of it.

[kphoger]

I think Kentucky has some of their frontage roads as part of the state numbering system, but I have no idea if they're actually signed.

There aren't many of them in the state system, and we certainly don't have frontage roads like other states like Texas. I have only seen two of them signed, as 6000-series numbers, and the signs for one of them have been removed. I think the other one that I've seen signed was actually signed by a contractor and not KYTC.

Such as KY-6038, shown here:
http://g.co/maps/quehq

[bassoon1986]

When I lived in Newport News VA I HATED the frontage roads they had in the region.  Some were unidirectional, matching the main lanes and some were Bidirectional  I was stationed at Langley AFB and they used to make a big point of warning incoming personnel because we would regularly have head on collisions when someone either went the wrong way on the unidirectional ones or forgot it was bidirectional and used the oncoming lane as a second lane

in Texas, one has bidirectional frontage roads on which traffic going against the mainline direction has to yield to off-ramp traffic.  that just seems like a terrible thing waiting to happen.

They are usually in the more rural areas though for residences or places where there aren't exits every single mile to be able to loop back around. East Texas on I-20 has many spots like these.

Also Texas toll roads usually have the Texas Toll signage for the mainline and a Texas State highway on the frontage roads. Sam Rayburn Tollway and TX 121, PGBT and TX 190/TX 161. Can't remember if the same is true for Sam Houston Tollway/Beltway 8 in Houston. For the most part Texas upgrades and widens existing roads then turns them into freeways or tolls.

There's a thread somewhere talking about some of these for Texas.

[The High Plains Traveler]

New Mexico numbers them.  I think it's mostly for internal purposes, but they do get this cool shield posted every once in a while. 

[photo of FR 1028 omitted in reply]
I believe all the ones I've seen have numbers in the low 1000s like this one.  I've only seen a handful and I feel like their posting is unintentional, and just a quirk of New Mexico's somewhat sloppy approach to signage.

I suspect posting is a District perogerative since I've only seen them posted in southern NM. The numbering is tied to the interstate the road follows, and I couldn't verify it since NMDOT has changed their web site around and I couldn't find the route log, but I believe I-25 frontage roads are 2xxx and I-40 are 4xxx. I have seen the number on a "blade" street sign.

[agentsteel53]

I suspect posting is a District perogerative since I've only seen them posted in southern NM. The numbering is tied to the interstate the road follows, and I couldn't verify it since NMDOT has changed their web site around and I couldn't find the route log, but I believe I-25 frontage roads are 2xxx and I-40 are 4xxx. I have seen the number on a "blade" street sign.

you are absolutely right.  I looked in my photos and there is a 4118 in San Jon (on an old US-66 segment).  It is, in fact, a cutout in the shape of New Mexico!

[Takumi]

I like that New Mexico frontage road shield. Certainly more interesting than this:

You can also see a white rectangle behind the pole.

[J N Winkler]

I suspect posting is a District prerogative since I've only seen them posted in southern NM. The numbering is tied to the Interstate the road follows, and I couldn't verify it since NMDOT has changed their web site around and I couldn't find the route log, but I believe I-25 frontage roads are 2xxx and I-40 are 4xxx. I have seen the number on a "blade" street sign.

You are correct--I-25 frontage roads have 2XXX numbers.  A few of the US highways in New Mexico also have numbered frontage roads and I believe the scheme is to "pad" the US highway number with one or two trailing digits to derive the frontage road number.  The frontage road numbers don't change with the underlying route number, so, e.g., US 491 (former US 666) has frontage roads whose numbers begin with 6.  US 70 in Las Cruces has 7XXX frontage roads.

Every Interstate in New Mexico has numbered frontage roads and the frontage road shield is a NMDOT standard route marker, but almost none of the frontage road shields actually installed in the field match the current specification, which calls for "FRONTAGE," route number, and "ROAD" all at the same height and vertically centered on the sign blank.

