Loneliest roads in America

[kjslaughter]

Saw this article on Strange Maps today.  I think ties in to prior discussions on forum of least and most traveled roads.  The non-paired portion of GA 24 is certainly a lonely road in Georgia, though I do question traffic counts over entire lengths of some of these roads.

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/americas-loneliest-roads/

[US 89]

I hate articles like this. “US 50” is their winner for Utah… well, that varies quite a bit between the part across the west desert and the part concurrent with I-70 near the Colorado line, which has something like 20 times more traffic. There are tons of state roads and even US highway buts in the state lonelier than that. SR 21 jumps immediately to mind.

The real winner for Utah, per UDOT AADT data, is SR 124 - a shortish spur to an abandoned mine off a longer spur to an abandoned mine - which has an AADT around 40, I think.

[yakra]

Yeah. US201? The State House says hi.

[cl94]

Similarly, the "real winner" for NY is NY 421. Couple dozen cars a day at the counting station right next to NY 30, but most of the road has nothing. 812 gets a decent amount of traffic as the direct route to Ottawa from a decent amount of NY.

[the_spui_ninja]

Wait SD 73 is SD's winner? That one actually goes through towns!
I think they just have bad/incomplete data, because SDDOT's map (https://dot.sd.gov/media/documents/Traffic_2021.pdf) has the highway with the absolute lowest segment AADT being SD 47 (60), north of Eureka (ends at a ND county road), while the lowest overall highway AADT is SD 239 (72) (it's a pointless spur to a small town).

[formulanone]

I'm surprised how many of these roads I've been on.

Alabama 5 is far from lonely in most places. It goes through the edges of Birmingham's metro area, for goodness sake! While AL 62 seems to have the lowest overall AADT, it's not really desolate. If we're looking for a sizable route length, AL 17 would be a really desolate one, passing though no towns of major significance (but a few county seats) and lots of quiet space in between.

Rhode Island 102 isn't that lonely. It just doesn't hit any major towns or cities.

Mississippi 57...really? It's one of the state's busier two-lane roads that isn't a US Route. Without choosing tiny spur routes into minuscule towns, 26 is fairly quiet. 30 is empty.

Florida 29 is a decent choice, though I think there's a few others with lower counts. It really goes though a lot of desolate places in between some small towns.

[Bickendan]

No to both Oregon and California's.
I was just on CA 139 today between CA 36 and 299.
And did the entirety of US 395 in Oregon on Wednesday. An argument could be made for the ORH 49 portion, but OR 350 would likely eat its cake.

[Jim]

They could at least put in a tiny bit of effort and use proper shields for their silly list.

[dave1693]

In terms of fewest vehicles ENCOUNTERED -- which I know is a different metric -- the loneliest road I've ever traveled was I-25 in northern Wyoming, from south of Sheridan to north of Casper. I don't think we even SAW a single vehicle (didn't pass anyone, weren't passed BY anyone, nobody keeping pace within view, nothing the other way) for that 100-ish mile stretch.

[kjslaughter]

Agree with all of above.  No idea their methodology.  I get trying to exclude tiny short spur routes, but to call a major connecting highway "the loneliest road" certainly feels like a stretch.  Be nice to know if they like did an average over the entire length of road?  Oh well.

[Jim]

I guess this is more of an AARoads topic than TM, but when I think of a lonliest road in my own travels, it might be NM 537.  I've done it at least twice and it's possible I never saw a car go in the other direction.

[froggie]

Mississippi 57...really? It's one of the state's busier two-lane roads that isn't a US Route. Without choosing tiny spur routes into minuscule towns, 26 is fairly quiet. 30 is empty.

Speaking from personal experience, MS 57 is really only busy from 90 to Vancleve (~5mi north of I-10).  I seriously question why the state bothered 4-laning and relocating it from 98 up to State Line.

Are there other state routes that are quieter?  Sure.  But I would not include 26 or 30 among them.

[jayhawkco]

My AARoads topic on the matter: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=28578.0