Forum:Federal States/Motorway Numbering Restructuring

Forums → Federal States → Federal States/Motorway Numbering Restructuring

As the project has grown and matured significantly since the initial motorway numbering system was first implemented about five years ago, and based on conversations with several stateowners, I would like to propose the following modest reforms to the motorway network:

1. Designating certain routes as "primary" or "secondary" should be depreciated and removed from the master list. These terms seem to be confusing and creates an unnecessary "hierarchy" of routes that may or may not actually be more important than others. Instead, routes that end in "0" or "1" would only be referred to as "grid" routes that guide and frame the larger overall numbering scheme.
2. While maintaining the overall numbering scheme, more tolerance for "crossing" routes should be added to the system. "Parallel" routes would be permitted to cross each other provided they do not cross through more than one "grid" (X0/X1) motorway. For instance, FS-16 could cross both FS-14 and FS-20 provided it did not also cross FS-10 or FS-30.
3. Single-digit route numbers would be reserved for major "diagonal" routes that would otherwise violate Reform #2. This would include existing FS-1, FS-2, and FS-3. Any single-digit route can run in any direction and is not restricted to the odd/even rules of the rest of the network.
4. To satisfy Reform #3, current FS-5 and FS-8 would be renumbered. Detailing how these routes would be renumbered would be up to the Southeast and the West Lakes regions, respectively.
5. To open up more motorway numbering options in the Southeast, FS-30 would be re-routed east of Madawan, replacing FS-22 to Stanton. The existing FS-30 segment between Madawan and Anne Abbey would become an extension of FS-40.

I believe these reforms are relatively modest and do not require an official vote to implement, but I also have no interest in enacting them unilaterally either. Accordingly, if there are any questions or concerns, please post them here; however, if there are no objections within the next two weeks (by 10 Sep 2025), these changes will become official. (Please post any official objections in the appropriate section below; otherwise, please use the "Discussion" section.) --TheMayor (talk) 21:56, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

I think we could still keep certain routes as "primary" or "secondary". While they don't need to be strict and be only X0 and X1 routes (as well as be all X0 and X1 routes), I do think some hierarchy of the motorways is important. Obviously routes such as FS-30 and FS-91 are going to be more important that routes such as FS-28 and FS-5. I think the labels should be kept, but be allowed to be looser (including routes such as FS-55 and current FS-22 while excluding routes such as FS-51 and FS-60).

Regarding crossing, I agree. I don't think it should turn into things like I-99 in Pennsylvania or I-74 in North Carolina, but with any road network, there is bound to be some misalignments.

However, I'm not as enthusiastic about the diagonals. I think reserving FS-4 and FS-5 for diagonals would work, but I can't see a scenario where we would need 9 reserved numbers for diagonals. Even some diagonals today already spend a great deal of their routing concurrent with other roads (specifically FS-50 between Minneuka and Williamsburg is wholly concurrent with FS-1 or FS-2). I worry that reserving too many numbers for diagonals creates the scenario where we have multiple diagonals for short distances, when those could be served by an auxiliary 3-digit route or an unused 2-digit route.

As someone who would be affected by the renumbering in the southeast, I am for this. At the greatest extent between FS-22 and FS-20 (Wasserstadt and Grundy), there is quite a bit of space. Not necessarily that it will be populated, but renumbering FS-22 east of Madawan would allow there to be some breathing room between FS-20 and current FS-22. I would like to propose FS-22 be used for an alternate route through the mountains to FS-30, potentially running from Waltmore, NC or Yallop, NC to Sorensby, PS or Onawanda, PS, serving almost as an I-68 to I-70 in Maryland, USA.

PoisonDog522 (talk) 00:05, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Objections

Hey! Looked at the reforms and I have some objections.

With the change of route designation, I do think it should stay, especially since it gives a clearer look to what routes are more important than others, and especially with the (mostly) transcontinental X0 and X1 routes, however it wouldn't be a bad idea to detonate some secondary routes as more important than others. (i.e. FS-75 being more important than FS-16 for example).

With routes crossing each other, I like this idea to an extent, I would prefer if the crossing and thus "break" had to be review first and not have it "break" too far, and also recommend routes that don't "break" to generally keep to the current "grid", but I could see I-71s and I-26s though in certain situations.

Regarding diagonals, I would recommend this gets brought up when there is support to add them, as I worry this will become official but no new diagonals will be added, thus leaving them unused, and currently I don't think there is any real support to add one, why it should be put on the shelf for now.

Finally with the rerouting, I think it's fine as it is, and I do see FS-22 fitting within the more "important secondaries", I would wait to see if any new routings will be made as I think some new motorways will fit under the "spur" category, and if any new motorways needing to be added, wouldn't be a bad idea going over the current motorways to see which ones will fit better as a "spur" rather than a mainline route and which ones are getting unused, plus I wouldn't mind crossings that "break the grid" in this area as well, as long as the numbering makes since.

These are my comments about it, and I think this fits better in the Objections page, we can talk more about it if needed, also if a majority agree to the suggestions you made, I wouldn't mind it then. RhodeIslandWV (talk) 23:00, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Just want to address your comments one-by-one:

"it gives a clearer look to what routes are more important than others" -- that's the entire point, there should not be routes that are "more important" than others. The strength of the network is the network effects, and when mappers get preoccupied about whether or not a route (and therefore, their state or the cities along it) is "primary" or "secondary" is not productive.

"I would prefer if the crossing and thus "break" had to be review first and not have it "break" too far" -- assigning route numbers is still something that requires coordinator and/or admin approval. That would not change, but it would allow for more flexibilities for stateowners to propose new routes, and more latitude for coordinators/admins to approve them.

"I would recommend this gets brought up when there is support to add them, as I worry this will become official but no new diagonals will be added, thus leaving them unused, and currently I don't think there is any real support to add one, why it should be put on the shelf for now." -- Once again, the point of this proposal is to specifically reserve single-digit numbers for future multi-state routing proposals that may come up in the future. OGF as a whole is very fluid, and for a system like this to stay both structured and adaptive to future changes or concepts years from now, being able to have these types of things available later on is important. The FSA's geography has changed in many ways since this structure was first implemented; we must assume that future changes to the project will be inevitable at some point.

"I would wait to see if any new routings will be made as I think some new motorways will fit under the "spur" category, and if any new motorways needing to be added, wouldn't be a bad idea going over the current motorways to see which ones will fit better as a "spur" rather than a mainline route and which ones are getting unused" -- "Spurs" are not a thing in the mainline FSA motorway network, so I am uncertain what specifically you are referring to here.

I hope this helps to clarify things. --TheMayor (talk) 16:35, 28 August 2025 (UTC)