Portal:U.S. Roads

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

edit 

The U.S. Roads Portal

The highway system of the United States consists of US routes and interstates. In addition, all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands all maintain their own systems. Despite their names, US routes and interstates are the responsibility of the state department of transportation where they are located.

The US Routes (also known as U.S. Highways) are even numbered for east-west routes (with the lowest numbers along Canada) and are odd numbered for north-south routes (with the lowest numbers along the Atlantic Ocean). Three-digit highways, also known as "child routes", are branches off their main two-digit "parents" (for example, U.S. Route 271 is a branch of U.S. Route 71).

Interstates are also even numbered for east-west routes (but the lowest numbers are along Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico), and the odd-numbered routes are north-south routes (with the lowest numbers along the Pacific Ocean). Three-digit interstates are, generally, either beltways or spurs of their parent interstates (for example, Interstate 270 is a beltway around the city of Columbus, Ohio and is connected to Interstate 70).

Each state and territory has its own system for numbering highways, some more systematic than others. Each state also has its own design for its highway markers; the number in a circle is the default sign, but many choose a different design somehow connected to their state. Many use an outline of the state with the number inside.

Approximately 5900 articles have been written on interstate, US, and state roads.

edit 

Selected article

Interstate 476 is a 132 mile long Interstate Highway that travels between Interstate 95 near Chester, Pennsylvania and Interstate 81 near Scranton, Pennsylvania, serving as the primary north-south Interstate corridor through eastern Pennsylvania. It consists of both the approximately 21 mile Mid-County Expressway (locally referred to as the Blue Route) through the suburban Philadelphia counties of Delaware and Montgomery, and the 110 mile Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike connecting the Philadelphia metropolitan area with the Lehigh Valley, the Poconos, and the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area.

While proposed as early as 1929, the construction of the Mid-County Expressway through Delaware County, Pennsylvania was not completed until 1992 due to massive community and environmental opposition during the freeway revolts of the 1960s and 1970s, leading The Philadelphia Inquirer to dub it "the most costly, most bitterly opposed highway in Pennsylvania history."

Following the completion of the Mid-County Expressway, in 1996 the Interstate 476 designation was extended to include the entire length of the existing Northeast Extension, making I-476 the longest auxiliary Interstate highway in the United States.

edit 

Selected picture

edit 

Did you know...



edit 

Related portals

edit 

U.S. Roads news

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation has issued a new sign design for Oklahoma state highways. All signs are supposed to be changed over by the end of 2006.

edit 

U.S. Roads lists

For individual state highways, see template at bottom

edit 

Types of U.S. roads

edit 

WikiProjects

edit 

Things you can do

If you wish to help with this portal, sign up at WikiProject U.S. Roads. If you wish to help with any of the highway projects, please sign up at the projects listed above.

You can recommend and vote on Selected articles and Selected pictures.

You can also recommend items for Did You Know? and News.

edit 

State highways

edit 

Associated Wikimedia


Index of all categories Random category
! 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z


Purge server cache

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../u/2E/s/Portal%7EU.S._Roads_81d4.html"