Why Wisconsin's county highways are lettered, not numbered (2019)

https://www.wpr.org/transportation/why-wisconsins-county-roads-are-lettered-not-numbered

by kaladin-jasnah • 12 months ago

43 36 12 months ago

skywhopper• 12 months ago

Missouri also does letters for county highways. But one thing unique to Wisconsin is that some highways aren’t just single or double letters, but an abbreviation of their destination, like the road to Whitefish Dunes state park in Door County is “WD”.

sanex• 12 months ago

Best lake Michigan beach in Wisconsin!

bombcar2• 12 months ago

Siri calls them highways, they’re County Roads!

And I’m still searching for County Road PP. once I find it I’ll drive to it and the kids will laugh at Siri.

hed• 12 months ago

https://www.modot.org/projects/routepproute30

jtbayly• 12 months ago

CTH-PP Tomah, WI 54660

43.99805° N, 90.36020° W

I believe that is what you’re looking for.

sgwealti• 12 months ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/wisconsin/comments/1md5gmp/this_pla...

epcoa2• 12 months ago

They’re still county highways, at least according to the person interviewed in the article. It’s even called the Wisconsin County Highway Association.

vitaflo• 12 months ago

Nobody in WI calls them that tho.

dpe82• 12 months ago

I drove it 2 weeks ago: https://maps.app.goo.gl/tzDq1cP7WEngYCaH7

hypercube33• 12 months ago

I used to live near P and OO in Chippewa Falls

bigtunacan2• 12 months ago

I live just off J in the Hatfield area. Been to Chippewa Falls countless times.

czwief• 12 months ago

I spent the first 18 years of my life in Chippewa Falls (near the intersection of J and X near Wissota), and TIL there’s a P/OO

wormius3• 12 months ago

I always laughed when I passed that...

bigstrat2003• 12 months ago

There's more than one, since the different counties can reuse codes. The one I know of goes from Brillion, WI out towards Chilton. I grew up in the area so I know that one quite well.

jaredsohn• 12 months ago

Visiting my parents in Wisconsin and I'm about a mile away from it right now. We also have PPP.

wormius3• 12 months ago

Growing up we never used "Road" we just said "County (letter)" Probably because the signs themselves never say Road or Highway (at least usually, back in the day, I haven't paid attention recently).

I like the system. It helps reduce confusion in terms of what the "main" (state/interstate) vs the local.

bombcar2• 12 months ago

I think part of it is that “the highway” now usually refers to a nice highway or freeway somewhere nearby, and if you say “the county X” without specifics which one, you’re likely to say “county road”.

BooneJS• 12 months ago

They’re CTH : County Trunk Highway. Posting from CTH T between the intersections at TT and TTT.

jethkl• 12 months ago

This is an instance where Conway's Law applies: state and county systems were kept separate so that maintenance and repairs crews wouldn’t accidentally duplicate work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

jonstewart3• 12 months ago

I grew up in Iowa and Wisconsin. Iowa’s road system is beautiful—a road every mile, every few miles a paved road, all either east-west or north-south. If you know the general direction of where you’re going, you can bumble around with confidence. It’s Manhattan over an entire state.

Wisconsin, nothing makes any sense. Sure, sure, Wisconsin is maybe a little hillier, but the roads curve and splice together in crazy ways in the flat valleys, too, and the roads adhere to no particular direction, and of course County B in one county bears no relation to County B in the adjacent county. And there are so many routes where I live in southwest Wisconsin where you might as well say, “you can’t get there from here,” given how indirect and circuitous the best route is in relation to how the crow flies. If you like driving for hours at 35mph while watching out for deer, Wisconsin’s county highway system is for you.

analog31• 12 months ago

I live in Wisconsin. I'm a cyclist, and I love the roads. The urban folklore was that the state maintained good paved roads in order for the milk trucks to reach the dairy farms during the winter, when everything would otherwise turn into a mud pit. I read about "mud season" in Ukraine, and it was instantly familiar.

I hadn't thought much about the circuitous-ness, but it's true. My assumption all along has been that the roads have to work around the labyrinth of rivers and streams. In fact my biggest annoyance as a cyclist is finding routes where I don't reach a dead end and have to back-track. And now it's not just rivers but major highways.

Still, it's easier for a cyclist because our hours don't cover as many miles.

jonstewart3• 12 months ago

It is great for cycling, for sure.

zdragnar• 12 months ago

This is somewhat unique to Southwest Wisconsin due to all the bluffs. I've lived in Eastern Wisconsin and the Northwest, and while they aren't quite Iowa's grid, they're generally all east-west or north-south running.

superkuh2• 12 months ago

I also grew up in Wisconsin and Iowa. Iowa's road system may be comprehensive but a very substantial fraction of those are unpaved gravel roads. Wisconsin's roads are paved.

bigtunacan2• 12 months ago

In both cases it depends on the area of the state and how populous. Far southern Iowa near Whatcheer for example is mostly gravel with paved roads only in the cities and major highways, but by contrast nearly the entire corridor area is well paved. Same for most of the Boone area.

Wisconsin is no different in that. Most of Jackson, Levis, BRF, and that whole area is gravel except for major highways and in town. Pretty poorly maintained gravel at that.

The roads do seem disorganized and wandering, but much of that is because the roads are built wherever they won’t flood since we’re nothing but marshes, wetland, lakes, rivers and ponds

jonstewart3• 12 months ago

The point is that the roads in Iowa are straight and regular.

Most roads in Wisconsin are paved, but the paving quality varies depending on whether a state, county, or “town” (it’s a trick!) road. Property taxes in Wisconsin are also reputedly higher.

ehaskins• 12 months ago

Someday Google Maps will learn not to pronounce County N as "County Road North"... That's not as hard as AGI right?

PaulDavisThe1st• 12 months ago

Because no other state has a combination of state and county roads.

piperswe• 12 months ago

I know for a fact both Texas and California have numbered county roads. The Central Expressway in Silicon Valley is Santa Clara County Route G6.

dragonwriter• 12 months ago

California's has some similarity to Wisconsins: state routes are numbered (e.g., S.R. 99 through the Central Valley), while county routes, instead of just letters like in Wisconsin, generally have a single-letter prefix (the prefixes vary by regions within the state) followed by a number.

(There are exceptions, though, as Lake and San Bernardino county routes are also just numbered, like state routes.)

aarestad• 12 months ago

As a Sconnie native, the main thing that annoyed me about the letter system is that it's easy for the letters to rhyme; for example, near Verona (home of Epic!), there are (Dane) County roads PB and PD. Gotta enunciate carefully. :P This would qualify as a "usability issue" I would imagine. :)

brettgriffin• 12 months ago

They needed to be able to keep them separate, and hence, they separated them by the numbers and letters

That's the how and when, but that doesn't actually explain why they had to use letters, does it? Even before computers and internet it seems like it would have been possible to devise a system across 72 counties to assign county roads a number that doesn't conflict with roads under other systems' jurisdiction.

abecode• 12 months ago

one of my favorites is County Road AF, near Fall Creek and Augusta

Why Wisconsin's county highways are lettered, not numbered (2019)

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