North Carolina Highway System
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The North Carolina Highway System consists of a vast network of Interstate highways, U.S. routes, and state routes. North Carolina has the second largest state maintained highway network in the United States.[1]
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[edit] Interstate highways
Interstate highways that venture through the state of North Carolina, along with auxillarly routes:
- Interstate 26, traverses the state's western mountainous region
- Interstate 40, spans nearly the entire state from east to west
- Interstate 40 Business, business freeway loop through Winston-Salem, NC and Greensboro, NC
- Interstate 140, bypass around Wilmington, NC
- Interstate 240, loop through Asheville, NC
- Interstate 440, inner beltway around downtown Raleigh, NC
- Interstate 540, future outer beltway around the Raleigh, NC metropolitan area
- Interstate 840, future northern segment of the Urban Loop around Greensboro, NC
- Interstate 73, future central North Carolina interstate mostly along US 220
- Interstate 74, link between US 52 and I-77 near Mount Airy, NC and future cross-state highway traveling northwest/southeast
- Interstate 274, future western segment of the Northern Beltway around Winston-Salem, NC
- Interstate 77, travels mostly straight north/south through central North Carolina
- Interstate 277, loops around the uptown district of Charlotte, NC
- Interstate 85, links the four most populous cities in the state traveling northeast/southwest
- Interstate 85 Business, business freeway/expressway loop through High Point, NC and Greensboro, NC
- Interstate 285, future spur from Lexington, NC to I-40 in Winston-Salem, NC
- Interstate 485, outerbelt around Charlotte, NC
- Interstate 785, future spur from Greensboro, NC to Danville, VA
- Interstate 95, traverses the state's Coastal Plain region
- Interstate 95 Business, business expressway loop through Fayetteville, NC
- Interstate 295, future loop around western Fayetteville, NC
[edit] U.S. Routes
[edit] Current routes
[edit] Former routes
[edit] North Carolina State Routes
[edit] Numbering
North Carolina State Highways numbered under 1000 are primary state highways,[2] and numbers greater than or equal to 1000 are secondary. Secondary highways are not signed with shields; regular green or white road signs are most commonly used to designate secondary roads. On these signs, the prefix "SR" for "secondary road" sometimes precedes the road number. Nearly all secondary highways also have phoenetic names, and many primary routes are also signed with phoenetic titles. North Carolina routes may be referred to as "North Carolina Highway x", "N.C. Highway x", "NC Route x", or just "NC x", where x is the route number.
Unlike highways in the primary system, secondary road numbers may be repeated multiple times throughout the system, provided that they are not repeated within the same county. For example, SR2000 may refer to the physical roadway signed as Wake Forest Road or Falls of Neuse Road in Wake County, or it may refer to the physical roadway signed as Hickory Grove Road in Gaston County. Some road numbers are quite common. In fact, the designation SR1101 is currently used, or has in the past, been used nearly 100 times by almost every county in the state.
Secondary roads that cross a county line are generally given a new number in the new county. For example, Rustic Court is a very short road, barely one tenth of a mile in length; yet, it crosses the Durham-Orange county line. The section in Durham County (0.03 miles in length) is designated SR2397 while the section is Orange County (0.08 miles in length) is designated SR1604. The exception to this rule applies to roads designated SR10xx (where the x's represent additional digits) which are generally given to regionally significant roads or roads crossing one or more county lines, but which are not part of the primary system. For example, SR1006-Old Stage Road, is located both in Wake and Harnett Counties.
The significance of secondary road numbers is almost exclusive to NCDOT operations, generally maintenance, rather than for navigational purposes by the driving public. Certainly, the secondary road numbering system is not organized to help unfamiliar motorists find their way. Rather, this is the job of the phoenetic names, which are generally established at the local level, but which often share a sign with an SR designation for convienence. In many rural areas of the state, typically in the Mountian and Coastal Plain regions, many roads lack a phoenetic name, in which case they are known by the SR designation.
It is not uncommon for maintenance responsibility of secondary roads to transfer from NCDOT to particular municipalities as they increase in size due to annexation. When this occurs, the SR designations are eliminated. The SR road designation is also eliminated from physical roadways that are elevated into the primary system. For example, NC 157 (Guess Road) in Durham and Person counties was once a secondary road designated SR1008. Although it ascended into the primary system years ago, some of the old signs identifying Guess Road as SR1008 remain.
[edit] Signage
A North Carolina Highway shield has the route's number in black inside a white equilateral diamond shape. A square of black surrounds the diamond shape. The diamond shape does not alter to accommodate larger route numbers; the numbers are reduced in size to fit within the diamond.
[edit] Rules and exceptions
- North Carolina Highway numbers cannot be the same as any U.S. Highway or Interstate Highway in the state. If a new federal route is commissioned in North Carolina that has the same number as a North Carolina Highway, the NC route number more than likely will be changed. (Current only exception: NC 73)
- There are no alphabetic letters in a state route designation, nor any alternate routes in the system, except for NC 226A.
