Unpaved state highways

[KCRoadFan]

Hi, so I was wondering: which states have at least one signed state highway that is unpaved for at least part of its length? I know that Alaska has several such roads, Minnesota has one, and I'm pretty sure Colorado's got at least one. What others might there be?

I'm guessing they're probably most commonly encountered in the western states, especially in the Rockies - maybe in Appalachia (WV, western VA/NC, eastern KY) to some extent as well. Can anyone fill me in on this?

[Scott5114]

Arkansas has a few, I'm pretty sure.

Oklahoma paved its last state highway in the mid 2000s.

[froggie]

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=21108.0

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=13040.0

Two threads we've had in the past on the subject.  Several listed in there.

[US 89]

Utah has two: SR 153 between Puffer Lake and Junction, and SR 261 on the famous Moki Dugway. I still haven’t done the Dugway, but I just drove 153 and I have to say the dirt portion is indistinguishable from your average forest service dirt road. I almost thought I’d made a wrong turn (it doesn’t help that signage is poor to nonexistent at the east end of the unpaved portion). The only clues it’s a state highway are the occasional milepost, a handful of old UDOT-spec signs scattered around, and one reassurance shield about halfway through.

Until 1990, the portions of SR 190 and SR 224 in Wasatch County north of Wasatch Mountain State Park were also dirt. Those portions were removed from the state highway system in 1990, and then the county finally paved them in the late 2000s.

[JayhawkCO]

Despite others posting differently, it looks like Colorado only has three:

CO78 near Beulah
CO170 near Eldorado Springs
CO394 near Craig

I've seen some say that CO317 is unpaved near its eastern terminus, but I just drove it this summer and it's completely paved.

Chris

[DandyDan]

Nebraska has 4:
1. NE 67 between US 34 and NE 2
2. The easternmost segment of NE 18
3. NE 65 south of Pawnee City to the Kansas border
4. S-67C, a spur route going off of NE 65

[Max Rockatansky]

CA 173 has the last dirt State Highway segment which is presently gated off.  AZ 88, AZ 288, AZ 366, and AZ 473 come to mind in Arizona but none are totally unpaved. 

[nexus73]

Southern half of SR 27 in Oregon is gravel.  The highway is east of the Bend/Redmond area.

Rick

[debragga]

Louisiana has several

[Roadgeekteen]

None in Massachusetts unless I'm missing something.

[SectorZ]

None in Massachusetts unless I'm missing something.

Not missing anything in our state's case. In New England, I am unsure about Maine, but Vermont has a few (both state maintained and state routes that are town maintained).

[Flint1979]

Michigan's state highways have all been paved since the 1960's.

[corco]

A huge chunk of the Montana secondary system is unpaved (too many highways to list). Primary MT 38 is also unpaved for part of its existence.

Idaho has two unpaved state highways left - the portion of SH-7 south of US 12 and then part of SH-64.

Wyoming, perhaps surprisingly, has an entirely paved state highway system.

[corco]

Despite others posting differently, it looks like Colorado only has three:

CO78 near Beulah
CO170 near Eldorado Springs
CO394 near Craig

I've seen some say that CO317 is unpaved near its eastern terminus, but I just drove it this summer and it's completely paved.

Chris

CO 394 is paved now! I drove it a month ago and it is now paved all the way to its terminus. The paving job east of where pavement used to end is quite bad...looks like it was done by the county or possibly even local landowners. Doesn't look that old and it's already falling apart.



Also drove 317 on the same trip and it's...definitely unpaved a few hundred feet after it enters Routt County - this photo is just past the county line:

and this is a mile or so east at the terminus:


Oddly, if you look at (old) street view it is paved in those exact locations\(https://goo.gl/maps/TxmogWrhv4XFLEed6,  https://goo.gl/maps/NuGiEnriUx955ksR9) - so I think the roadway was reverted to gravel at some point recently - or it was under construction when I drove it (though I don't recall any evidence of that) - I drove it on July 4th. When did you drive it?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Minnesota still had multiple routes into the 80s and 90s. MN 289 was turned back in the late 80s, MN 1 east of Cook was swapped with a paved St. Louis County segment around 1996, and MN 65 was paved through Nett Lake in 2000. Now, just MN 74 between Weaver and Whitewater remains.

