North Carolina Highway System

NC state route shields
System information
Notes:	State roads maintained by the NCDOT with future toll roads managed by the NCTA
Highway names
Interstates:	Interstate X (I-X)
US Routes:	U.S. Highway X (US X)
State:	North Carolina Highway X (NC X)

The North Carolina Highway System consists of a vast network of Interstate highways, U.S. routes, and state routes, managed by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Due to all roads in North Carolina being maintained by either municipalities or the state, counties do not maintain roads and there is no such thing as a "county road" within the state, with the exception of Charlotte Route 4 in Mecklenburg County. As a result, North Carolina has the largest state maintained highway network in the United States. ^[1]

Interstate highways

Interstate highways that pass through or are located entirely within the state of North Carolina, along with auxiliary routes:

• Interstate 26, traverses the state's western mountainous region through Asheville.
• Interstate 40, spans nearly the entire state from west to east, passing through Asheville, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh to Wilmington.
  • Interstate 40 Business, business freeway loop through Winston-Salem
  • Interstate 140, bypass around Wilmington.
  • Interstate 240, loop through Asheville.
  • Interstate 440, inner beltway around downtown Raleigh
  • Interstate 540, future outer beltway around the Raleigh metropolitan area.
  • Interstate 840, planned future northern segment of the Urban Loop around Greensboro.
• Interstate 73, future central North Carolina Interstate mostly along US 220 through Greensboro and Rockingham.
• Interstate 74, Future Interstate traveling northwest/southeast across the state from I-77 and Wytheville, VA through High Point and Lumberton to Wilmington.
  • Interstate 274, future western segment of the Northern Beltway around Winston-Salem.
• Interstate 77, travels mostly straight north/south through central North Carolina from Charlotte to Virginia.
  • Interstate 277, loops around the uptown district of Charlotte.
• Interstate 85, travels northeast/southwest through the state, linking Atlanta, GA to Charlotte, Greensboro, and Durham, traveling toward Richmond, VA.
  • Interstate 85 Business, business freeway/expressway loop through High Point and Greensboro
  • Interstate 285, planned future spur from Lexington to I-40 in Winston-Salem.
  • Interstate 485, outerbelt around Charlotte
  • Interstate 785, planned future spur from Greensboro to Danville, VA
• Interstate 95, traverses the state's Coastal Plain region through Rocky Mount, Fayetteville, and Lumberton.
  • Interstate 95 Business, business expressway loop through Fayetteville
  • Interstate 295, future loop around western Fayetteville
  • Interstate 795, spur from I-95 near Wilson to Goldsboro

U.S. routes

Current routes

U.S. Route 1 U.S. Route 13 U.S. Route 15 U.S. Route 17 U.S. Route 19 U.S. Route 19E U.S. Route 19W U.S. Route 21 U.S. Route 23 U.S. Route 25 U.S. Route 29 U.S. Route 52 U.S. Route 64 U.S. Route 70 U.S. Route 74 U.S. Route 76 U.S. Route 117 U.S. Route 129

U.S. Route 158 U.S. Route 176 U.S. Route 178 U.S. Route 220 U.S. Route 221 U.S. Route 258 U.S. Route 264 U.S. Route 276 U.S. Route 301 U.S. Route 311 U.S. Route 321 U.S. Route 401 U.S. Route 421 U.S. Route 441 U.S. Route 501 U.S. Route 521 U.S. Route 601 U.S. Route 701

Former routes

• U.S. Route 17-1
• U.S. Route 121
• U.S. Route 170
• U.S. Route 217
• U.S. Route 411

North Carolina State Routes

A typical North Carolina Highway shield.

Numbering

North Carolina State Highways numbered under 1000 are primary state highways,^[2] and numbers greater than or equal to 1000 are secondary. Secondary highways are not signed with shields; regular green or white road signs are most commonly used to designate secondary roads. On these signs, the prefix "SR" for "secondary road" sometimes precedes the road number. Nearly all secondary highways also have other names, and many primary routes are also signed with other titles. North Carolina routes may be referred to as "North Carolina Highway x", "N.C. Highway x", "NC Route x", or just "NC x", where x is the route number.

