Why Does Texas Use The "FM" Road System? 

As a rural Texan, FM roads are the lifeblood of travel here. It's impossible to even leave my town without using one

As a native Texan who's spent all his life on a farm to market road, I had no idea they weren't everywhere.

They used to use AM roads, but they were too noisy… 😂

I love FM roads. These take you to places in Texas that are less traveled by others, and you get to see the beautiful countryside. Some are important still, as the quickest way to get from my city to our smaller county seat is by a Farm to Market Road.

I cant even imagine Texas without these roads, they take you deep into the middle of nowhere and its just beautiful.

If you're driving into Texas or just driving through, if you want a more scenic route, get off the interstate and just use the FM roads through the small towns. It'll take a little longer, but it'll be much more pleasant. They are typically well maintained and in between towns, you can usually go 70 mph.

Something forgotten with time. In the '80s, Texas had a roadside wildflower budget larger than some states total state highway budget.

Texas also has a system of Park Roads intended to give access to state parks. Some are over 10 miles long. Park Road 1836 goes to the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site and its number was changed from Park Road 9 in 1960 to commemorate the year that Texas won its independence from Mexico. Park Roads have square white signs with a black outline and the words Park Road written above the number. There are houses and businesses on Park Roads.

Thank you for this! My first time in Texas was in 1965. I was eight years old. I learned how to read from gas station road maps. My parents used to kid that I could say "Esso (now Exxon), Texaco, Sunoco, Mobil and Shell before I could say Mama and Dada. In other words, I have been a road/map geek for most of my life. The FM and RM always befuddled me. You cleared this up! Note: In the movie "Twister", while the main characters are supposed to be in Kansas, in one scene where they are coming up on a tornado, you can clearly see a Texas FM route sign along the road they are on. Thanks again! Note: Wisconsin also uses a system similar to Missouri's.

FM roads are how I mostly get around the state. It really doesn't take any longer, and slowing down to 35mph (or the odd traffic light) is preferable to me when compared to sitting in stop-and-go traffic in Austin. That, and you get a "feel" for the state that you just don't get on the interstate- lots of great places to eat, or just stop and stretch your legs.

Great video. Although, as a Texan, I would say that their original purpose isn’t as lost as you think. A good many of them still do connect more rural areas to urban areas and bigger highways

I've lived in Texas for years and never knew the history of FM roads. I just thought they were farm roads. This taught me a lot. Thank you.

I’d love to see a video cover the “interstate” highways in Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico!

Great video! Farm roads can even serve as loops around towns. FM 2818 in Bryan/College Station is mostly four lane and built a lot like an expressway. Historically, some State Loops (separate TX hwy system) started as farm roads, like Loop 323 in Tyler and the southern leg of Loop 281 in Longview (which was co-signed with FM 1845 until the mid-90s).

I travel thru Texas using the FM road system because I know that eventually it will lead me to a major town and freeway/highway. It's a great way to see little towns and the countryside.

I'm so glad you made a video about this. In all my trips to Texas, I could not understand why Texas had FM as a type of route. I understand the purpose and thank you for bringing this to lights. Very pleasant and unexpected surprise!

I moved to Texas a while ago and wondered about the FM roads all around me. No one I knew could really explain them but I did figure them out on my own. Thanks for the more detailed description along with the history behind them. Great content.

I live in the outskirts of Houston and I always use FM roads to avoid traffic and for lazy drives out of town. It's a Pretty well routed road system.

I live in a neighborhood just off an FM road. The area used to be rural a few decades ago, but is now surrounded by a large urban suburb.

I live on an FM road and use a sign for a fictitious one as my RU-vid profile pic. One small correction: The original FM 1 is still there, mostly in Sabine County. What you called "FM 1" at 5:06 is actually "Ranch Road 1." It reaches the LBJ ranch and was so designated when Lyndon B. Johnson became President in 1963. Technically, it's not an RM road, but simply the only "Ranch Road" in the TxDOT system. It's signed the same, though, because the signs for all RM roads say "Ranch Road," just as those for all FM roads say "Farm Road."

