I travel quite a bit for work, and I normally don’t pay attention to the abbreviations for different roads, but Kansas City uses TFCWY for Trafficway (Oak Tfcwy was the one that threw me for a loop).
I can no remember seeing this anywhere else. Do any other cities use the abbreviation tfcwy? Heck, do any other US cities call a road a trafficway? Oak Trafficway seems to be what other cities would call a Boulevard or Avenue. Possibly a Parkway.
I have never even heard of a “trafficway.”
Well, the USPO does list “trafficway” on their list of standard postal abbreviations. But the proper abbreviation they give is “TRFY”, not “TRFCY”. So Kansas City seems to have sone it differently.
Didn’t write it down. TRFY might be how KCMO does it, too. Maybe I should google the real abbreviation.
I’m an urban planner who has travelled to 39 states, a Canadian province and two Mexican states. I’ve been to most major American cities.
In the United States, roads designated as trafficways are only found in the Kansas City and Topeka metro areas. A KC trafficway is typically a four lane highway, which may or may not have limited access portions, that is not part of the Interstate highway system. It’s really not a road intended to get drivers across the metro area, but rather it’s a shortcut or a short expressway. A trafficway often follows the route of what might have been a normal street 30 or 40 years ago.
For the dopers in Chicago, a rough equivalent of a KC trafficway would be Cline Avenue in Gary. KC-style trafficways are called arterials in upstate New York.
Other KC road naming quirks:
In the Kansas City area, the term expressway defines a road that has limited at-grade intersections. Elsewhwere in the US, an expressway is equivalent to a freeway.
In KC and Topeka, roads with designated state or US highway numbers are called “[number] Highway”, not “Highway [number]” or “Route [number]”. As an example, folks call Kansas state route 7 is called “7 Highway.”
There are a few streets in the area designated as diagonals. Seeing a sign for Diag can seem as alien as the Tfcwy designation.
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In CA an expressway is the same as a trafficway or arterials, or parkway in FL. A 4-6 lane highway with at grade crossings. Example: The Montague Expressway in San Jose is a good example. It has traffic signals at grade, business entrances, a divided center median with turn lanes, etc. It does seem to move a bit faster than the average local-level street though.