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Forest Service Road Naming Standards

Post by Lonewolf147
Hey folks,
I'm starting this thread to follow up on the discussion I started in the SM GHO regarding naming standards for the forest roads (generally dirt/4x4). This thread is only for the discussion of Naming. There are numerous other threads already devoted to the classification of these roads.

Currently it is suggested via the Wiki that Forest Service Roads be named FS-xxxx. As of this post, FS is pronounced Eff Ess in TTS. FR was also suggested, but this has its own problems. FR is pronounced "Front" for one, and not every state calls their forest roads "Forest Road". FR can stand for too many things. Forest Road, Forest Route, Fire Road/Route, Frontage Road, Farm Road, etc... There is no way to distinguish between each of these using only the letters FR.

There was some suggestion of leaving FS in place and letting the pronunciation of each letter stay as is, and the same could be true for FR. FR may be even more appropriate because there are so many different names that pronouncing Eff Are could cover all of them.

There was also the idea of having at least the word Forest be pronounced, as a driver 'should' be able to see they are going on a non-standard road if directed to turn onto a Forest road. But, this won't help Farm Roads.

I've seen on Google Maps, roads named NF-xxx (I assume for National Forest road).

I'd really like to hear from as many different states as possible as to what kinds of roads you have and what they are actually named (not the 'name' of the roads if they have one, but just the numbered FR, FS, etc part), and if there is a single standard you would be ok with using for these types of roads or any other suggestions.

Ultimately, if there is enough consensus on this, we can put a national naming standard to a vote and get it in the Wiki.


Here in Wisconsin we have an elaborate network of forest roads. They get used year round by hunters, campers and kids looking for party spots :) Some of the roads have actual names, but they all have Forest Road identifiers. Officially, Wisconsin names these roads FR-xxxx (Forest Road). My personal preference would be to see FR actually say Forest Road, but I would find it acceptable to use FR and have the letters pronounced instead.

For those curious, here's some video of me driving around on several different types of these forest roads (sorry for the jumpy video, my phone mount wasn't super stable over bumps).
https://youtu.be/sTbnIB6ZHMg
https://youtu.be/JcYeLdHo0Fc
https://youtu.be/thqkMrTFH_M
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Post by DwarfLord
The Waze Naming Conventions section of the Forest Service Roads wiki article currently says:
Forest Service Roads wiki article wrote:USFS roads on the MVUMs that are not named or with an alternative naming convention should be named "FS-XXXX" where XXXX is the USFS road name [...] (NOTE: THIS NAMING STANDARD IS CURRENTLY UNDER DISCUSSION/REVIEW 15 MAR 2015)
Is this naming standard still under review? Or have we settled on FS-XXXX? If the latter, is it time to remove that cautionary language from the article?
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Post by Lonewolf147
So FS will be "Forest Service", but FR is going to be left alone so it speaks the letters... because of the wide range of possible uses for FR?
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Post by qwaletee
Has anyone double-checked for existing use of FS outside of FS-nnnn naming?
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Post by sketch
I'm fine with FS- for Forest Service Road. I'd want to try to get that into the TTS as "Forest Service Road". I agree that "FR-" has too many meanings and should be programmed to say "F R" (the letters).

I haven't worked much on any national forests yet, but it seems they do their roads largely the same. There's a big one in the middle of Louisiana that I'm looking to start on as soon as I track down an MVUM.
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Post by steveinark
sketch wrote:I'm fine with FS- for Forest Service Road. I'd want to try to get that into the TTS as "Forest Service Road". I agree that "FR-" has too many meanings and should be programmed to say "F R" (the letters).

I haven't worked much on any national forests yet, but it seems they do their roads largely the same. There's a big one in the middle of Louisiana that I'm looking to start on as soon as I track down an MVUM.
Except for FR-, don't have a dog in this hunt locally, just when visiting other states. ;)

However, emphatically agree that FR- should say "F R" (the letters).
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Post by vectorspace
Thanks for bringing this up again. I was actually discussing with Lonewolf147 that the existing Wiki page needed a broader set of state input. There is another older forum thread here on that effort that lead to the existing wiki page.

I thought I would describe some of the effort that went into the existing page as a summary that everyone can consider with Lonewolf's suggestion.
  • I started this wiki along with several others that had to do with a number of different types of road systems in the US that were particularly common in the western US, but certainly some across all states. These were Indian Reservations, US Forest Service roads, BLM roads, National Park Service roads.
  • I did relatively deep research on each, visiting with people in the specific US Gov agencies that were responsible for each. For USFS, I have a friend in DC that works there, one that runs a Tanker Base (base for fighting forest fires), and visited with GIS staff in USFS.
  • This research was fairly broad beyond naming conventions but also functional classification equivalencies for Waze and intended use of roads (which roads should be used by the public). It also included what landmarks (Places) would make sense.
  • Using FS-xxxx did consider existing TTS pronunciation and I did put a request in Gizmo's spreadsheet (I think) to have FS be expanded to "Forest Service" ... The thinking at the time about adding "road" to TTS would be superfluous and somewhat redundant. Keep it simple! The fact that it says "Eff Ess" now is fine too -- short and sweet.
  • The "xxxx" in the name is a somewhat complex fractal type of naming convention explained in the Wiki. This is a US Forest Service standard so should cover the whole USA... but who knows what local variations exists on signs.
I think we could make the USFS page more applicable and strong if we applied it and made any necessary adjustments based upon another state that is not in the West/Southwest like Wisconsin.

We can have discussion here as a US topic, but once we decide to make changes to the Wiki, we might want to move this to the Wiki forum area.

BTW, regarding "Farm Roads" I know that Texas has a lot of these. I have not seen any in New Mexico.
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Post by vectorspace
As an update... I have talked to GizmoGuy411 about making sure this is in the TTS discussion in order to have it move from an OK "eff ess" to the better "Forest Service." I did put that information in the TTS spread sheet over a year ago.
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Post by vectorspace
Lonewolf147 wrote:So FS will be "Forest Service", but FR is going to be left alone so it speaks the letters... because of the wide range of possible uses for FR?
FS will be put forward to go into TTS as "forest service" if Gizmo decides that. I am looking at the spreadsheet now and what's in it is for FR to be spoken as letters. GizmoGuy411, Sketch, and I have voted yes on that.
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Post by vectorspace
qwaletee wrote:Has anyone double-checked for existing use of FS outside of FS-nnnn naming?
I checked it a year or so ago through Google searches and looking on various nav sites. I also checked within the TTS spreadsheet to see if it would work and verify that it spoke letters originally.

What use outside of FS-xxx naming did you mean?
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