Unlike highways in the primary system, secondary road numbers may be repeated multiple times throughout the system, provided that they are not repeated within the same county. For example, SR2000 may refer to the physical roadway signed as Wake Forest Road or Falls of Neuse Road in Wake County, or it may refer to the physical roadway signed as Hickory Grove Road in Gaston County. Some road numbers are quite common. In fact, the designation SR1101 is currently used, or has in the past, been used nearly 100 times by almost every county in the state.

Secondary roads that cross a county line are generally given a new number in the new county. For example, Rustic Court is a very short road, barely one tenth of a mile in length; yet, it crosses the Durham-Orange county line. The section in Durham County (0.03 miles in length) is designated SR2397 while the section is Orange County (0.08 miles in length) is designated SR1604. The exception to this rule applies to roads designated SR10xx (where the x's represent additional digits) which are generally given to regionally significant roads or roads crossing one or more county lines, but which are not part of the primary system. For example, SR1006-Old Stage Road, is located both in Wake and Harnett Counties.

The significance of secondary road numbers is almost exclusive to NCDOT operations, generally maintenance, rather than for navigational purposes by the driving public. Certainly, the secondary road numbering system is not organized to help unfamiliar motorists find their way. Rather, this is the job of the phonetic names, which are generally established at the local level, but which often share a sign with an SR designation for convenience. In many rural areas of the state, typically in the Mountain and Coastal Plain regions, many roads lack a phonetic name, in which case they are known by the SR designation.

It is not uncommon for maintenance responsibility of secondary roads to transfer from NCDOT to particular municipalities as they increase in size due to annexation. When this occurs, the SR designations are eliminated. The SR road designation is also eliminated from physical roadways that are elevated into the primary system. For example, NC 157 (Guess Road) in Durham and Person counties was once a secondary road designated SR1008. Although it ascended into the primary system years ago, some of the old signs identifying Guess Road as SR1008 remain.

Signage

A North Carolina Highway shield has the route's number in black inside a white equilateral diamond shape. A square of black surrounds the diamond shape. The diamond shape does not alter to accommodate larger route numbers; the numbers are reduced in size to fit within the diamond.

Rules and exceptions

• North Carolina Highway numbers cannot be the same as any U.S. Highway or Interstate Highway in the state. If a new federal route is commissioned in North Carolina that has the same number as a North Carolina Highway, the NC route number more than likely will be changed. (Current only exceptions: NC 73 and NC 540)
• There are no alphabetic letters in a state route designation, nor any alternate routes in the system, except for NC 226A.

List of NC Highways

NC 2 through NC 50

North Carolina Highway 2 North Carolina Highway 3 North Carolina Highway 4 North Carolina Highway 5 North Carolina Highway 7 North Carolina Highway 8 North Carolina Highway 9 North Carolina Highway 10 North Carolina Highway 11 North Carolina Highway 12 North Carolina Highway 14 North Carolina Highway 16 North Carolina Highway 18 North Carolina Highway 20 North Carolina Highway 22 North Carolina Highway 24 North Carolina Highway 27

North Carolina Highway 28 North Carolina Highway 30 North Carolina Highway 32 North Carolina Highway 33 North Carolina Highway 34 North Carolina Highway 35 North Carolina Highway 37 North Carolina Highway 38 North Carolina Highway 39 North Carolina Highway 41 North Carolina Highway 42 North Carolina Highway 43 North Carolina Highway 45 North Carolina Highway 46 North Carolina Highway 47 North Carolina Highway 48 North Carolina Highway 49 North Carolina Highway 50

NC 51 through NC 100

North Carolina Highway 51 North Carolina Highway 53 North Carolina Highway 54 North Carolina Highway 55 North Carolina Highway 56 North Carolina Highway 57 North Carolina Highway 58 North Carolina Highway 59 North Carolina Highway 60 North Carolina Highway 61 North Carolina Highway 62 North Carolina Highway 63 North Carolina Highway 65 North Carolina Highway 66 North Carolina Highway 67 North Carolina Highway 68 North Carolina Highway 69 North Carolina Highway 71 North Carolina Highway 72 North Carolina Highway 73 North Carolina Highway 75

