Do you call them frontage roads, service roads, feeders, or something else?

41 comments

1. To me, service roads are for like…official vehicles only. You may see them within parkland that otherwise prohibits motorized vehicles, or near airports.

   Frontage roads is a term I’ve heard used in Texas which are basically surface level highways that run alongside limited access freeways ensuring businesses aren’t cut off from the traffic and people driving through the area.

2. Going to need more context.

3. Frontage.

   Here’s the obligatory link to the quiz.

   https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html?mtrref=www.bing.com&gwh=61218FC57703786EEB4636EDEB4A2609&gwt=pay&assetType=PAYWALL

4. I don’t know what any of these are, so I assume I call them something else? Lol

5. Frontage roads aren’t uncommon here. Never seen anything referred to as a feeder or service road. I’ve seen some nature trails marked as service vehicles only, though. In that case, it means you can walk or bike, but you can’t take a motor vehicle through unless it’s specifically used to maintain the trail.

6. Frontage road is most common in all the areas of the US I’ve lived in – south, midwest, east coast. I’ve also heard service road, but it’s less common than frontage road. I don’t recall ever having heard the word feeder used to refer to a frontage road.

7. Feeder

8. I had no name for them growing up in Virginia, but when I moved to Wisconsin I learned/adopted ‘frontage road.’

9. I think frontage road and it’s because a place I lived at the road running alongside the highway was actually called “Frontage Road”. It’s stuck with me ever since.

   But really I don’t care what they’re called and don’t think about it much, call em “the road that runs along the highway”.

10. Are these commonplace elsewhere? It’s rare that I see them at all.

11. Service roads are roads that run parallel to highways where I live if that’s what you mean.

12. I’ve seen signs on the Turnpike and Parkway referring to Service and Frontage roads. I’ve never had need to refer to either of them though.

13. Access roads

14. “Service Roads” around here.

15. I don’t know what any of these things are.

16. I call them “frontage roads” because we don’t have them here (thankfully) and most of my interactions with roads like that have been in Texas.

17. Service road or access road, but I don’t commonly refer to them. They aren’t a common road design near me.

18. Service drive.

19. I don’t really call them anything, but the numbers start with an F so I always assumed they were “officially” called frontage roads

20. Frontage.

21. Frontage

22. Frontage road – I spent most of my days in Arizona for reference.

23. Frontage

24. Frontage roads

25. Frontage road. I do know one literally named Frontage Road.

26. We don’t have them in Ohio

    when I moved to Texas i heard google maps call them “Frontage roads” so that’s the word i’d say

27. Frontage roads

28. Neither they don’t exist anywhere I’ve lived

29. Service Drive, that’s how they’re designated on signs here.

30. Local lanes

31. Frontage roads

32. I would call them frontage roads because that’s what they’re literally named here. There’s one that I would call a service road that’s literally named Highway Garage Road and has a…DOT garage on it.

33. Frontage road.

34. Frontage

35. Frontage roads. There’s literally a “Frontage Road” in my town.

36. Frontage is the most common here. Though you will hear feeders down by Houston.

37. frontage roads

38. In Indiana growing up we always called them frontage roads. I would know what someone meant if they said service road. I don’t know if I can recall anyone calling them feeders.

    Here in New England we just don’t seem to have them. There’s not enough long flat straight always next to the limited access highways and the roads were just never laid out like that. Interstate highways either completely took over a winding road or had their own grades built so you don’t see the situation where the highway was built in a long straight shot next to an old county road or state road like you do in the Midwest or west.

39. We don’t have frontage roads out east, they are a western/Texas thing

40. Service roads. I don’t think of service roads of being a place to fix your car I think of it as the place you pull over to take a piss or puke because your sick/get carsick.

41. We used either frontage or feeder interchangeably in Houston. Here in central Missouri those kinds of roads are virtually non-existent