Gravel state/US routes

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

I know this topic would come up on MTR on a yearly basis, and frankly, after the first couple of times I've ignored the topic. That is till today.
I driving along the westbank of the Mississippi, between Plaquamine & Donaldsonville Louisiana (20-40 miles south of Baton Rouge) looking for a cutoff from River Road to La 1.  I saw a sign for LA 69 (no jokes please), turned and discovered, much to my amazement, a gravel road.
Now I understand that I may have caught LADOTD doing a tar & chip pavement project (though none of the neighboring roads had that process). But I was caught off guard by it.

I did get a photo of the road (with accompanying La 69 shield), so soon as I get the film developed (yes, I said film), I post my proof here.

[agentsteel53]

CA-173 isn't just a dirt road; it's an awful dirt road.  One lane, and ungraded.  In order to avoid high-centering the car, I had to drive with one set of tires down the middle between the ruts, and one set of tires on the edge about six inches away from going off a cliff.

[froggie]

I don't think there are any more gravel US route segments (and haven't been for several years).  But there are numerous examples of gravel state routes or state primary routes.  A few examples I can think of offhand include segments of VA 91, MS 50, and MN 74.

[njroadhorse]

South Dakota 10 is also a dirt road.

[wandering drive]

http://www.teresco.org/pics/fourcorners-20030926-27/26/utah261.html

Utah 261, but I guess that's a special case.

[corco]

Washington 165 turns gravel as soon as it gets out of Carbonado, and Montana has more dirt state highways than I can count. Wyoming's highways, shockingly, are all paved

[Roadgeek Adam]

Pennsylvania Route 414 from Cedar Run to Blackwood remained gravel from 1928 to 2002 - even under the PA 893 designation

[florida]

Just some dirt county routes here 

Though, if you wait until the next hurricane to hit the panhandle, you could "drive" over a "dirt" US 98.

[xonhulu]

The southernmost 8 miles of OR 27 are unpaved.  So are the northern 5 miles of OR 413, but this route is unsigned.

[Alps]

Alaska Route 8 is entirely unpaved.  You'd expect that to happen in Alaska, although the connecting routes (2 and 3) are paved and 8 would theoretically be the best way from Canada to Denali.

I did not see any unpaved state highways in Hawai'i.  SR 200 is paved, just not well maintained.  CR 31 is partly unpaved, but if it became SR 31 who knows, it too may have been paved.

Vermont has/had two stretches of dirt/gravel SR.  One of them is down to about a 500-foot stretch, so I would imagine that's gone pretty soon if not already.

Prince Edward Island appears to have more dirt/gravel routes than paved routes.  I plan to find out more next year.

[froggie]

PEI does have a fair number of gravel/red-sandstone routes.  But the majority of them are paved, though some could just barely be called such...

[Alps]

PEI does have a fair number of gravel/red-sandstone routes.  But the majority of them are paved, though some could just barely be called such...

I'm going by the map.  The map could be pessimistic.  It's enough to discourage me from clinching the island (every route)...

[florida]

PEI does have a fair number of gravel/red-sandstone routes.  But the majority of them are paved, though some could just barely be called such...

I'm going by the map.  The map could be pessimistic.  It's enough to discourage me from clinching the island (every route)...

Boo! Don't let the map make YOU pessimistic.

[WillWeaverRVA]

A good amount of VA 91 in Tazewell County is gravel. The VA Highways Project has a bunch of photos of it:

http://www.vahighways.com/va91/va91tazewell.htm

[froggie]

I'm going by the map.  The map could be pessimistic.  It's enough to discourage me from clinching the island (every route)...

Depends which map.  MapArt's PEI map is pretty good, but even it shows a few route segments as gravel that are in reality paved instead (and the opposite in at least one case).

But if you don't like driving on gravel (or, for the most part, red sandstone), trying to clinch every route on the island is going to be tough...not that it'd be easy to begin with.

[mightyace]

A good amount of VA 91 in Tazewell County is gravel. The VA Highways Project has a bunch of photos of it:

http://www.vahighways.com/va91/va91tazewell.htm

I looked at those.  I've never seen the warning sign for the transition to gravel before.

[Sykotyk]

I've been to PEI a few years ago. Trust me, some of the numbered routes are gravel/dirt.

Found out the hard way meandering over to Montague from Charlottetown.

Sykotyk

[froggie]

I looked at those.  I've never seen the warning sign for the transition to gravel before.

It's fairly common in some states.

I've been to PEI a few years ago. Trust me, some of the numbered routes are gravel/dirt.

Oh, I know.  My point was that the majority of PEI routes are indeed paved.  And the regional MapArt maps were fairly good at picking out which ones were and which weren't (albeith with a few errors as I mentioned earlier).

[Chris]

The title also says "US Routes". Are there actually still unpaved U.S. Routes? I can hardly believe that.

[njroadhorse]

The title also says "US Routes". Are there actually still unpaved U.S. Routes? I can hardly believe that.

I don't believe there are any left.

[algorerhythms]

The last time I was on the western segment of WV-46 (which was at least 5 years ago, probably more), that segment was unpaved.

[Tarkus]

The title also says "US Routes". Are there actually still unpaved U.S. Routes? I can hardly believe that.

I don't believe there are any left.

The last was US-183 in Nebraska, which was paved in 1967.

-Alex (Tarkus)

[hbelkins]

I know this topic would come up on MTR on a yearly basis, and frankly, after the first couple of times I've ignored the topic. That is till today.
I driving along the westbank of the Mississippi, between Plaquamine & Donaldsonville Louisiana (20-40 miles south of Baton Rouge) looking for a cutoff from River Road to La 1.  I saw a sign for LA 69 (no jokes please), turned and discovered, much to my amazement, a gravel road.
Now I understand that I may have caught LADOTD doing a tar & chip pavement project (though none of the neighboring roads had that process). But I was caught off guard by it.

I did get a photo of the road (with accompanying La 69 shield), so soon as I get the film developed (yes, I said film), I post my proof here.

Kentucky still has several gravel roads, but to my knowledge most are of the four-digit variety. The last portion of two-digit gravel road was KY 89 in Jackson County and it was paved sometime between 1967 and 1971. That's because it connected two Republican counties and those four years were the only years KY had a Republican governor for decades.

[Crewdawg]

AZ 88 is mostly a dirt road with one lane bridges even on the paved parts.

[Alps]

The title also says "US Routes". Are there actually still unpaved U.S. Routes? I can hardly believe that.

I believe the last one was paved in the mid-1980's or so.  Possibly in Colorado, or else another state out that way.