North Carolina Highway 78 North Carolina Highway 79 North Carolina Highway 80 North Carolina Highway 81 North Carolina Highway 82 North Carolina Highway 83 North Carolina Highway 84 North Carolina Highway 86 North Carolina Highway 87 North Carolina Highway 88 North Carolina Highway 89 North Carolina Highway 90 North Carolina Highway 91 North Carolina Highway 92 North Carolina Highway 93 North Carolina Highway 94 North Carolina Highway 96 North Carolina Highway 97 North Carolina Highway 98 North Carolina Highway 99 North Carolina Highway 100

NC 101 through NC 150

North Carolina Highway 101 North Carolina Highway 102 North Carolina Highway 103 North Carolina Highway 104 North Carolina Highway 105 North Carolina Highway 106 North Carolina Highway 107 North Carolina Highway 108 North Carolina Highway 109 North Carolina Highway 110 North Carolina Highway 111 North Carolina Highway 112 North Carolina Highway 113 North Carolina Highway 114 North Carolina Highway 115 North Carolina Highway 116 North Carolina Highway 118 North Carolina Highway 119 North Carolina Highway 120 North Carolina Highway 122 North Carolina Highway 124

North Carolina Highway 125 North Carolina Highway 126 North Carolina Highway 127 North Carolina Highway 128 North Carolina Highway 130 North Carolina Highway 131 North Carolina Highway 132 North Carolina Highway 133 North Carolina Highway 134 North Carolina Highway 135 North Carolina Highway 136 North Carolina Highway 137 North Carolina Highway 138 North Carolina Highway 141 North Carolina Highway 142 North Carolina Highway 143 North Carolina Highway 144 North Carolina Highway 145 North Carolina Highway 146 North Carolina Highway 147 North Carolina Highway 149 North Carolina Highway 150

NC 151 through NC 200

North Carolina Highway 151 North Carolina Highway 152 North Carolina Highway 153 North Carolina Highway 157 North Carolina Highway 159 North Carolina Highway 160 North Carolina Highway 161 North Carolina Highway 162 North Carolina Highway 163 North Carolina Highway 168 North Carolina Highway 171 North Carolina Highway 172 North Carolina Highway 175

North Carolina Highway 177 North Carolina Highway 179 North Carolina Highway 180 North Carolina Highway 181 North Carolina Highway 182 North Carolina Highway 183 North Carolina Highway 184 North Carolina Highway 186 North Carolina Highway 191 North Carolina Highway 194 North Carolina Highway 197 North Carolina Highway 198 North Carolina Highway 200

NC 205 through NC 242

North Carolina Highway 205 North Carolina Highway 207 North Carolina Highway 208 North Carolina Highway 209 North Carolina Highway 210 North Carolina Highway 211 North Carolina Highway 212 North Carolina Highway 213 North Carolina Highway 214 North Carolina Highway 215

North Carolina Highway 216 North Carolina Highway 217 North Carolina Highway 218 North Carolina Highway 222 North Carolina Highway 225 North Carolina Highway 226 North Carolina Highway 226A North Carolina Highway 231 North Carolina Highway 241 North Carolina Highway 242

NC 251 through NC 294

North Carolina Highway 251 North Carolina Highway 261 North Carolina Highway 268 North Carolina Highway 273 North Carolina Highway 274

North Carolina Highway 275 North Carolina Highway 279 North Carolina Highway 280 North Carolina Highway 281 North Carolina Highway 294

NC 304 through NC 481

North Carolina Highway 304 North Carolina Highway 305 North Carolina Highway 306 North Carolina Highway 307 North Carolina Highway 308 North Carolina Highway 343 North Carolina Highway 344 North Carolina Highway 345 North Carolina Highway 381

North Carolina Highway 400 North Carolina Highway 403 North Carolina Highway 410 North Carolina Highway 411 North Carolina Highway 461 North Carolina Highway 481

NC 522 through NC 694

North Carolina Highway 522 North Carolina Highway 540 North Carolina Highway 561 North Carolina Highway 581

North Carolina Highway 610 North Carolina Highway 615 North Carolina Highway 690 North Carolina Highway 694

