Using the word "the" before a highway number

[1995hoo]

Read it out: 

"The Interstate 95 is slow..."

"Interstate 95 is slow..."

You are referring to Interstate 95, which is the entire subject.  By adding The, you change the subject to just 95, with Interstate being an adjective.

Thus, "I-95 is slow" is the proper way to say the highway designation.

Excellent explanation. It's consistent with the explanation used by the Chicago Manual of Style's editors (http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Abbreviations.html ):

Q. I hope you can resolve a dispute between me and my editor. After introducing an acronym, e.g., "Bureau of Land Management,"  to "BLM,"  I like to drop the "the"  in introducing it. For example, I think the least awkward way is to say "BLM is charged with the oversight of . . ."  as opposed to "The BLM is . . ."  Do you have any rule that covers this issue?

A. Generally, if "the"  is part of the name, but not absorbed by the abbreviation, use "the"  as if the abbreviation were spelled out:

The NFL comprises thirty-one teams.

NFL games rarely get postponed owing to inclement weather.

In its ninety-two years, the NAACP has been a cornerstone of American civil liberties organizations.

NAACP membership is open to all who can afford it.

Advertisers for AT&T made a splash by incorporating the wah-wah pedal into recent advertisements for high-bandwidth cable.

Do you listen to the BBC?

In other words, use "the"  unless the abbreviation is used as an adjective or unless the abbreviation spelled out wouldn't take a definite article (as is the case for American Telephone and Telegraph, though I think the company has more or less dropped the antecedent to its initials).

The BLM's own documentation demonstrates this usage.

This is the same reason why it's erroneous and grating when people refer to Major League Soccer as "the MLS" or Major League Baseball as "the MLB" (as in, "Ben Olsen coaches DC United in the MLS"–although, of course, it'd be correct to say "FIFA grumbles about the MLS season running from March to November"). Of course, there are umpteen federal agencies that annoyingly try to refer to themselves without the leading article (the FDA and the EPA are two that do this). The general follow-up principle I've usually heard is that if the initials are themselves pronounced as a word, you omit the leading "the" even if it would be incorrect to do so if you were pronouncing each letter (thus, "VDOT" for the Virginia Department of Transportation or "NASCAR" for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing).



This discussion is reminding me of an old joke I saw somewhere:

Teacher: Johnny, please use the word "I" in a sentence.

Johnny: OK. I is– [teacher interrupts]

Teacher: No, no, no. Haven't you been paying attention in class? The correct form is "I am." Only uneducated people say "I is." Try again.

Johnny: I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.

[Ned Weasel]

I believe I heard a traffic report refer to "the 696" during my brief visit to Michigan.

Personally, I like using "the" for freeway route numbers, and "Route" for non-freeway route numbers, as long as there is no ambiguity due to number duplication.

[Bruce]

Seattleites put "the" in front of a highway number in one specific instance: talking about bridges.

SR 520/Hwy 520/"520" is used, "the 520" is not. "The 520 Bridge" is very common, while "The SR 520 Bridge" isn't used that much; the bridge's official names (Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge) are rarely used in common language.

[cl94]

Someone earlier mentioned Western New York and this is very true. People in Buffalo put "the" before route numbers, including surface portions of certain routes. Probably adopted from adjacent Ontario. Do note that surface roads are always referred to by name. People I know from Rochester do not use "the", so it's really limited to the immediate Buffalo area.

[1995hoo]

Seattleites put "the" in front of a highway number in one specific instance: talking about bridges.

SR 520/Hwy 520/"520" is used, "the 520" is not. "The 520 Bridge" is very common, while "The SR 520 Bridge" isn't used that much; the bridge's official names (Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge) are rarely used in common language.

"The 520 Bridge" makes perfect sense to me. You're not referring to the road as "the 520"; you're referring to the bridge and including the route number to denote which bridge it is. In a sense, you're saying "the bridge" and adding "520" for specificity.

[dfwmapper]

Got a better question why does Texas add an "H" to all interstate routes?  Why can't I-30 be used instead of IH 30?  Why add an extra letter?

All state highway classes have 2 letter designations. IH, US, UA (US Alternate), SH, SL (Loop), SS (Spur), FM, RM, UR (Urban Road, hidden designation for FM/RM roads that are in urban areas and ineligible for state funding for expansion), PR (Park Road), RE (Recreational Road), BI (Interstate Business), BU (US Business), BS (State Business), BF (FM Business).

[02 Park Ave]

 "New Jersey Turnpike" is the name of a highway.  It is always referred to as "The New Jersey Turnpike" or, to be more familiar, "The Turnpike".

Likewise, "Interstate 95" is the name of a highway.  Consequently, it should be referred to as "The Interstate 95" or, to be more familiar, "The I-95".  Using the article "The" does not suddenly make part of its name an adjective.

Does using the article "The" make "New Jersey" some sort of external adjective when referring to our turnpike?  No.  It is still an integral part of the highway's name.

[andrewkbrown]

Also, did not Ohio used to at one time add an "R" to interstate route designations just as Texas did for their respected interstates?

