Florida State Highway System
| State Highway System | |
|---|---|
   Standard route markers in Florida | |
| Highway names | |
| Interstates | Interstate X (I-X) |
| US Highways | U.S. Highway X (US X) |
| State | State Road X (SR X) |
| System links | |
The State Highway System of the U.S. state of Florida comprises the roads maintained by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) or a toll authority. The components are referred to officially as state roads, abbreviated as SR.
History[]
Prior to the 1945 renumbering, State Roads were given numbers in the order they were added to the system. The 1945 renumbering removed many roads that were never built and added some that had not existed prior to 1945.
In 1955, the Florida Department of Transportation slowed the addition of new state roads and began to classify roads into primary, secondary, and local roads. Primary roads would continue to be state-maintained, while Secondary roads would have an S before the number, and would only be state-maintained during a construction project. Local roads would be completely removed from the system.
In 1977, House Bill 803, Chapter 77-165 in the Laws of Florida, was passed in the Florida Legislature. This transportation policy act eliminated the secondary roads, roads that consisted of county roads that were maintained by the state.[1][2] The provisions went into effect on July 1, 1977. The division of roads became state, county, and local. Most secondary roads and some primary roads were given to the counties, and occasionally a new state road was taken over; some main roads in incorporated areas were given to the localities.
The secondary signs had the S changed to C (for county) and a small COUNTY sticker added to the bottom. As signs grew old, they were replaced with the standard MUTCD county road pentagon. While this occurred throughout the State of Florida, the part of the state south of SR 70 was hit particularly hard by the transition from State to County control and maintenance.
In the early 1980s, several state roads were renumbered; in the latter half of the 1990s, budget cuts and other factors prompted a series of truncations of several state roads, primarily in urban areas and the Space Coast and the Treasure Coast. The trend seems to have been reversed since 2002 as new state road designations have been added as a result of construction of new highways, most notably in the Jacksonville, Orlando, and the Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan areas.
Numbering system[]
State road numbers are assigned by FDOT. Every state road must have a number. The road segments can be discontinuous (or interrupted) but the separate segments must have a logical and sequential connection between them.[3] A road cannot ever split into two different roads with the same state road or county road number unless it is to allow for a one-way pair to connect to a two-way road. There is also no minimum required length for a state road.[3]
Odd-numbered roads run north-south and even-numbered roads run east-west. One- and two-digit numbers run in order from 2 in the north to 94 in the south, and A1A (formerly 1) in the east to 97 in the west. The major cross-state roads end in 0 and 5. Three-digit numbers increase from east to west across the band. 30 is skipped because it runs along the Gulf Coast in the panhandle and doesn't go all the way across the state.[3] (The graphic above shows SR 30 change to SR 20 going east of the panhandle.)
Minor routes assigned three or four-digit numbers are located relative to the east-west control roads on the basis of the first digit. For example, State Road 464 is located between State Road 40 and State Road 50.[3]
Every section of U.S. Highway and Interstate Highway has a State Road number assigned to it, usually unsigned (for example, Interstate 4 is also unsigned SR 400). In addition to some named toll roads (for example, 91 and 821, which make up Florida's Turnpike) some minor State Roads are also unsigned (like SR 913 and SR 5054).
See also[]
- 1945 Florida State Road renumbering
- State roads in Florida before 1945
- List of former state roads in Florida
- List of state roads in Florida
- List of toll roads in Florida
References[]
- ^ "State Highway System". Florida Department of Transportation. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
- ^ "1977 Summary of General Legislation" (PDF). Florida Legislature. pp. 169–171. Retrieved August 7, 2021 – via Florida State University Law Library.
- ^ a b c d "Road Naming Numbering". Florida Department of Transportation. Retrieved August 16, 2021.
External links[]
- State highways in Florida
- Lists of roads in Florida