NC 700 through NC 905

North Carolina Highway 700 North Carolina Highway 704 North Carolina Highway 705 North Carolina Highway 710 North Carolina Highway 711 North Carolina Highway 731 North Carolina Highway 740 North Carolina Highway 742 North Carolina Highway 751

North Carolina Highway 770 North Carolina Highway 772 North Carolina Highway 801 North Carolina Highway 901 North Carolina Highway 902 North Carolina Highway 903 North Carolina Highway 904 North Carolina Highway 905

Former routes

North Carolina Highway 1 North Carolina Highway 6 North Carolina Highway 10A North Carolina Highway 13 North Carolina Highway 15 North Carolina Highway 17 North Carolina Highway 19 North Carolina Highway 21 North Carolina Highway 23 North Carolina Highway 25 North Carolina Highway 25A North Carolina Highway 26 North Carolina Highway 29 North Carolina Highway 31 North Carolina Highway 36 North Carolina Highway 40 North Carolina Highway 44 North Carolina Highway 49A North Carolina Highway 62A North Carolina Highway 64 North Carolina Highway 70 North Carolina Highway 74 North Carolina Highway 76 North Carolina Highway 77 North Carolina Highway 85 North Carolina Highway 95 North Carolina Highway 95A North Carolina Highway 105A North Carolina Highway 107E North Carolina Highway 117 North Carolina Highway 155 North Carolina Highway 170 North Carolina Highway 176 North Carolina Highway 190 North Carolina Highway 192 North Carolina Highway 195 North Carolina Highway 206 North Carolina Highway 220

North Carolina Highway 242A North Carolina Highway 260 North Carolina Highway 262 North Carolina Highway 264 North Carolina Highway 271 North Carolina Highway 272 North Carolina Highway 276 North Carolina Highway 277 North Carolina Highway 282 North Carolina Highway 283 North Carolina Highway 284 North Carolina Highway 285 North Carolina Highway 286 North Carolina Highway 287 North Carolina Highway 288 North Carolina Highway 289 North Carolina Highway 292 North Carolina Highway 293 North Carolina Highway 301 North Carolina Highway 302 North Carolina Highway 303 North Carolina Highway 311 North Carolina Highway 321 North Carolina Highway 341 North Carolina Highway 342 North Carolina Highway 350 North Carolina Highway 401 North Carolina Highway 402 North Carolina Highway 422 North Carolina Highway 482 North Carolina Highway 485 North Carolina Highway 500 North Carolina Highway 501 North Carolina Highway 502

North Carolina Highway 512 North Carolina Highway 515 North Carolina Highway 562 North Carolina Highway 601 North Carolina Highway 602 North Carolina Highway 603 North Carolina Highway 605 North Carolina Highway 630 North Carolina Highway 661 North Carolina Highway 681 North Carolina Highway 691 North Carolina Highway 692 North Carolina Highway 693 North Carolina Highway 694 North Carolina Highway 695 North Carolina Highway 701 North Carolina Highway 702 North Carolina Highway 703 North Carolina Highway 708 North Carolina Highway 709 North Carolina Highway 721 North Carolina Highway 741 North Carolina Highway 752 North Carolina Highway 761 North Carolina Highway 800 North Carolina Highway 802 North Carolina Highway 803 North Carolina Highway 891 North Carolina Highway 892 North Carolina Highway 893 North Carolina Highway 897

Bike routes

Main article: List of bicycle routes in North Carolina

• US Bike Route 1 - Carolina Connection
• NC Bike Route 2 - Mountains to Sea
• NC Bike Route 3 - Ports of Call
• NC Bike Route 4 - North Line Trace
• NC Bike Route 5 - Cape Fear Run
• NC Bike Route 6 - Piedmont Spur
• NC Bike Route 7 - Ocracoke Option
• NC Bike Route 8 - Southern Highlands
• Sandhills Sector