I believe so. I can remeber seeing an old button copy distance sign on northbound I-71 just south of Columbus that referred to the Columbus Bypass as IR 270.

[odditude]

"New Jersey Turnpike" is the name of a highway.  It is always referred to as "The New Jersey Turnpike" or, to be more familiar, "The Turnpike".

Likewise, "Interstate 95" is the name of a highway.  Consequently, it should be referred to as "The Interstate 95" or, to be more familiar, "The I-95".  Using the article "The" does not suddenly make part of its name an adjective.

Does using the article "The" make "New Jersey" some sort of external adjective when referring to our turnpike?  No.  It is still an integral part of the highway's name.

by that logic, should we call you the 02 Park Ave?

[Quillz]

I've always said "the." But my dad is from the East Coast and he'll usually just say the number, like "take 5 to w/e." I know some people from the Bay Area who are the same way: "Take 680 east to Exit #."

[hbelkins]

Regarding, "I-95 is slow from Occoquan River Bridge [should have a 'the' before the bridge's name] to the Triangle [should not have a 'the' because it's the name of a town].",  here's another correction.  It should be "The I-95".

No it shouldn't.

[hbelkins]

"New Jersey Turnpike" is the name of a highway.  It is always referred to as "The New Jersey Turnpike" or, to be more familiar, "The Turnpike".

Likewise, "Interstate 95" is the name of a highway.  Consequently, it should be referred to as "The Interstate 95" or, to be more familiar, "The I-95".  Using the article "The" does not suddenly make part of its name an adjective.

Does using the article "The" make "New Jersey" some sort of external adjective when referring to our turnpike?  No.  It is still an integral part of the highway's name.

by that logic, should we call you the 02 Park Ave?

[cpzilliacus]

Well, if they had said "The Shirley Highway ..." would there have been a problem?

The name "Shirley Highway" is generally not used any longer (I do not think there is even one sign left with the name). 

On WTOP Radio traffic reports it is "395 and 95" (southbound) and usually just "95" or "395" for northbound. 

[jakeroot]

SR 520/Hwy 520/"520" is used, "the 520" is not.

I've heard "the 520" plenty of times. It's not universal by any stretch, but I've heard it. I've heard "the 509", "the 518", "the 101", "the 167", and "the 405" on many occasions as well.

[dfwmapper]

"New Jersey Turnpike" is the name of a highway.  It is always referred to as "The New Jersey Turnpike" or, to be more familiar, "The Turnpike".

Likewise, "Interstate 95" is the name of a highway.  Consequently, it should be referred to as "The Interstate 95" or, to be more familiar, "The I-95".  Using the article "The" does not suddenly make part of its name an adjective.

Does using the article "The" make "New Jersey" some sort of external adjective when referring to our turnpike?  No.  It is still an integral part of the highway's name.

Actually, using an article does turn "New Jersey" into an adjective and "turnpike" into the noun, and the article "the" is used to indicate that you're referring to a turnpike in New Jersey as opposed to one in Pennsylvania or Kansas or something. This is incorrect because New Jersey Turnpike is a proper noun, but this is America and butchering language and culture is how we roll. The only times it would be correct to use "The New Jersey Turnpike" would be if there were multiple roads with that name and you were specifying which one you were talking about, or if New Jersey Turnpike was being used as an adjective and the article is referring to a different noun (e.g. "The New Jersey Turnpike tollbooths").

[admtrap]

I'm not sure what the grammatical rule for this would be, but there's certainly some proper nouns which seem to require "the" and some which forbid it. 

Let's take a boat ride, shall we?

I took a boat out onto...
the Pacific Ocean
the Mississippi River
the Rio Grande
the Adriatic Sea
the River Kwai

BUT
Lake Michigan
Big Bear Lake


For some reason, Lakes are their own special category (whether the lake name comes first or last), and they don't get the word "the."   Unless it's the Great Salt Lake, which brings "the" back - perhaps because its name sounds more like a description than a proper name.  It doesn't matter if it's a body of water functionally equivalent to a lake (the Salton Sea is a lake in all but name, but it's a "sea" so it gets prefixed with "the").   

I'm not sure exactly what the connection is here, but for the same reason, the construction with roadways parallels this.


To get there, you need to take...

Main Street
7th Avenue
Broadway
Imperial Highway
Pennsylvania Avenue

but..
The Pennsylvania Turnpike
The Long Island Expressway
The Golden State Freeway
The Baltimore Beltway
The George Washington Bridge

Bridges and access-controlled highways simply sound correct with "the" prefixing them.  And sure, there's more than one Turnpike in the country, but there's more than one Avenue too.

Ordinary roads are like Lakes, but freeways are more like rivers or oceans.   For Angelinos, this extends to using the road number as a name ("The seven-ten") but that's probably a bridge too far for some of you.   

[02 Park Ave]

"New Jersey Turnpike" is the name of a highway.  It is always referred to as "The New Jersey Turnpike" or, to be more familiar, "The Turnpike".