[agentsteel53]

Every Interstate in New Mexico has numbered frontage roads and the frontage road shield is a NMDOT standard route marker, but almost none of the frontage road shields actually installed in the field match the current specification, which calls for "FRONTAGE," route number, and "ROAD" all at the same height and vertically centered on the sign blank.

I should post the photos from San Jon, as they use a very strange font, and do not have "FRONTAGE ROAD".  There are three shields altogether - two cutouts, and then one on a green sign on I-40. 

[Duke87]

Connecticut has a couple of frontage roads in the state highway system. They are numbered the same as every other unsigned SSR - 5xx, 6xx, 7xx, or 8xx, based on district.

I can't offhand think of any frontage roads in New York which are on the state highway system, but I know there is no separate scheme - just the reference route scheme.
NY 27 (a signed touring route) has a significant length where it runs as frontage roads to the Belt Parkway, but that segment of the route is city maintained.

[huskeroadgeek]

When I lived in Newport News VA I HATED the frontage roads they had in the region.  Some were unidirectional, matching the main lanes and some were Bidirectional  I was stationed at Langley AFB and they used to make a big point of warning incoming personnel because we would regularly have head on collisions when someone either went the wrong way on the unidirectional ones or forgot it was bidirectional and used the oncoming lane as a second lane

in Texas, one has bidirectional frontage roads on which traffic going against the mainline direction has to yield to off-ramp traffic.  that just seems like a terrible thing waiting to happen.

They are usually in the more rural areas though for residences or places where there aren't exits every single mile to be able to loop back around. East Texas on I-20 has many spots like these.

Also Texas toll roads usually have the Texas Toll signage for the mainline and a Texas State highway on the frontage roads. Sam Rayburn Tollway and TX 121, PGBT and TX 190/TX 161. Can't remember if the same is true for Sam Houston Tollway/Beltway 8 in Houston. For the most part Texas upgrades and widens existing roads then turns them into freeways or tolls.

There's a thread somewhere talking about some of these for Texas.

It is the same for the Sam Houston Tollway in Texas. Beltway 8 only runs on the mainline where the road is free. I don't have any experience driving it myself, but I remember noticing one time that on Google maps, they had the frontage road on the toll portion designated as "Texas 8 Beltway". I thought maybe it was a mistake, but when I looked at Street View I noticed that sure enough the frontage roads actually were signed as Beltway 8.

[txstateends]

As far as the ones in TX not alongside tollroads, the only time I've ever seen the possibility of them numbered is if a farm-to-market road intersects a service road in-between exits, then turns one way or the other to the nearest exit then either stops there or crosses to continue.

[roadfro]

Nevada has a numbering system for all state-maintained frontage roads.

As with state highways and many other aspects of Nevada's numbering system, frontage road numbering is by county. The numbers don't follow any major pattern, although recent additions to the system have been assigned in numerical order. The scheme is "FR XXnn", where 'XX' is the two-letter county code and 'nn' is the two-digit number. Where frontage roads cross county lines, the number doesn't necessarily match on both sides--i.e. FR CH03 along I-80 in Churchill County becomes FR PE01 when crossing the Pershing County line. Frontage roads are not signed with shields, but most frontage roads have Nevada-style milepost panels at beginning and end points.

Note: The old system of frontage road numbering omitted the county code and simply used a '4'. I.e. what is now FR WA23 used to be FR 423. This resulted in overlapping numbers between counties, hence the switch. Some older MP panels in the field still reflect the old numbers.


Another unique aspect of Nevada's state-maintained system is that everything owned by NDOT is assigned to some classification and given a number. In urban areas, cross-streets at freeway interchanges are often NDOT maintained for that brief point within the freeway interchange right of way. NDOT typically classifies these as "Frontage Roads" in their system, despite these street sections not really acting as frontage roads but not being any better fit to other classifications in the system. This results in Clark and Washoe Counties having a high number of really short frontage roads in the system. An example is Neil Road (an old part of SR 667) under US 395/I-580 in Reno, which is FR WA44 and described as "Neil Road, from the Westerly R/W under IR580 to the Easterly R/W." and is 0.176 miles long (GoogleMap, approximate length of FR WA44).