[edit] List of NC Highways
[edit] NC 2 through NC 50
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[edit] NC 51 through NC 100
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[edit] NC 101 through NC 150
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[edit] NC 151 through NC 200
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[edit] NC 205 through NC 242
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[edit] NC 251 through NC 294
[edit] NC 304 through NC 481
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[edit] NC 522 through NC 694
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[edit] NC 700 through NC 905
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[edit] Former routes
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[edit] Bike routes
- US Bike Route 1 - Carolina Connection
- NC Bike Route 2 - Mountains to Sea
- NC Bike Route 3 - Ports of Call
- NC Bike Route 4 - North Line Trace
- NC Bike Route 5 - Cape Fear Run
- NC Bike Route 6 - Piedmont Spur
- NC Bike Route 7 - Ocracoke Option
- NC Bike Route 8 - Southern Highlands
- Sandhills Sector
[edit] Other routes and highways
- All American Freeway, a freeway connecting Fort Bragg Military Reservation with central Fayetteville, NC
- The Blue Ridge Parkway, a two-lane scenic route, beginning in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, running near Asheville, NC and Mount Mitchell, and entering Virginia near Boone, NC.
- Bryan Boulevard, a freeway spur from NC 68 to downtown Greensboro, NC
- Charlotte Route 4, thoroughfare loop around central Charlotte, NC
- The Great Smoky Mountains Expressway, a partially restricted access, four-lane highway running through the mountains of Southwestern North Carolina from Interstate 40 (Exit 27) west-southwest to Murphy.
- Greensboro Urban Loop, a beltline around Greensboro, NC that once completed will be used for routing five Interstate highways.
- Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway a freeway connecting I-95 to downtown Fayetteville, NC
- Wade Avenue, a partial freeway connecting I-40 near Raleigh, NC to the northern segment of the I-440 beltway in Raleigh, NC
- Wendover Avenue, a partial freeway connecting I-40 to US 220, US 70 and US 29 in Greensboro, NC
[edit] Trivia
- NC 400 is the shortest state route in North Carolina with a length of approximately 0.8 miles.
- North Carolina State Route shields used to feature an interlocking "NC" logo above the route number; this symbol is currently used by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (slightly altered).
- Michigan is the only U.S. state other than North Carolina that uses the diamond shape for route shields.
- When U.S. Highway 74 is upgraded to Interstate standards in southeastern North Carolina, it will carry Interstate 74, forming one of only a few concurrencies in the nation where a U.S. Route and an Interstate share the same number.
[edit] History
The original highway numbering system for North Carolina was established in the 1920s. Major routes were multiples of 10, with 10, 20, and 90 running east/west, 30, 40, 50, 70, and 80 running north/south, and 60 running as a diagonal route. These cross-state routes were used as a basis for numbering the two-digit roads that served as the major city-city connectors. For example, NC 90 used to run along modern U.S. 64, which explains the multiple "90s" that branch off of U.S. 64 today (NC 96, 97, and 98)
Three-digit numbered roads were less important spurs off of the two-digit roads and often served as rural connectors. These were numbered in a scheme opposite of the U.S. and Interstate auxiliary routes; the spur routes received an extra "ones" digit instead of an extra "hundreds" digit. The first spur received the number "xx1" and the second received "xx2", where xx is the parent route number. This explains the predomination of such routes as 751, 271, 561, and the relatively few "xx0" routes (which would be the 10th assigned spur route... few parent routes would have spurs numbered this high).
In 1933-34 many roads were renumbered to eliminate conflicts with the U.S. highways now crisscrossing the state. Some numbers (50, 90), which had become effectively U.S. routes (1 and 64 respectively) were moved or eliminated while others that conflicted with established U.S. route numbers in the state were changed to non-conflicting numbers. This seems to have been done without regard to the earlier numbering system, as were all future additions to the state highway system, which is where the modern "lack of any system" system came to be.
In 1937, several routes were renumbered to be contiguous with South Carolina routes, and in 1940 the same happened with Virginia. No effort has ever been made to match up with Tennessee routes, but most cross-border numbered roads along this area are already U.S. highways anyway.
In the 1950s, routes that conflicted with Interstates were renumbered.
The most recent numbering change happened in 2002. Recently, NC 136 and NC 3 swapped numbers. This was to place NC 3 near Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s home of Kannapolis. The old NC 3/current NC 136 is a short spur in Currituck County. Currently, the only North Carolina highway in conflict with an Interstate number in the state is NC 73.[3]
[edit] See also
- List of United States Numbered Highways
- List of Interstate Highways
- North Carolina Department of Transportation
- North Carolina Ferry System
- American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
- Federal Highway Administration
- I-85 Corridor
[edit] References
- ^ NC DOT. NCDOT Quick Facts (PDF). Retrieved on December 18, 2006.
- ^ State of North Carolina (1998-08-01). North Carolina Administrative Code Chapter 19A: Transportation. North Carolina Administrative Code. Retrieved on December 18, 2006.
- ^ NC Roads: North Carolina Highway Numbering Scheme. Retrieved on April 9, 2007.
[edit] External links
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