tomboy

In September we drove into and out of Bordeaux on the autoroute that goes toward Paris. At a point about 30 miles east of Bordeaux, roughly due north of St Emilion, the exit number on our (4 year old) map disagreed with reality.

As it turned out, they had just finished a new entrance/exit (number 9 or so), so they had to renumber ALL the other exits after that. What a crazy, costly idea. So exit 12 became exit 13 (unless there were 2 new exits between, in which case 12 would become 14).

To avoid just this problem, the US numbers exits per the mileage from the expressway's western or southern terminus.

sheila

what???

Cowboy1968

Some countries have sequential exit numbers on motorways, some use mileage.

Also several US states use sequential exit numbers, though I have to admit that I find it easier to deal with mileage-based numbers when driving.

Nikki

Highway exits in my neck of the woods in the US are sequential, not mileage based. When a new exit is added, for instance between exit 11 and exit 12, it is called exit 11A.

Renumbering exits would be confusing. And when I was in France last summer I found that whole roads had been renumbered and did not agree with the numbers on my current Michelin map.

Carlux

The French autoroutes I am familiar with insert numbers, like 55a, rather than renumbering. So it doesn't seem to be consistent.

There are certainly inconsistencies, and changes. All the time we have lived in this part of France one of the major roads near us was called D703. Then one day as it crossed from the Dordogne into the Lot it became 803. So all the directions I had given people turned out to be wrong.

But in fact as you find out when you drive around France, and even more when you live here, road numbers are not as important as destinations. Road signs often don't refer to numbers, but to the destination. And people talk about 'the road to Les Eyzies' or 'the road through Ste Nathalene', rather than giving it a number. This means that mostly I don't know the number of these roads. But I do like to have the correct autoroute exit number!

altamiro

>But I do like to have the correct autoroute exit number!

I donīt remember how it is in France, but in Germany the highway exits have names along with numbers. So if you are told to take the exit Frankfurt-West or Freiburg-Mitte, it will retain this name even if it is renumbered.
Seems a bit more useful than just a number to me...

smueller

An advantage of the mileage-based (or km-based) numbering system, is that, if you know your exit number, you also know the distance to your exit.

Michel_Paris

Wouldn't a mileage based exit system imply...exits very mile? Which may not be practical/possible in some older countries. If not...would next exit, 23 miles from Exit #3, be exit #26...which seems ackward.

Nikki

Michel, that's what a lot of places do. The exit is just the number of the mileage. No exits every mile. Exit 5, exit 27, exit 350, whatever. I didn't realize this until I drove across the US a couple years ago and encountered it in many states.

PalenQ

Our state starts at 0 at the state line on Interstates - exit 5 is not the fifth exit but five miles from the state line

KateIP

My Michelin map, bought recently, has a note in the key that France is renumbering some routes, so some of the numbers might not match when driving....

Pete_R

Our state starts at 0 at the state line on Interstates - exit 5 is not the fifth exit but five miles from the state line

Interstates cross through multiple states, correct?

So the exit 5 miles from the line in your state would be five but what if there was an exit five miles from the state line on the other side? Would that be numbered five also?

Don

Pete R,

In my experience, no.

Take the Washington-Oregon state border. Interstate exit numbers (based on mileage) on I-5 get lower the farther south you go in a state, then reset at the high number when you cross the state line.

So Exit 5 on I-5 in Washington is 5 miles north of the Washington-Oregon border. Once you cross into Oregon, the first exit is Exit 308 and the exit numbers count down to 1 as you head the 308 miles south through Oregon until you get to California, where the first exit is Exit 796.

NeoPatrick

All our exits on I-75 here in South Florida used to be sequential, but they kept adding new ones and the whole route was extended further in the Miami area. Finally they got wise and renumbered everything by mileage.
I like driving and seeing what mile marker or exit you are and knowing exactly how far you have to go to exit 327 or whatever. And I love not having the exit numbers change (although here they often just added a B or C to the existing exit number for the next one -- but that was even more confusing).

hopscotch

I rarely if never pay any attention to exit numbers in the USA or Europe, with one exception here in Michigan.

In the USA I look for route numbers, and E-W-N-S. It never fails.

Route numbers have not always been used in all European countries. France has had a good system for years and my favorite is the N74. But in most countries you needed to know the name of the village nearest the intersection to find the correct exit, and that one may be too small to rate a dot on your map. Unfortunately E-W-N-S is never posted in Europe. I guess I should never say never, so please someone tell me where you have seen it.

Cowboy1968

Using E-W-N-S in Europe would be pretty wicked since it would spell E-O-N-S in some countries, and O-W-N-S in others ;-)

And would you be happy if "O" means the opposite direction if you crossed from Germany to France - or even better: if you drove in Belgium or Switzerland ;-)

And I don't even have the faintest clue about the most of the other 20+ languages...

hopscotch

A very constructive critique, cowboy. Thank you.

This issue could be resolved with a simple icon of a compass. Iconic road signs, street signs, rail station signs, no smoking signs, etc., etc., in the EU are standard now. Nobody over there knows all those languages either. Adding one more easily recognizable icon should be no problem. Oops, I forgot about the Brusselcrats. This will take a decade of committee meetings to happen.

Cowboy1968

LOL... good grief, touchy, touchy..

Fortunately, we live in times when people who have problems navigating can rely on GPS in their cars.

kerouac

The reason for the renumbering of the French road system is "decentralization." As the autoroute system is now "mature," the old national highways are considered less important in most places, so maintenance is being turned over to the departments rather than staying on the national budget.

Therefore, about half of the 'N' road numbers have become 'D' road numbers over the past couple of years. In most cases, you can recognize the old number in the new number, i.e. a road numbered N47 in the old days may become D947.

But throw the old maps away and buy new ones.

Nikki

Ah, well that explains it. But it doesn't explain why my new Michelin map had the wrong numbers. I guess they sold me an old one. No harm done, we just ended up going around a few rotaries a few extra times to make sure we weren't getting on the wrong road when the name of the town looked right but the number looked wrong.