FM 20 Sign

Texas Highway Routes

Welcome to the unofficial site for information about Texas Highways.

System Components

The Texas state highway system has seven sub-systems that can be generally classified according to the type of roadway and the type of traffic that the roadway is designed to handle. Click on an item below to view route shields and a list of route designations.

Interstate Highways
  • required to be controlled access roadways with grade-separated interchanges
    • U. S. Highways
  • major city-to-city routes that provide connection between large cities, other states, and Mexico
    • State Highways
  • other major routes not on the U. S. Highway system
    • Business Routes
  • important roadways that provide service from Interstate, U. S., or State Highways to cities
    • Loops and Spurs
  • important roadways that provide connections between major roadways and cities
    • Farm-to-Market, Ranch-to-Market
    Roads, and Urban Roads
  • minor roadways that provide service to rural and urban areas
    • Park and Recreation Roads
  • minor roadways that provide service to national and state parks and recreation areas

    • About This Site

    Route Shields
    The route shield images are based on scanned images from the Texas Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, Appendix A (you can order the Texas MUTCD here). Since the characters did not scan well, I used a graphics program to enter different ones. So, the font in the images is Arial and not the actual FHWA-approved font.

    Route Descriptions
    The descriptions are from the Highway Designation Files that I requested from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) in 1998. Each description must be approved by the Texas Transportation Commission. The minute order number is the method used to track which items are approved by the commission. The date that follows is the date of the commission meeting at which the minute order was passed. The "DesLtr" date either refers to the date of the letter sent to the local offices informing of the change in the route or a letter sent back to commission informing them that the change has been made. The paragraph that follows is the description of the highway route. The last part of the designation is a list of the counties that the route passes through.

    Route Designation Corrections
    I have compared the designations with the County Maps of Texas for 1994 and district control-section maps for 1997 (both of which are published by TxDOT and can be ordered here) and found numerous discrepancies. It appears that when changes were made to a particular route, no change was made to the descriptions of any adjacent routes. For example, US 66 was decommisioned in favor of IH 40, but the designations for the highways that end at IH 40 still show"US 66". I have revised the designations of all highways according to the county and control-section maps by striking out incorrect text and adding new text in bold font. Additionally, italic text at the end of the designation has been added in the cases where the route has not been constructed. As of this revision, the information contain in these pages is out-of-date by more than two years, so recent changes to Texas highways are not included. (The most recent version of the County Maps are online.)

    Also be sure to check out:

    Material contained in these web pages is intended for private use only. If you use this material elsewhere, please note the source. Thank you.

    Author: David Stanek ([email protected])
    Created: April 20, 1997
    Last modified: June 4, 2001

    Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

    1