[kphoger]

South Dakota still has a couple, right?  SD-63, for example.

[Bitmapped]

The primary route networks of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia* are all fully paved. (WV has some that have basically been temporarily reduced to gravel as a result of well drilling traffic destroying the existing surface, including parts of WV 18 in Doddridge County and WV 67 east of Bethany.)

For PA, I think the last unpaved part was PA 44 around Cherry Springs, which was paved circa 1989. For WV, I believe it was WV 46 near Jennings Randolph Lake - I recall some unpaved stretches around 2004 but it's all at least chip-seal now.

VA 91 is gravel going across Clinch Mountain. There a number of gravel state routes in eastern Kentucky including KY 199 in Pike County. There are gravel WVDOH-maintained county routes throughout West Virginia. Pennsylvania also has some gravel state-owned quadrant routes towards Potter and Tioga counties.

[corco]

South Dakota still has a couple, right?  SD-63, for example.

South Dakota does it up right on SD 20 with full welcome and reassurance signage

[cl94]

We've been over this several times, but since it was brought back up...

New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio, and West Virginia have 0 unpaved state highways. NY had one as late as 1994 (NY 99, always county-maintained).

Vermont has 4, one of which (VT 65) is state-maintained. The other 3 (35, 58, 121) are town maintenance.

I do not know of any unpaved state highways in New Hampshire or Maine, but there may be a couple elusive ones.

Outside the Northeast and eastern Midwest, New Mexico has several unpaved state highways in various states of maintenance. 52, 57, 126, 159, 163, 165 all come to mind, probably several others. In the Lower 48, this might be the state with the most unpaved primary state highways.

[US 89]

I should add that Utah has SR 900 and 901, two unsigned “public safety interest highways” intended to prevent construction of a nuclear waste rail line to the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation. They are entirely unpaved, but you could argue whether those are actually part of the state highway system because they are fully maintained by Tooele County or the BLM, and they are legislatively defined in an entirely different section of Utah state law from the rest of the state highways. Some of the BLM-maintained segments barely qualify as roads, and according to corco, one of them is apparently now private land.

[debragga]

We've been over this several times, but since it was brought back up...

New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio, and West Virginia have 0 unpaved state highways. NY had one as late as 1994 (NY 99, always county-maintained).

Vermont has 4, one of which (VT 65) is state-maintained. The other 3 (35, 58, 121) are town maintenance.

I do not know of any unpaved state highways in New Hampshire or Maine, but there may be a couple elusive ones.

Outside the Northeast and eastern Midwest, New Mexico has several unpaved state highways in various states of maintenance. 52, 57, 126, 159, 163, 165 all come to mind, probably several others. In the Lower 48, this might be the state with the most unpaved primary state highways.

I'm fairly sure that Texas has 0 unpaved state highways as well.

[kphoger]

I'm fairly sure that Texas has 0 unpaved state highways as well.

I believe you're correct, based on the post below.

Texas has nearly 86,000 miles of unpaved roads.  About 77 miles of that is city streets, 83,285 miles are county roads, less than 3 miles are toll road authority roads, and 2,359 miles are federal roads (which I assume means roads in national parks and recreation areas, military installments, and other federal facilities).  This report includes only roads open to traffic.

This information is on page 859, the off-system roads page.  There are very small distances of unpaved on-system roads, adding up to about 1.5 miles.
ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/tpp/roadway-inventory/2016.pdf

[hbelkins]

The primary route networks of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia* are all fully paved. (WV has some that have basically been temporarily reduced to gravel as a result of well drilling traffic destroying the existing surface, including parts of WV 18 in Doddridge County and WV 67 east of Bethany.)

