[HN Gopher] Why Wisconsin's county highways are lettered, not nu...
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Why Wisconsin's county highways are lettered, not numbered (2019)
Author : kaladin-jasnah
Score : 37 points
Date : 2025-08-05 18:50 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wpr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wpr.org)
| skywhopper wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Best lake Michigan beach in Wisconsin!
| bombcar wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| https://www.modot.org/projects/routepproute30
| jtbayly wrote:
| CTH-PP Tomah, WI 54660
|
| 43.99805deg N, 90.36020deg W
|
| I believe that is what you're looking for.
| sgwealti wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/wisconsin/comments/1md5gmp/this_pla...
| epcoa wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Nobody in WI calls them that tho.
| wormius wrote:
| No, but that's what they are ;)
| dpe82 wrote:
| I drove it 2 weeks ago:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/tzDq1cP7WEngYCaH7
| hypercube33 wrote:
| I used to live near P and OO in Chippewa Falls
| bigtunacan wrote:
| I live just off J in the Hatfield area. Been to Chippewa
| Falls countless times.
| czwief wrote:
| 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
| wormius wrote:
| I always laughed when I passed that...
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Visiting my parents in Wisconsin and I'm about a mile away from
| it right now. We also have PPP.
| wormius wrote:
| 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.
| jethkl wrote:
| 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
| jonstewart wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| jonstewart wrote:
| It is great for cycling, for sure.
| zdragnar wrote:
| 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.
| superkuh wrote:
| 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.
| bigtunacan wrote:
| 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
| superkuh wrote:
| Iowa has about 40/60 paved/unpaved ratio. Wisconsin has
| about 85/15. (stats counting only primary and secondary
| (county) roads).
|
| ref: https://bikeiowa.com/Feature/1543/iowa-gravel-what-
| makes-it-..., https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/st
| atistics/2008/h...,
| https://topslab.wisc.edu/research/tsmo/topms/data/
|
| I acknowledge this may not be a 'bad' attribute, it could
| be Iowa just has so many unpaved extra roads it skews it.
| But when I think Iowa, I think driving on rough roads.
| jonstewart wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Someday Google Maps will learn not to pronounce County N as
| "County Road North"... That's not as hard as AGI right?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Because no other state has a combination of state and county
| roads.
| aarestad wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| one of my favorites is County Road AF, near Fall Creek and
| Augusta
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