Likewise, "Interstate 95" is the name of a highway.  Consequently, it should be referred to as "The Interstate 95" or, to be more familiar, "The I-95".  Using the article "The" does not suddenly make part of its name an adjective.

Does using the article "The" make "New Jersey" some sort of external adjective when referring to our turnpike?  No.  It is still an integral part of the highway's name.

by that logic, should we call you the 02 Park Ave?

In the spirit of Hyacinth Bucket, Yes!

[1995hoo]

"New Jersey Turnpike" is the name of a highway.  It is always referred to as "The New Jersey Turnpike" or, to be more familiar, "The Turnpike".

Likewise, "Interstate 95" is the name of a highway.  Consequently, it should be referred to as "The Interstate 95" or, to be more familiar, "The I-95".  Using the article "The" does not suddenly make part of its name an adjective.

Does using the article "The" make "New Jersey" some sort of external adjective when referring to our turnpike?  No.  It is still an integral part of the highway's name.

by that logic, should we call you the 02 Park Ave?

Then he can join Charles Barkley and live in the Annapolis.

[Pete from Boston]

I have a question: how far back does this practice go?  Does it predate the Interstate system? 

I have always thought of definite article use as naming the highway as a thing, an object.  This differs semantically from how people refer to a way, a place.  "The new highway," "the new Route 80," and "the 80" have a semantic lineage in my mind.*  But "Route 46" would never have had any article because it was never seen as a thing, an item.  It was a linear place, a stringing together of preexisting places.  There was no "it" in the same sense as this large continuous constructed object of concrete, steel, and asphalt.

* My example is not a great one, since the article is not used in New Jersey, but that's not important to my point.

[english si]

by that logic, should we call you the 02 Park Ave?

In the spirit of Hyacinth Bucket, Yes!

I assume you are referring to people calling her 'The Bucket woman', rather than her "The Bouquet Residence" when answering the phone*. In which case, she hated that!

All road numbers in the UK and Ireland get 'the' in front of them. Probably as alphanumeric terms don't really describe it. Interstate 40 or US Route 80 make sense with out the 'the', and then are abbreviated to I-40 and US 80. M62, on the other hand, isn't 'Motorway 62' so needs a definite article.

*which is common among her generation to do when answering the phone, where there was the etiquette that you started the conversation by asking whether they had the right number by describing who's phone it is, or by (as my grandmother does) stating the number (normally very fast), and often then saying who is speaking. I don't really understand it, as well the ringer, not the ringee, is the unknown member of the conversation.

[Bruce]

SR 520/Hwy 520/"520" is used, "the 520" is not.

I've heard "the 520" plenty of times. It's not universal by any stretch, but I've heard it. I've heard "the 509", "the 518", "the 101", "the 167", and "the 405" on many occasions as well.

Those are usually used by transplants, at least in my experience.

It's a shame we don't have proper names for our freeways. Some do (SR 167 is unofficially the "Valley Freeway", which is a nice name), but they're never really used by anyone.

Same goes for our interchanges. Plenty of potential names out there, but we don't have a tradition of naming them yet.

[hbelkins]

Speaking of waterways, rivers and creeks get different treatment.

"The Kentucky River."

But "Station Camp Creek." Not "the Station Camp Creek."

[BrynM65]

by that logic, should we call you the 02 Park Ave?

In the spirit of Hyacinth Bucket, Yes!

I assume you are referring to people calling her 'The Bucket woman', rather than her "The Bouquet Residence" when answering the phone*. In which case, she hated that!

All road numbers in the UK and Ireland get 'the' in front of them. Probably as alphanumeric terms don't really describe it. Interstate 40 or US Route 80 make sense with out the 'the', and then are abbreviated to I-40 and US 80. M62, on the other hand, isn't 'Motorway 62' so needs a definite article.

*which is common among her generation to do when answering the phone, where there was the etiquette that you started the conversation by asking whether they had the right number by describing who's phone it is, or by (as my grandmother does) stating the number (normally very fast), and often then saying who is speaking. I don't really understand it, as well the ringer, not the ringee, is the unknown member of the conversation.

Although civil engineers used to happily refer to "M.6". As in "I helped design parts of M.6". The full stop is never used these days.

[jakeroot]

Although civil engineers used to happily refer to "M.6". As in "I helped design parts of M.6". The full stop is never used these days.

Meaning they pronounced it "em dot six"? Or just in writing, spelt it "M.6"? The first, with a pronounced full stop, seems bizarre to me, but I want to be sure.

[english si]

Although civil engineers used to happily refer to "M.6". As in "I helped design parts of M.6". The full stop is never used these days.

True, though arguably they would be using the 'M.x' in the same way that they used it before - as Motor Road project numbers and thus treat the M as a description?

Meaning they pronounced it "em dot six"? Or just in writing, spelt it "M.6"? The first, with a pronounced full stop, seems bizarre to me, but I want to be sure.

The latter. The dot was replaced with a half-space with the Worboys signage changes (though lasted longer as halfspaces weren't typewriter characters: they now either leave no space, or occasionally up it to a full one).