Little Green Signs Just What the Heck Are These?

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County2 Highway Reference Markers

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County3 Highway Reference Markers Actually, this is a quite complicated program initiated by NYS DOT. These signs are placed approximately 1/10 of a mile apart on all State, US and Interstate highways in New York State. County and Regional maps of these markers hopefully are available from the DOT.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County4 Highway Reference Markers At 2 a.m. in the middle of February in a snow bank, its very hard for a shaken up driver that has never been anywhere near here before to tell your dispatcher where he is. This reference marker will identify, within some degree of accuracy, where the caller is located.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County5 Highway Reference Markers Each row of numbers obviously mean something. Without getting really, really technical and confusing, I’ll attempt to explain…

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County6 Highway Reference Markers The top row is the highway or route designation. In some cases, this number will be followed by a letter. Interstate highways are identified with an “I”. It may often be misread as a one.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County7 Highway Reference Markers The middle row has four numeric spaces. The first digit is the NYSDOT Region, one of eleven. Region ten is signified by the numeral 0 and region eleven is signified by the letter X. The second digit is the county code. The counties are alphabetized within its region and assigned numbers according to the list.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County8 Highway Reference Markers Row 2 digit 3 and 4 give the county order number. This may be construed to be the number of counties that the route has passed through since entering the state.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County9 Highway Reference Markers The bottom row… Digit 1 is the control segment number. This is the division of a route within a county and increases by one when crossing a city line. The last 3 digits of the bottom row are sequencing numbers, or distances from the beginning of a control segment.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County10 Highway Reference Markers The bottom row is generally where the confusion comes in. For the sake of argument, lets just consider these to be 1/10 mile apart. A complete explanation can be found at: html

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County11 OK, so now what? Now that you have this knowledge, what are you going to do with it? It really isn’t necessary to remember much of this previous information. It was just to make you aware of how the numbers came together. Understand though, each number, each sign is unique within the entire state.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County12 OK, so now what? We have found that using this system is quite helpful and generally easy to use… After it is set up! You will need a complete listing of State, US and Interstate routes within your jurisdiction. And the reference markers on them.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County13 OK, so now what? Space out your tasks. Look at each roadway individually. Even then it may be beneficial to break those routes even more, into smaller segments. Regardless of how you attack the solution, everything is somewhat redundant for each route and each segment.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County14 OK, so now what? Initially, I laid out an Excel spreadsheet for the entire project. This is about as simple as I could make it… But I know what I mean and may have some trouble making it clear to you… If you have questions…Ask!

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County15

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County16 OK, so now what? Column A is the route number, Row 1. Column B is Row 2 & 3 jammed together, creating one, eight-digit number. This will make better sense later on. Column C is the township, and Column E is the “corrected” mile marker. On I-81, we use mile markers in tenths, like 6250 for the 62 ½.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County17 OK, so now what? The Interstate is easy… Given tenths of a mile… Reference markers every tenth of a mile… Not too tough to figure out! Each marker is the last marker plus 10 (as in 6260 from 6250).

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County18 Ciphering Not being an exact representation, this is a mathematical solution. You need to know where you are before you figure how to get to where you’re going… To begin the calculation, you have to have a known point… Actually two – beginning and end.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County19

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County20 Ciphering Start your calculation by subtracting the low number from the high number. Divide that result by the number of reference markers in that range. If you get 260 and have 10 markers, each marker is worth 26 house numbers.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County21 Ciphering Using the low-end house number, add the result, 26, to it for the next reference number. The formula for D13 would be something like D12+26 and give you the resulting number. Copy that formula to each cell up to and including the high house number for the range.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County22 Ciphering This is not an exact representation but it should be close enough that a unit going to that area should be able to see the caller or the scene. Your GIS department should be able to create a map layer of all of these reference points for you.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County23 Finding a Location Ok, now that I’ve done all of this work, how do I find a location? In the slides, you noted the route number tabs across the bottom… Select the route that you are wishing to search… Use the ‘find’ feature in Excel.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County24 Finding a Location This is initiated by clicking the ‘find’ icon or using (Ctrl+F). In the search window, enter the 8-digit number from Rows 2 & 3 from before. Such as and enter… In our second slide, this finds the place to be 460 Rt 13.

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May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County26 Finding a Location Considering the number used, , how far might this be from the county line? In this case, it should be approximately 1.3 miles into your county. The last two or three digits of the bottom line, 1013, indicate 13 markers or 1.3 miles.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County27 Finding a Location On the Interstate and other divided highways, the markers are placed every 1/10 th of a mile and on each side of the roadway simultaneously. In other words, you will see every sign going in one direction.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County28 Finding a Location On non-divided highways, the markers are still every 1/10 th of a mile, But staggered on opposite sides of the roadway, alternating direction from sign to sign. You will still see the sign, it just may be facing the opposite direction. One on the north bound, one on the south bound…east bound – west bound.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County29 More Information… New York State GIS Clearinghouse is NYS Reference Marker System – Not a State Site And try ut-nysdot/faq/small-green-signs-mean

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County30 More Information… Here is the site for NYS-DOT Regional information… al/regional-offices Across the top of the page are drop- down menus…one is Regional Offices

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County31 More Information… Don’t worry about copying down these addresses… This entire presentation will be ed to the group.

May 13, 2008 NY Statewide Coordinators Nick Wagner, Cortland County32 Questions ?