[Scott5114]

Every Interstate in New Mexico has numbered frontage roads and the frontage road shield is a NMDOT standard route marker, but almost none of the frontage road shields actually installed in the field match the current specification, which calls for "FRONTAGE," route number, and "ROAD" all at the same height and vertically centered on the sign blank.

I should post the photos from San Jon, as they use a very strange font, and do not have "FRONTAGE ROAD".  There are three shields altogether - two cutouts, and then one on a green sign on I-40. 

Yes. Yes, you should.

[NE2]

WRT Texas, in the Austin area they have the main lanes as Toll 45 and the frontage roads as SH 45.

[The High Plains Traveler]

I suspect posting is a District prerogative since I've only seen them posted in southern NM. The numbering is tied to the Interstate the road follows, and I couldn't verify it since NMDOT has changed their web site around and I couldn't find the route log, but I believe I-25 frontage roads are 2xxx and I-40 are 4xxx. I have seen the number on a "blade" street sign.

You are correct--I-25 frontage roads have 2XXX numbers.  A few of the US highways in New Mexico also have numbered frontage roads and I believe the scheme is to "pad" the US highway number with one or two trailing digits to derive the frontage road number.  The frontage road numbers don't change with the underlying route number, so, e.g., US 491 (former US 666) has frontage roads whose numbers begin with 6.  US 70 in Las Cruces has 7XXX frontage roads.

Every Interstate in New Mexico has numbered frontage roads and the frontage road shield is a NMDOT standard route marker, but almost none of the frontage road shields actually installed in the field match the current specification, which calls for "FRONTAGE," route number, and "ROAD" all at the same height and vertically centered on the sign blank.

Since it's mostly a hidden system, my main reference is the state route log which includes all designated frontage roads (at least the ones the state wants to include in the posted logs). And, here I was all ready to say "oh yeah?" to the poster with the best documented information on this forum, but the revised route log that I just found on the NMDOT revised web site has not only the 1xxx, 2xxx and 4xxx routes for the interstates, but a few others for routes 599 (the Santa Fe Relief Route), 64, 666 (i.e., 491), 70 and 84. These listed frontage roads weren't in the previously posted version.

Here it is: http://www.dot.state.nm.us/Programs/Data_Management/POSTED%20ROUTE-frontage_roads.pdf

[Alps]

I can't offhand think of any frontage roads in New York which are on the state highway system, but I know there is no separate scheme - just the reference route scheme.
NY 27 (a signed touring route) has a significant length where it runs as frontage roads to the Belt Parkway, but that segment of the route is city maintained.

They are all reference routes in Long Island - separate ones for either side of the LIE/495, for example, in the 9xxA/B/C/D format. In other words, if you really wanted to clinch every route, you should be driving the entire highway a second time in both directions on the frontage roads only.

[Mapmikey]

In South Carolina they are labeled as SF-nn-xxxx just like regular secondary routes.  I do not believe these have a separate numbering system and follow numbering for whatever county they are in.  They started being posted this way ±1990.


Mapmikey

[bugo]

When I lived in Newport News VA I HATED the frontage roads they had in the region.  Some were unidirectional, matching the main lanes and some were Bidirectional  I was stationed at Langley AFB and they used to make a big point of warning incoming personnel because we would regularly have head on collisions when someone either went the wrong way on the unidirectional ones or forgot it was bidirectional and used the oncoming lane as a second lane

in Texas, one has bidirectional frontage roads on which traffic going against the mainline direction has to yield to off-ramp traffic.  that just seems like a terrible thing waiting to happen.

There used to be a bunch of these in central Arkansas along I-30 and US 67/167, but most of them were converted to one way roads.