In addition to US Routes and State Route Nos, some states, like NJ, even have local routes. I believe these are Township Route numbers. I was wondering what happens when they cross into the next Township? Do they maintain the same route number? If not, doesn’t this make things really difficult on visitors to the area? - Jinx
Missouri has “county roads” that are labled with single or double letters such as “AA”, “Z”, “TT”. Some cross county lines, but many do not. Some, but not all of these roads keep their designation when they cross the county line.
Is a township in NJ the same as a county?
It largely depends on how the state highway system is set up.
All states have interstate highways and U.S. highways, partially funded by the Federal government. For example, U.S. 1 and I-95 run up and down the East Coast, and I-40 and U.S. 70 run east-west through North Carolina and west at least into Oklahoma, both sets of roads roughly paralleling each other.
In North Carolina, everything but private roads and non-thru streets within incorporated towns and cities is in one road network. For example, we live on a road in Franklin County with a name and it also has a four-digit SR (state route) number – pardon me if I don’t give specifics. A short distance from our home, that road intersects Old U.S. 64, which also has a four-digit SR number. When that road crosses into Wake County about two miles east, it changes its SR number and becomes Shepherd School Road. Main state highways, like NC 39 about a half-mile away from me, have two- and three-digit numbers; they’re the ones that show on state maps. Maintenance on all these roads is the business of the N.C. DOT. Cities and most towns have their own local highway departments as well to manage their city streets.
Florida has the intelligence to number its highways consecutively, with two-digit-numbered major routes flanked by three-digit secondary routes whose numbers are constructed by adding a digit to the end of the two-digit number, so that FL-48 runs east-west is paralleled a few miles south by FL-482, FL-484, and so on.
In New York State, on the other hand, the state DOT has responsibility only for the interstates, the U.S. highways, and the numbered state road network. Each county has its own numbering system for secondary connector/collector highways, and each town(ship) has roads, usually named rather than numbered, for which it provides maintenance – and every county outside NYC and every town has a highway department. For example, in Jefferson County NYS Route 180 runs from Fishers Landing NY near the 1000 Islands Bridge cross-country to the crossroads Baggs Corners where it debouches onto NYS Route 3. You can go straight at that corner, although 180 stops, and you are on Salt Point Road, which is a county highway with a number (what number escapes me at the moment). Running off from this road are several town roads providing access to farms. At the far end of Salt Point Road (which at some point becomes North Harbor Road, keeping the same county highway number) is an interchange with I-81 and beyond that the same road becomes NYS Route 177, continuing on to a junction with NYS Route 12 at West Lowville. Maintenance and snowplowing of 180 and 177 are the state’s responsibility; maintenance and snowplowing of Salt Point and North Harbor Roads are the county’s; and maintenance of the little side roads I mentioned are the responsibility of the Towns of Hounsfield and Adams.
Variations on these two systems are found in every state, depending on the local preference. I know that Minnesota has numbered township highways from a detailed map of the state I once had.
And yes, numbering systems are not convenient for the visitor. I recall taking a main highway south from Cleveland and ending up unexpectedly on some dumpy street in Akron (although we did get to see Spock’s Vulcanized Grill!;)), and having the same experience in Newark NJ, where we apparently missed a sign marking a turn and found ourselves facing a parking lot at the end of what was supposedly a major U.S. highway.
A check of my Delome Street Atlas shows that some NJ roads keep the same degignation as they cross County or Township lines.
CR547 Squankum Road keeps it’s degignation as it crosses from Ocean County to Monmouth County just East of US 9 near Lakewood.