Milemarkers...what to do with them?

[kphoger]

How about when a divided highway makes its way through mountainous terrain, such that one roadway splits off from the other for a while and the distance traversed by one is slightly off from the distance traversed by the other?

Example:
I-8 through Arizona.
From the Foothills Blvd bridge near Yuma, Google maps measures 16.5 miles to the William St bridge in Welton.
Going the opposite direction, Google maps measures 16.6 miles.

How are mileposts handled in this type of situation.

[Scott5114]

Missouri posts them every 1/10 mile on Interstates and major expressways like US 65 and US 71 in the Kansas City area. MoDOT calls them Emergency Markers

This has kept me awake at night for years, so do you have a theory why U.S. 169 immediately north of downtown KC has miles posted in the 100s even though it has just entered the state from Kansas?

Possibly to distinguish between it and every other numbered highway that just entered the state from Kansas?

[vdeane]

How about when a divided highway makes its way through mountainous terrain, such that one roadway splits off from the other for a while and the distance traversed by one is slightly off from the distance traversed by the other?

Example:
I-8 through Arizona.
From the Foothills Blvd bridge near Yuma, Google maps measures 16.5 miles to the William St bridge in Welton.
Going the opposite direction, Google maps measures 16.6 miles.

How are mileposts handled in this type of situation.

Don't know about other states, but in NY we just fudge them.

http://www.empirestateroads.com/rm/

[The High Plains Traveler]

Missouri posts them every 1/10 mile on Interstates and major expressways like US 65 and US 71 in the Kansas City area. MoDOT calls them Emergency Markers

This has kept me awake at night for years, so do you have a theory why U.S. 169 immediately north of downtown KC has miles posted in the 100s even though it has just entered the state from Kansas?

Possibly to distinguish between it and every other numbered highway that just entered the state from Kansas?

Not sure that's an issue since 169 runs separate from I-29/35, and it doesn't have interchanges with numbered exits. I guess my question is, where is mile 0? IIRC I once looked at the mileage for U.S. 71 to see if 169 picked that up (like Arizona would do) and it didn't match. Nor does it seem they started with mile 100, and 169 doesn't occur in Missouri anywhere south of there. Since I haven't driven 169 north of KC, I wonder if the sequence in that southerly segment continues.

[The High Plains Traveler]

How about when a divided highway makes its way through mountainous terrain, such that one roadway splits off from the other for a while and the distance traversed by one is slightly off from the distance traversed by the other?
...

How are mileposts handled in this type of situation.

That's a good question since there are a number of highways in the west I'm aware of with carriageways on totally different alignments. Another would be AZ-87 from Scottsdale up to Payson (also on the "wrong-way carriageway" list).

One example not involving mountainous terrain is U.S. 50 through Rocky Ford CO. The route is carried on parallel one-way streets, and the eastbound route carries mileposts for U.S. 50, while the westbound route has mileposts starting at 0 (increasing westbound) at the point where the road splits. In the Colorado state route log, it is shown as a separate route. Any differences in distance between the two roadways is pretty minimal, though.

[J N Winkler]

How about when a divided highway makes its way through mountainous terrain, such that one roadway splits off from the other for a while and the distance traversed by one is slightly off from the distance traversed by the other?

States have different approaches to handling this problem, but in Pennsylvania the rule has traditionally been that the line of the eastbound or northbound carriageway is the reference line for milepointing and corresponding mileposts on the other carriageway are located directly across the center of the road.  This means that a westbound or southbound carriageway in Pennsylvania can have "long" or "short" miles.

The milepointing has little relevance for construction because typically each carriageway will be surveyed on its own line, with its own stationing, when the two are separated by a large or variable amount.

[codyg1985]

How about when a divided highway makes its way through mountainous terrain, such that one roadway splits off from the other for a while and the distance traversed by one is slightly off from the distance traversed by the other?

Example:
I-8 through Arizona.
From the Foothills Blvd bridge near Yuma, Google maps measures 16.5 miles to the William St bridge in Welton.
Going the opposite direction, Google maps measures 16.6 miles.

How are mileposts handled in this type of situation.

I am curious about how I-24 across Monteagle in TN is handled with this situation. May be worth a trip over there to see how the mileposts are treated.

[kkt]

I like the California postmile markers.  http://www.cahighways.org/num-postmiles.html
They give so much information -- county, route number, distance down to the 1/100th of a mile.

[roadman65]

Here is a pic of a milepost near Kokomo, IN on US 31 that is blue and has tenths of a mile on it as well as a tiny US 31 shield.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/6463250505/in/photostream/lightbox/

[tdindy88]

Here is a pic of a milepost near Kokomo, IN on US 31 that is blue and has tenths of a mile on it as well as a tiny US 31 shield.

I'd have to check my pictures, but I recall a milemarker along US 31 that had a "blue" US 31 shield, enclosed by a white square, on top of the blue milemarker.

[KEVIN_224]

I think in Connecticut, it may be done by district. Along I-95 from Greenwich to New Haven, you'll see 2/10 mile markers along that whole stretch. You don't have any of them on I-91 for the whole 58 miles of the road in this state (New Haven to Enfield). As for I-84, you'll get a few in sections, roughly somewhere between Danbury and Newtown, up until much of Waterbury. I've never seen mile markers in Connecticut on US or state highways which aren't already multiplexed on an interstate.

