State route sign

How to read it

The MUTCD leaves the design to each state's highway agency and recommends a rectangle about the size of the U.S. Route sign, with black numerals on a white area against a black background, and the white area round unless the state decides otherwise. That default is the M1-5 sign. States use their own designs: Pennsylvania's is a keystone, and Michigan's manual shows the M-32 marker for its state highway M-32. Each system's marker is used only on that system and the roads leading to it, so the shape says which network the road belongs to. This page describes the national standard; it isn’t legal advice, and each state applies it on its own roads.

Also searched as: state highway sign, state route marker, state route signs.

Which network the marker belongs to

The three are told apart by shape and colour. The Interstate shield is a cutout red, white and blue shield. The U.S. Route sign is a black-on-white shield on a black square. A state route sign is whatever the state has adopted, with the MUTCD's white circle as the default.

What the 2023 MUTCD added

The 11th edition (2023) keeps the states' freedom of design but adds that state route signs should be free of complex graphics and that their numbers use the standard highway alphabets.