Other routes and highways

• All American Freeway, a freeway connecting Fort Bragg Military Reservation with central Fayetteville
• The Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP), a two-lane scenic route, beginning in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, running near Asheville, Mount Mitchell and Grandfather Mountain which the BRP runs along the Linn Cove Viaduct. Then the BRP passes near the Blowing Rock/Boone area and lastly, enters Virginia a few miles northeast of Sparta.
• Bryan Boulevard, a freeway spur from NC 68 to downtown Greensboro
• Route 4, thoroughfare loop around central Charlotte
• The Great Smoky Mountains Expressway, a partially restricted access, four-lane highway running through the mountains of Southwestern North Carolina from Interstate 40 (Exit 27) west-southwest to Murphy.
• Greensboro Urban Loop, a beltline around Greensboro that once completed will be used for routing four Interstate highways.
• Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway a freeway connecting I-95 to downtown Fayetteville
• Wade Avenue, a partial freeway connecting I-40 west of Raleigh to the northern segment of the I-440 beltway in Raleigh
• Wendover Avenue, a partial freeway connecting I-40 to US 220, US 70 and US 29 in Greensboro and extends southwest to NC 68 in High Point

The old NC highway shield design.

History

The original highway numbering system for North Carolina was established in the 1920s. Major routes were multiples of 10, with 10, 20, and 90 running east/west, 30, 40, 50, 70, and 80 running north/south, and 60 running as a diagonal route. These cross-state routes were used as a basis for numbering the two-digit roads that served as the major city-city connectors. For example, NC 90 used to run along modern U.S. 64, which explains the multiple "90s" that branch off U.S. 64 today (NC 96, 97, and 98)

Three-digit numbered roads were less important spurs off the two-digit roads and often served as rural connectors. These were numbered in a scheme opposite of the U.S. and Interstate auxiliary routes; the spur routes received an extra "ones" digit instead of an extra "hundreds" digit. The first spur received the number "xx1" and the second received "xx2", where xx is the parent route number. This explains the predomination of such routes as 751, 191, 561, and the relatively few "xx0" routes (which would be the 10th assigned spur route ... few parent routes would have spurs numbered this high).

In 1933-34 many roads were renumbered to eliminate conflicts with the U.S. highways now crisscrossing the state. Some numbers (50, 90), which had become effectively U.S. routes (1 and 64 respectively) were moved or eliminated while others that conflicted with established U.S. route numbers in the state were changed to non-conflicting numbers. This seems to have been done without regard to the earlier numbering system, as were all future additions to the state highway system, which is where the modern "lack of any system" system came to be.

In 1937, several routes were renumbered to be contiguous with South Carolina routes, and in 1940 the same happened with Virginia. No effort has ever been made to match up with Tennessee or Georgia routes, but most cross-border numbered roads along this area are already U.S. highways anyway.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1950s, routes that conflicted with Interstates were renumbered.

The most recent numbering change happened in 2002. Recently, NC 136 and NC 3 swapped numbers. This was to place NC 3 near Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s home of Kannapolis. The old NC 3/current NC 136 is a short spur in Currituck County. Currently, the only North Carolina highways in conflict with an Interstate number in the state are NC 73 and NC 540, the latter forming an extension of I-540.^[3]

See also

• List of United States Numbered Highways
• List of Interstate Highways
• North Carolina Department of Transportation
• North Carolina Ferry System
• North Carolina Scenic Byways
• North Carolina Turnpike Authority
• American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
• Federal Highway Administration
• I-85 Corridor

References

1. ^ Hartgen, David T. and Ravi K. Karanam (2007). "16th Annual Report on the Performance of State Highway Systems" (PDF). Reason Foundation. p. 14 (in pdf), 8 (in printed report). http://www.reason.org/ps360.pdf. Retrieved 2007-10-20. 
2. ^ "North Carolina Administrative Code Chapter 19A: Transportation". North Carolina Administrative Code. 1998-08-01. http://ncrules.state.nc.us/ncac/title%2019a%20-%20transportation/chapter%2002%20-%20division%20of%20highways/subchapter%20b/19a%20ncac%2002b%20.0242.html. Retrieved 2006-12-18. 
3. ^ "NC Roads: North Carolina Highway Numbering Scheme". http://www.members.cox.net/ncroads/misc/numbers.html. Retrieved 2006. 

• NCRoads.com: A Treatise on Numbering
• NCRoads.com Annex
• North Carolina Highway Begins/Ends
• Birth of I-795 designation

External links

• North Carolina Department of Transportation
• Road Signs of North Carolina