Since the countywide traffic patterns in many places have changed since this numbering system was established, numerous anomalies abound. In the 1940s, this highway was renumbered "20." Yet, spur roads with "44"-denominator fractional numbers persist in several counties along the road to this day! Similar "numerator artifacts" of rerouted, renumbered, and decommissioned highways can be found all over the state. There's no better example of this than West Virginia Route 44, the example just above. Rather than for addressing or wayfinding, many of the roads became fossilized in time. Nor does the Post Office use the numbers: Whatever mail comes to a county road will probably be addressed something like "Rural Route 2 Box 152," with no connection to road numbers.īecause the fractional road system ended up being exclusively for the domain of internal accountants, map geeks, and traffic engineers Next to none would say that they live on "20/7," and even fewer would know that "20 over 7" is WVDOT's prescribed way for saying it. Ask someone on the street at right where they live: Chances are, most of them would answer "Lilly Addition Road," and some of them would answer with their own pet name for the street. There is very little local awareness of the system. One thing that is county-specific about the roads is their numbering: Each county is allocated its own set of whole and fractional numbers, numbers are duplicated between counties, and county roads can (and often do) change number as they go over county lines.Ĭounty road numbers have little significance for addressing and wayfinding. In spite of the fact that these roads are numbered by the state, signed by the state, maintained by the state, and should quite properly be called "secondary state highways" (like the analogous systems in Virginia and North Carolina), they're known almost universally as "county roads" and are indicated in print with a CR prefix. Nevertheless, the initial-assigned batch of fractional highways in the 1930s did work their way numerically from north to south and from west to east, lending a sense of direction to the map. The "denominators" were numbered in the order in which the state inventorized and commissioned them, not in the order of geography. Minor connecting and spur roads were treated as "tributaries" of the state highways and secondary trunks they branched off from, and were assigned fractional numbers: The roads abuting Highway 44 would bear the numbers 44/1, 44/2, 44/3, and so on, then reset at the county line. Through roads that connected one place to another were assigned whole numbers (1, 2, 3, et cetera) and treated as secondary "trunks." Next, the State Road Commission went to work inventorizing and mapping these "lesser" roads. In 1933, a legislative act was passed placing all roads in West Virginia under state control.
Obviously, this was a situation that demanded improvement.
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