For PA, I think the last unpaved part was PA 44 around Cherry Springs, which was paved circa 1989. For WV, I believe it was WV 46 near Jennings Randolph Lake - I recall some unpaved stretches around 2004 but it's all at least chip-seal now.

VA 91 is gravel going across Clinch Mountain. There a number of gravel state routes in eastern Kentucky including KY 199 in Pike County. There are gravel WVDOH-maintained county routes throughout West Virginia. Pennsylvania also has some gravel state-owned quadrant routes towards Potter and Tioga counties.

I drove WV 46 about seven years ago, and the entire route seemed to be bituminous surface and was in decent shape. I think portions of what was signed as WV 59 until it was demoted to county route status were gravel, as well.

The only other gravel road I can think of in  eastern Kentucky besides KY 199 might be KY 1679 (the Little Shepherd Trail that runs across the top of Pine Mountain between US 421 and US 119). I want to think that it's all been paved by now.

For years, much of KY 1098 in Breathitt County was unpaved. And KY 542 in extreme eastern Kentucky might as well be gravel, it was in such bad shape the last time I drove across it.

There are some gravel roads along the Ohio River in western Kentucky.

[wxfree]

I'm fairly sure that Texas has 0 unpaved state highways as well.

I believe you're correct, based on the post below.

Texas has nearly 86,000 miles of unpaved roads.  About 77 miles of that is city streets, 83,285 miles are county roads, less than 3 miles are toll road authority roads, and 2,359 miles are federal roads (which I assume means roads in national parks and recreation areas, military installments, and other federal facilities).  This report includes only roads open to traffic.

This information is on page 859, the off-system roads page.  There are very small distances of unpaved on-system roads, adding up to about 1.5 miles.
ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/tpp/roadway-inventory/2016.pdf

We have a new document now, from 2018.  The counties have been doing some paving.  There's a little more length in total, but 1,900 miles less unpaved road.  But we have more unpaved state highways than before.  In the previous document, it showed 1.15 miles of unpaved frontage road.  The new document has 2.6 miles of frontage road.  In addition, it has 0.37 mile of PASS, Park, and Recreation Roads, 0.27 mile of FM/RM, 1.19 miles of State, Loop, and Spur, and 0.29 mile of unpaved US highway (I can't imagine where that is, also, the lane miles shows that it's more than two lanes).  It's effectively zero, but not quite.

ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/tpp/roadway-inventory/2018.pdf

[bassoon1986]

I'm fairly sure that Texas has 0 unpaved state highways as well.

I believe you're correct, based on the post below.

Texas has nearly 86,000 miles of unpaved roads.  About 77 miles of that is city streets, 83,285 miles are county roads, less than 3 miles are toll road authority roads, and 2,359 miles are federal roads (which I assume means roads in national parks and recreation areas, military installments, and other federal facilities).  This report includes only roads open to traffic.

This information is on page 859, the off-system roads page.  There are very small distances of unpaved on-system roads, adding up to about 1.5 miles.
ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/tpp/roadway-inventory/2016.pdf

We have a new document now, from 2018.  The counties have been doing some paving.  There's a little more length in total, but 1,900 miles less unpaved road.  But we have more unpaved state highways than before.  In the previous document, it showed 1.15 miles of unpaved frontage road.  The new document has 2.6 miles of frontage road.  In addition, it has 0.37 mile of PASS, Park, and Recreation Roads, 0.27 mile of FM/RM, 1.19 miles of State, Loop, and Spur, and 0.29 mile of unpaved US highway (I can't imagine where that is, also, the lane miles shows that it's more than two lanes).  It's effectively zero, but not quite.

ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/tpp/roadway-inventory/2018.pdf

I feel like someone on this forum showed a ragged portion of a Bus US 83 that may have been unpaved. I feel like it was in or near a border town and could possibly have been decommissioned since then or working towards it.


EDIT:
I found the thread. It is Bus US 83 in San Ygnacio I was thinking of. It looks paved but man it is tiny.


Lowest-quality road on a U.S. Route?
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