Little known fact: prior the the FM road system in Texas, there were Area to Market roads or simply AM roads. Traffic on AM roads moved at a lower frequency than the FM roads, and that caused a great deal of static amongst the people especially in stormy weather. An oddity of the AM routes was the lower frequency of traffic meant at night, greater distance could be covered after dark.

Farm to Market roads. Texas is the only state I've ever known to name roads like this. That state really is full of strange oddities. All in a good way 👍

Could you make a video on the Texas highway service roads running along every freeway in the state? I’ve noticed that it’s incredibly rare in all other states besides TX

Not only FMs, there are CRs or County Roads. These are mostly in rural areas sometimes paved but often are gravel. They are maintained by individual counties and usually connect to FMs and State Highways.

I live in texas and there is a lot of "FM" roads

THANK YOU for mentioning our Missouri "lettered highways" as everyone here calls them. The original goal of the supplemental routes when built was to have a state highway within two miles of 95% of all Missourians. Also many counties themselves did not have money to have paved roads at that time, so the supplemental routes brought paved roads to many parts of rural Missouri. This has resulted in Missouri having the seventh largest state highway system in the nation. A few other interesting states are North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, where all roads outside of incorporated cities are state highways; there are no county roads. After Texas, North Carolina and Virginia are the second and third largest state highway systems in the nation by centerline miles (some states have more lane miles).

I worked for TxDOT for 32 years and the state absolutely does fund FM roads inside large cities. I live on one of those FM roads.

I love the FM roads. I use them way more than the normal interstates, plus no tolls!

A few years back we had a farm road called FM 495 down here in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Around the early 2000s, because of it being in a wholey urban area, it was redesignated as a state highway. It kept its number and now it's State highway 495. But there are some street signs that still haven't been changed out and still call it a FM 495.

Georgia has state roads that were originally farm to market, as does Alabama. Both states made the effort to pave all these roads starting in the 1950s. Georgia finished the job in the late 60s and Alabama finished in the early 70s, I believe.

I grew up in Texas and when I was a kid I thought Farm to Market was just the name of a nearby road. I was surprised to learn that were farm to market roads all over the place.

I grew up off of Farm to Market road 260. It went through the whole Urban Road thing, and I wondered why one day, after I graduated college, I saw the county road crews taking down the signs. It was sad to see them go, along with the farms that I grew up around slowly disappearing.

As part of my driver's education in Houston back in 1972, we would drive out to FM 1960 to learn how to safely make a u-turn on a rural 2 lane road. That part of FM 1960 was 8 lanes wide last time I was there several years ago. Over the past 50 years I have had the opportunity to travel to 3 continents and over 40 states. Nothing makes me appreciate the United States more than visiting another country and nothing makes me appreciate Texas roads more than driving in another state. I now live behind the pine curtain in East Texas on a county road, one block off of a Farm to Market road, and two blocks from a US highway that is in the process of becoming an Interstate Highway.

So glad you included Missouri in this with our county highways. They are so handy for many people who would otherwise be driving on gravel. Certain counties in Missouri have nearly all their small roads laid out parallel and named 2220 for being 2.2 miles in from the edge of the county headed east or west while 1170 is 1.7 miles inside the county heading north or south. Blindfold me and place me at most any intersection in the woods and I can find my way home from a spot I've never been

Well done, Beav! New to TX and wondered about the back story to all these FM roads I keep finding myself on.

*a nice video; I no longer live in Texxas, however, remember a road designated "OSR" which seemed odd. you might work that in to any update. ta*

Never heard of the Urban name on roads and I've been here in Texas since 1996. Great job on the video!

A friend of my dad used to live in Houston. He called FM roads 100mph backroads.

