America’s Loneliest Roads, Mapped

[bing101]

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/america-s-loneliest-roads-mapped?utm_source=pocket-newtab 
In this ranking Alaska State Route 11 is the loneliest road in the United States.

[hotdogPi]

The map shows MA 32 as east-west, when it's north-south.

I believe that the lowest AADT on any stretch of Massachusetts numbered route is MA 32 near the NH border (or at least one of the lowest AADTs), but this obviously doesn't apply to the whole route.

[GaryV]

Given that they don't even know that all the roads they selected don't carry a US shield ....

[gonealookin]

What a bunch of baloney.  NV 360 isn't even the loneliest through state highway in Mineral County, much less in all of Nevada.

NDOT Mineral County AADT report
Links to all NDOT AADT reports

[vdeane]

I question their methodology.  What merited inclusion of a road in their analysis?  It obviously just wasn't "include all US routes and state routes" because NY 421 has an AADT of 130, less than the Dalton.  They're also going to have issues because they're trying to include entire routes across a state, even though AADT varies quite a bit, so routes can easily be skewed one way or another.

[Max Rockatansky]

What's the criteria for selecting routes from State inventories?  Some states Utah have State Highways that aren't even normally accessible to the general public. 

[kphoger]

I have a more basic question:  How can you determine the AADT for an entire highway?

[webny99]

I have a more basic question:  How can you determine the AADT for an entire highway?

I believe you gave us a formula for that at one point. Now my challenge is going to be finding it, as it was at least several months ago, maybe longer.
EDIT: Found it! Not quite as relevant as I remembered it as, but still worth re-posting:

Actually, I would measure it by the highest AADT of any segment of the highway.  That is to say, what is the AADT of the busiest segment of a particular Interstate?  The lowest answer wins.

For example, the stretch of I-19 with the highest AADT is between Exit 98 and Exit 99 in Tucson, at 89,842.  That would be the "score" for I-19.

[SectorZ]

US 2 in NH is not even remotely the loneliest road around. Hell, it gets suggested for an interstate corridor constantly.

Also, and I can't stress enough how it shows the lack of research done on this, the picture (noted here at rank #9, https://www.geotab.com/americas-quietest-routes/) for US 2 in NH is a picture of the Mt. Washington Auto Road...

[NE2]

[formulanone]

I didn't know US 29 spanned most of Florida's Panhandle, right about where US 90 might be. Florida's SR 29 is much further to the south. Honestly, much of SR 29 from Everglades City to Immokalee would be a decent contender, counting only the state-maintained routes.

While much of Alabama Route 5 is lonely, the section from I-59/20 to Centerville gets a good deal of traffic; enough to have about a dozen (ridiculously short) passing zones on the two-lanes.

[Max Rockatansky]

I didn't know US 29 spanned most of Florida's Panhandle, right about where US 90 might be. Florida's SR 29 is much further to the south. Honestly, much of SR 29 from Everglades City to Immokalee would be a decent contender, counting only the state-maintained routes.

While much of Alabama Route 5 is lonely, the section from I-59/20 to Centerville gets a good deal of traffic; enough to have about a dozen (ridiculously short) passing zones on the two-lanes.

My personal experience is that US 441 between US 192 and FL 60 has even less traffic.  I used to take that as a back route to avoid having to take the Turnpike out of Orlando.

[Mark68]

I question their methodology.  What merited inclusion of a road in their analysis?  It obviously just wasn't "include all US routes and state routes" because NY 421 has an AADT of 130, less than the Dalton.  They're also going to have issues because they're trying to include entire routes across a state, even though AADT varies quite a bit, so routes can easily be skewed one way or another.

I think the methodology is strongly hinted at in the chart contained within the article. It appears to be AADT/mile. In this case, it showed the Dalton's AADT as 196 on a 414 mile highway, so the average AADT/mile is zero (less than one).

[hotdogPi]

I question their methodology.  What merited inclusion of a road in their analysis?  It obviously just wasn't "include all US routes and state routes" because NY 421 has an AADT of 130, less than the Dalton.  They're also going to have issues because they're trying to include entire routes across a state, even though AADT varies quite a bit, so routes can easily be skewed one way or another.

