page_title: Milestone
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Milestone / Modern highways / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: An intersection in Richland including the Bypass Highway (concurrent with Washington State Route 240), Van Giesen Street (concurrent west of the intersection with Washington State Route 224), and a railroad crossing.
context_page_description: A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to some datum location. On roads they are typically located at the side or in a median or central reservation. They are alternatively known as mile markers, mileposts or mile posts. Commonly the term "milestone" may also refer to markers placed at other distances, such as every kilometre.
  Milestones are installed to provide reference points along the road. This can be used to reassure travellers that the proper path is being followed, and to indicate either distance travelled or the remaining distance to a destination. Such references are also used by maintenance engineers and emergency services to direct them to specific points where their presence is required. This term is sometimes used to denote a location on a road even if no physical sign is present. This is useful for accident reporting and other record keeping.
context_section_description: In the U.S. Interstate Highway System, the numbers usually measure the distance to the southern or western state line, or the route's terminus, if the national southern or western terminus lies in that state. The numbering system for other highways varies by state; most use a system mirroring that of the Interstate System, other states, such as Illinois, California, and Kentucky, use the county line as the zero mile marker, while others, including Missouri, do not sign mile-markers at all (except on Interstates). Arizona has a rather unique system, where a route's mileposts continue those from its original host. Often, the exits are numbered according to the nearest milepost, known as the mile-log system.  From the beginning of the Interstate system until the mid-2000s, most Interstate highways had markers every mile.  Since that time, many states have installed markers every 0.2 mile, and in some metro areas, every 0.1 mile.  Some historic and scenic routes – such as along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina and Virginia and the Overseas Highway of the Florida Keys – use mileposts to mark points of interest or (in the cases of many businesses along the Overseas Highway) as a portion of their address.
caption: Typical mile marker used in the United States
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK EASYSHARE C140 DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "480", "Image YResolution": "480", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Rating": "0", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "15764", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2952", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1563/1000000", "EXIF FNumber": "24/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:07:31 15:07:18", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:07:31 15:07:18", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "233/25", "EXIF ApertureValue": "113/25", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "143/50", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "15622", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "80", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "36", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}