A fun video idea since we are on the subject of these types videos. How about a ranking of all 50 state route shields? My favorites are California, Nebraska, Washington, Colorado, and Alaska. Least favorite are Indiana and Illinois, who looked like one copied each others homework. :P

As a new Texan (moved here a few years ago), the concept of Farm Roads and the importance it provided and continues to provide, is impressive. Bolivian by birth, American by choice, Texan by the grace of God !

To me, the FM means "For Motorcycles" cause that's the best way to travel on them. Its like a mini adventure.

I live off a rural Texas FM road, it’s a beautiful road with only ranches and farms, traffic consists of trucks, tractors, horses ect. I exclusively use FM roads as much as possible as they are most beautiful and peaceful roads to travel.

Alot of fm roads are also pretty major, especially up in DFW and in houston

Maybe could you do a video about the county roads in Wisconsin? They aren’t numbered, they are lettered county roads.

Best FM Road: FM 170 from Presidio to Terlingua. Drive fast. RM 2222 in west Austin is a fun drive as well.

I hope you do more about various secondary roads in various states. Such as county roads.

We not only have FM roads but also CR or County Roads. Example would be to take FM 2609 to CR198. It wasn't too long ago that they didn't use the FM or CR road numbers but for the efficiency of 911 they really started standardizing it about 30 years ago. If you needed an ambulance you would need someone really familiar with the area to send someone from Appleby Sand to Hatchetman Rd. One was a well known road and the other was a very local road that was never named Hatchetman.

I had no idea Westheimer was a FM Road.

While the term may not be used in the naming, farm-to-market roads are common in agricultural states. They reduce the isolation farmers and ranchers experience when their only contact with towns are up dirt roads that are muddy in wet weather and dusty in dry weather. They make it easier to bring produce into towns.

Interesting channel. As a naturalized Texan, I enjoy such content.

I'd love to see Louisiana's equivalent to the Texas FM system, where the A, B, and C routes go. All I've seen are Interstate, US, State, and Parish (County) Roads.

i live in texas and even after being to a lot of the country, i never noticed not seeing them everywhere else. theres actually an fm road on the other side of the neighborhood and well, a ton more nearby

Hey at 00:18 you show the FM 2112 that my street is directly off of in East Texas Crazy cool details here ! Texas is great overall. You must be in East Texas you just mentioned Mount Enterprise, just N of Nacogdoches.

When I 35 was being improved between Austin and Waco which seemed to take about ten years. I used FM roads to get around the construction. When I don't want to deal with traffic, I still use the roads quite often.

Loved driving the FM roads around Austiin to look at the HillCo. Lot of nice picture spots.

Great video! Loved hearing the history behind our Texas FM/RM roads.

The good thing about having essentially a tri level highway system is this not only increases economic opportunity with some FM roads being 4-8 lane highways. Plus when you think about all the infrastructure, jobs, and etc it really does make one think.

Missouri is literally covered by a grid of farm roads. They're everywhere. We use a lettering system on the state highways, and a number system on the actual farm roads, which are labeled "FR" or just Farm Road when written anywhere other than on a sign. Iowa, Louisiana, and Ohio also use a similar system.

This gets me thinking whether you've considered doing a video ranking all of the state route marker designs

Love the Farm and Ranch Roads, Take you to the real Texas.

Interesting facts: FM 157 is just to the west of AT&T Stadium and Globe Life field. The junctions of FM 1268 & FM 48, near Mobitee, is where they filmed the last scene of Castaway Also FM 407 (which is a sign you showed) runs across the northern part of the DFW Metroplex. Beginning in Lewisville at I-35E and running west to US 287.

Thanks for the great video, very informative. I won't look at these roads the same. I moved from California to San Antonio 20 years ago and I remember thinking these roads were interesting. The FM thing was odd, reminded me of the 1/2 roads in the central valley of California. I agree, Texas should be proud of these, it's a huge accomplishment and the roads usually aren't too bad.