[OCGuy81]

Those signs on I-65 in Tennessee look like the ones I saw along I-94 in Wisconsin last time I was there.  The stretch of I-94/US-41 has them every tenth of a mile.  Perhaps it's part of that massive reconstruction.

[stormwatch7721]

I like the West Virginia milemakers.

[roadfro]

I like the California postmile markers.  http://www.cahighways.org/num-postmiles.html
They give so much information -- county, route number, distance down to the 1/100th of a mile.

Nevada uses the same system, although NDOT just calls them mileposts and not postmiles. They are using two-letter county abbreviations and no mile prefixes.

The drawback to this system for longer routes is that you cannot tell overall mileage if the route traverses more than one county. In Nevada on I-80, this has led to the posting of both Nevada-style milepost panels and standard MUTCD mileposts (due to the requirement of milepost signs on Interstates).

[roadman]

Most states that use fractional mileposts place them every .2 miles per the MUTCD.

Is it .2? That sounds right for Nebraska, now that I think about it.

Most states that use intermediate reference markers (mileposts) have standardized on .2 mile spacing between the signs, but this interval is not an MUTCD requirement.

Per the 2009 MUTCD - Sections 2H.05 and 2H-06, Intermediate Reference Location Signs may be installed "at one tenth of a mile intervals, or at some other regular spacing."

[shadyjay]

I think in Connecticut, it may be done by district. Along I-95 from Greenwich to New Haven, you'll see 2/10 mile markers along that whole stretch. You don't have any of them on I-91 for the whole 58 miles of the road in this state (New Haven to Enfield). As for I-84, you'll get a few in sections, roughly somewhere between Danbury and Newtown, up until much of Waterbury. I've never seen mile markers in Connecticut on US or state highways which aren't already multiplexed on an interstate.

West of Branford, I-95 has a strange set of mile markers - narrow and taller than usual ones, with no mention of the word "MILE". 
CT 2, CT 8, CT 9, and CT 11 all have mile markers.   
I-384, I-291, and I-691 lack them as do US 6 and US 7.  I-395 is the only 3DI in CT with mile markers.
No non-expressway routes have mile markers. 

[SidS1045]

No silly tenths of a mile, easier to comprehend quarters of a mile.

Tenths of a mile are not silly at all.  Ever see a vehicle odometer showing fractions?

[Brandon]

No silly tenths of a mile, easier to comprehend quarters of a mile.

Tenths of a mile are not silly at all.  Ever see a vehicle odometer showing fractions?

Silly me, I was under the impression milemarkers were for noting one's location, not matching them to a vehicle's odometer.

[Takumi]

One of my cars has an odometer without tenths, so...yeah.

[kphoger]

This is what México does every five kilometers:
For intermediate kilometer posts, the route shield is omitted; there are very few stand-alone assurance markers.


Sometimes there are discrepancies.  I could swear I've seen one on highway 85D marked for highway 40 somewhere between Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo, but I can't find it right now on GMSV; I think it was at least 50 miels from highway 40.  Some highways guide-signed as federal routes are km-posted as state routes, as I assume they actually are on paper....

[machias]

NYSDOT measures for milemarkers from south to north or from the west to east (depending on the orientation of the highway), so the milemarkers in that direction are true to distance (with a tolerance for obstructions at the precise point) and the markers in the opposite direction approximate the location. I believe this applies to both the milemarkers used on the interstates and the reference markers used on all state maintained roadways.

The one thing that makes me crazy about the NYSDOT regions lately is that they're marking short-run freeways with a start of "mile 0" instead of the actual mileage in the state. For example, the last time I checked the milemarkers on the expressway portion of NY Route 5 in Buffalo, mile "0" was around the Chautauqua-Erie County line instead of the Pa. line, and then the freeway portion of NY Route 5 in Syracuse started at mile "0" at it's junction with NY Route 173.  If/when NYSDOT implements distance-based exit numbering on all freeways as mandated by the MUTCD, this is going to create problems.

On the other hand, NYSDOT just put new milemarkers on Interstate and NY Route 690 and marked it as one continuous route, with the "beginning" of the route being the northern end of NY Route 690, though the current sequential exit numbers start at the junction of Interstates 90 and 690 and NY Route 690, with the exits on NY Route 690 still being unnumbered.

J.P. Wing

[vdeane]

NYSDOT seems content to pretend that that clause of the MUTCD doesn't exist.  They haven't even updated their website to say that it's now mandatory.  New signs on NY 104 and the Parkway have no exit numbers to speak of.  The planned exit numbers for I-781 are sequential.  They're doing everything they can to maximize the cost to switch when they inevitably have to switch, despite claiming the only reason they haven't switched is funding reasons.

[Duke87]

West of Branford, I-95 has a strange set of mile markers - narrow and taller than usual ones, with no mention of the word "MILE". 
CT 2, CT 8, CT 9, and CT 11 all have mile markers.   
I-384, I-291, and I-691 lack them as do US 6 and US 7.

Not quite. The Brookfield bypass (US7) has a couple of mile markers posted on it.

But yeah, Connecticut is very stingy on mile markers.