State/Province with most extensive highway system?

[CapeCodder]

What state/province has the most extensive highway network? imo, it's Kentucky. I mean the state has route numbers in the 6,000's. Are most of those routes in KY secret, or are they like here in MA, town/county maintained?

[mariethefoxy]

Louisiana too has a large number of 4 digit routes.

Maryland also for a state it's size has a ton of state highways well reaching into the 900s.

[US 41]

Isn't almost every road in Virginia numbered as a state highway?

What state/province has the most extensive highway network? imo, it's Kentucky. I mean the state has route numbers in the 6,000's. Are most of those routes in KY secret, or are they like here in MA, town/county maintained?

I've noticed when I've been down there that Kentucky does have a lot of state highways themselves.

[Max Rockatansky]

New Mexico has a huge amount of state highways for as low as the population is.  And they are actually signed fairly decently to boot, it's actually confusing as all hell since there isn't a ton of information available on them outside Steve Riner's site.  I always like how Nevada renumbered everything into a primary, urban and secondary ranges.  I'm thinking Kentucky or Virginia is going to take the cake as far as sheer number of routes...but what about actual mileage?

[US 41]

I'm thinking Kentucky or Virginia is going to take the cake as far as sheer number of routes...but what about actual mileage?

I'd bet on Texas if FM and RM routes count as state highways.

[Quillz]

North Carolina has the most extensive, due to the fact there is no concept of county highways. All are maintained by the state.

[coatimundi]

The KY 6000's are a highway series. That doesn't mean that there are over 6000 different highways in the state. Louisiana has a 3000 series of highways, but it's just a series. The actual primary route numbers only go a bit above 1,000, and I don't think even those are totally filled in.

Texas reports 80,423 as of 2014.
FM & RM roads definitely count because they're state routes. They're just secondary routes. Similar to the TN and KY systems.
http://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/tpp/roadway-inventory/reports/2014.pdf

North Carolina: 79,328 as of 2012

Texas has a significant amount of frontage road miles that are also state-maintained. So, if you exclude those and lump them into the highways that they serve, then it's much lower, and NC would be higher.
So it still kinda depends on how you define "most extensive".

[Mr. Matté]

Last year NE2 ran a count of all the state highways versus total road counts here: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=14984.5

tl;dr: DC had the highest percentage of "state"-maintained roads, WV had the actual highest percentage of state roads, NJ had the least.

[TR69]

Technically Kentucky has 9,000's too (the parkways), but only routes up to 3xxx are signed. And not *all* of them are signed.

[hbelkins]

The 6000-series roads in Kentucky are frontage roads, mostly for interstates or parkways, or for state-maintained bridges carrying county roads over the interstates and parkways. A few of the 6000-series routes are signed in the western part of the state near I-24.

Virginia's secondary routes repeat by county, and of course there are West Virginia's county routes, which are really state maintained and include the infamous "fractional routes." But we're straying into abuse of a deceased equine territory here.

[wxfree]

...

Texas reports 80,423 as of 2014.
FM & RM roads definitely count because they're state routes. They're just secondary routes. Similar to the TN and KY systems.
http://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/tpp/roadway-inventory/reports/2014.pdf

...

Texas has a significant amount of frontage road miles that are also state-maintained. So, if you exclude those and lump them into the highways that they serve, then it's much lower, and NC would be higher.
So it still kinda depends on how you define "most extensive".

I don't know if the actual classifications have changed, or if they're just reporting the numbers in that inventory, but at one time the Interstate frontage roads in Texas were considered to be their own highway system.  That would be an unnumbered system since they aren't part of the Interstates and don't have their own numbers.  But other highway frontage roads were considered to be part of the highway system the main highway belongs to, if not part of the main highway itself (I was never clear on that).

Unless changes have been made, in TxDOT's reckoning the Interstate frontage road mileage would be in addition to everything else, while the other frontage roads would not.

[coatimundi]

Unless changes have been made, in TxDOT's reckoning the Interstate frontage road mileage would be in addition to everything else, while the other frontage roads would not.

I remember something similar from when I last lived there (15 years ago), but I thought that the feeders (cuz let's get Texas here) were all in the same classification except, of course, with things like the Sam Houston Tollway, where the state highway is the feeder and the mainlanes are something else. Also you have instances, like in Conroe, where SR 75 follows the I-45 feeder briefly. I would guess that section of the feeder from the exit/entrance ramp to the turnoff for the highway would technically be a state route, but I don't know.
As a kid, I remember always assuming that in the cases of multiplexes - like I-10 and US 90 - the "lower" highway always actually rode on the feeder. But I don't think that's actually true. I think it came from a poorly drawn map I had seen and I just thought it was a neat idea.

That PDF I linked lumps the feeders altogether into two categories (that I don't necessarily understand, since one road is always on the right side when you're going in a direction), but I really don't know how they add up. I guess if you knew the total feeder mileage that there should be (since not all freeways in Texas have feeders at all times), you could determine what they're counting, but I'm not quite that bored.

[jwolfer]

I 
As a kid, I remember always assuming that in the cases of multiplexes - like I-10 and US 90 - the "lower" highway always actually rode on the feeder. But I don't think that's actually true. I think it came from a poorly drawn map I had seen and I just thought it was a neat idea.

I actually like that idea

[english si]

Technically Kentucky has 9,000's too (the parkways), but only routes up to 3xxx are signed. And not *all* of them are signed.

Most of them are signed, though and it makes a very dense network, including 13 routes in the 6000-series.

PR has a dense numbering system, but many are not territory maintained. AS, GU and MP would be interesting to find out - certainly all three seem to have every road that isn't a minor residential road or driveway as a territory numbered route.

[Avalanchez71]

It is certainly not Indiana.

[coatimundi]

It is certainly not Indiana.

I think that's the answer to most questions...

[dvferyance]

It is certainly not Indiana.

And it's certainly not Wisconsin either. I wish our state highway network was larger but it keeps shrinking year after year.

[bassoon1986]

Louisiana has a pretty good amount. Coatimundi is right about us, the 3000's are just a series. Louisiana has numbers from 1-about 1270, but no 200's. Many numbers are missing but are filled in by just as many hypenated routes for one digit (ex: 1208-1, 1208-2, 1208-3...)

Then our state highway numbers jump to a range from 3000 to 3282. So we probably have about 1500 or so

[cpzilliacus]

Isn't almost every road in Virginia numbered as a state highway?

In all counties with the exception of Arlington and Henrico, this is largely correct.

But - there's the matter of municipalities, where VDOT maintains relatively little.  Cities (in Virginia, by legal definition since the early 20th Century, always independent of nearby counties and considered to be county-equivalent by the federal government) maintain almost everything within their limits.  Towns (always part of a county) also generally maintain what is within their limits, though there are some smaller towns where VDOT maintains the streets.

Only common exception is Interstates and sometimes other freeways and expressways, which can be maintained by VDOT even though  they are in a municipality.

[Scott5114]

Missouri has a pretty dense system if you consider the lettered routes.