Farm to market roads are exactly described as titled. It takes you from the farm to the market. I live in central Texas and they're every where and they do in fact take you from a rural/remote area to civilization

I took an FM road to work everyday over summer 2022 when I was working near Wayside TX. Nobody else on the road it was nice and I could speed a little bit if I’d left my house a bit later than my normal time. FM roads connect quite a few small communities here in the Texas panhandle.

On my days off from work I usually plan a drive around certain FM roads just to get out and explore....also some FM roads you need to be careful of because I had one turn into a barely used dirt road on me...

The Missouri system has a system for naming. Some letters are never used or with extreme exception. Also single letter routes are generally better condition than 2 letter routes. And ones starting with R connect recreational areas, most often Missouri Department of Conservation land. All other double letter routes are repeating letters or begin with A. Not sure I'd there's any difference between those 2 groups.

Excellent information for the general public. Great for Road Geeks too. Thank you.

Interesting that Westheimer road is also designated as an FM road for part of it's length. I never knew that and assumed he was going to say FM1960 was the most traveled farm road(a 6 lane farm road at that) and it threw me off. Cool to learn something new about the system of roads that I've used so much.

You’re back!!! Dude where have you been?! The F/M road system perplexed me when I visited Texas a few years back.

FM roads have crazy history with me, including saving my life during a tornado so thanks for covering this topic so I can know more abt my savior

Was raised on an FM road in TX Panhandle. We always used the ‘sign and back’ about 1/4 mile, as a foot/bike race distance. As a child during the summers when road crew came out would love the smell of tar and then riding bike over fresh loose rock asphalt, now it is more road grade. When I was about 5, my cousin lost his airplane and we found it with a wing sticking out of the tarred area with minimal gravel coverage. As it was summer we just used sticks and removed it haha. This was in 1988. Thanks for explaining to those - I thought these were commonplace. At slightly less than 3 miles long, and few steads on the road, if I said which it’d definitely expose family who still live there.

The only ones I know are in the city and massive like 1960 or 518. Texas roads overall are quite nice.

A question I’ve been asking since I’ve moved here, thanks for answering it!

Love the video! Just an FYI, your marking of FM1093 (aka Westheimer) is incorrect west of Highway 6; what you're showing is Westheimer Parkway (a different road.) FM1093 actually goes all the way to Eagle Lake, TX - almost a 60 mile trip.

My dad told me " a wise man learn something new everyday of his life " . And today I learnt what FM roads are , even though I'll probably never use this information in my life . Thanks !

I would love to see more about Ohio’s equivalent to the FM system. I thought they only had interstates, U.S. highways and regular state roads. I was unaware of any “farm road system”.

Oklahoma also has a similar albeit much less extensive system. There's will be the number of the parent highway followed by a letter (typically A-F). The farm to market road signs is how I discovered that the movie Twister was at least partially filmed in Texas. Now that I'm thinking about it, the town where the aunt lived (Wakita) is connected to the state highway system by one of those secondary state highways (11A).

I once drove from Austin to Port Aransas using almost exclusively FM and RR, it was such a beautiful drive I can't see myself using the interstates for that trip again unless I'm super time crunched. If you want a great drive in Texas: put your destination into Waze, set Avoid Freeways > on, set Unpaved roads > allow, have fun:)

Following this same idea I would love to see a video on how states handle tertiary routes, such as Tennessee's routes signed in the upside down triangle

I’d be curious to see a video about Virginia’s state highway and state road system. State highways with a round-cornered triangle and then state roads going into the triple and quadruple digits with round signs designating them.

As a Missourian I would love to see a video on our lettered road system. It's such an odd setup, I can think of 3 different highway B's all within a 20 mile radius of each other. Some, especially the double lettered roads, just turn into gravel roads after so long.

I love Texas's FM roads. I've driven all over Texas on them. You can take your time, slowly wander around wonderful small towns. No hurry, less traffic. Lots of things (sometimes,...other times,..not much,...maybe just some cows or oil derricks etc) to see. