Friday, September 21, 2007

What the hell is a "F.M." road?

Driving to the sea, we spent a lot of time on FM roads, e.g. "F.M. 2292." where ever I'have been so far I have seen "I" roads (Interstate) and "SR" roads (State Route) and even "FS" roads out in the wilderness (Forest Service),, but an "F.M." road was new to us. At first I guessed the "F" stood for "Federal," but couldn't come up with an "M". Finally, noting that these roads traveled through the back-country, I decided that "F.M." was simply an abbreviation for "Farm" -- but the presence of a period between the F and M gave me a sneaking suspicion that I could be wrong. I decided to ask some one local ( a friend of mine ) answer from the friend - sorry dont know.

So, I looked it up. And the answer is ... FM = Farm to Market road. "The system of Texas Farm-to-Market Roads was created to provide access to the rural areas of the state ... The name is derived from the intended use of the roads: farmers bringing their goods to market in the cities."

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