I think the methodology is strongly hinted at in the chart contained within the article. It appears to be AADT/mile. In this case, it showed the Dalton's AADT as 196 on a 414 mile highway, so the average AADT/mile is zero (less than one).

How does that explain VA 90003?

Also, I think that methodology would choose NH 25 over US 2.

EDIT: Taking "AADT at lowest point", MA 32 (300) ranks fourth behind 8A (160), 183 (180, which is probably a typo in the database), and 112 (250). There is no way to make MA 32 first by looking at a single year of data.

[vdeane]

I question their methodology.  What merited inclusion of a road in their analysis?  It obviously just wasn't "include all US routes and state routes" because NY 421 has an AADT of 130, less than the Dalton.  They're also going to have issues because they're trying to include entire routes across a state, even though AADT varies quite a bit, so routes can easily be skewed one way or another.

I think the methodology is strongly hinted at in the chart contained within the article. It appears to be AADT/mile. In this case, it showed the Dalton's AADT as 196 on a 414 mile highway, so the average AADT/mile is zero (less than one).

But how are they calculating that?  Routes don't have one AADT their entire length.  You might get away with it on AK 11, but I doubt it for any of the others.  NY 812 alone has 26 count stations.

[tdindy88]

I know Indiana's "loneliest road" is wrong. SR 145 from SR 64 north to French Lick is part of a well-trafficked corridor connecting I-64 with French Lick and Patoka Lake.

SR 71 in far western example is very likely the real "loneliest road."

[oscar]

The Dalton Highway isn't even Alaska's loneliest road. For example, every segment of the Denali Highway (AK 8), except the westernmost mile, has an AADT lower than the Dalton's average, per this interactive map on the Alaska DOT&PF website.

[hbelkins]

They picked KY 10, which for most of its length has been supplanted as a through route by KY 9 (AA Highway). The selected view is of the route going through Tollesboro, which is very much a local road in that location.

I can guarantee there are several other routes in Lewis County that have lower traffic counts than KY 10.

[Duke87]

This map was produced to be clickbait, not to be in any way objective. No one went through the effort to comb each state's AADT records for the lowest in each state. This map is probably the result of a database lookup of some sort.

The roads named were compiled by Geotab, which is a GPS company that specializes in fleet management. So we can safely assume the source for this is data mined from Geotab customers.

Right there, of course, is likely why you're seeing some of the weird results - because "fleet vehicles using Geotab" is not going to be a statistically representative sample of all vehicles.


Meanwhile I would not be shocked if in states like Alaska or Maine, the results may have been fudged to name a road that is more interesting to name in an article.

And I also would not be shocked if some sort of low pass filter was applied to remove a lot of the short little state route spurs out there from contention.

[fillup420]

the choice for North Carolina is NC 172. The middle bit of it runs through Camp Lejeune and is closed to the public

[ClassicHasClass]

I'll agree that the Oregon stretch of US 395 has some lonely sections, but primarily Lakeview to Burns, not the entire section up to Pendleton.

CA 139 was a weird choice. I'd nominate CA 266.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'll agree that the Oregon stretch of US 395 has some lonely sections, but primarily Lakeview to Burns, not the entire section up to Pendleton.

CA 139 was a weird choice. I'd nominate CA 266.

Another strong contender would be CA 229.  When I passed through from Santa Margarita on my way to Creston I encountered a Caltrans crew doing tree trimming operations.  They had been there for three days and were averaging only 3 vehicles at the southern terminus of CA 229.  I think CA 266 has the lowest average daily traffic of any state Highway but CA 229 can't be too far behind it. 

[stevashe]

And I also would not be shocked if some sort of low pass filter was applied to remove a lot of the short little state route spurs out there from contention.

You're definitely right on this one, the page itself says they didn't include any route under 10 miles long.

[Ga293]

Also, and I can't stress enough how it shows the lack of research done on this, the picture (noted here at rank #9, https://www.geotab.com/americas-quietest-routes/) for US 2 in NH is a picture of the Mt. Washington Auto Road...

At least Mt. Washington is a short drive from US 2. For US 65 in Louisiana they used a picture of Wisconsin Route 39.

[Duke87]

And I also would not be shocked if some sort of low pass filter was applied to remove a lot of the short little state route spurs out there from contention.

You're definitely right on this one, the page itself says they didn't include any route under 10 miles long.

So they excluded half of all state routes in CT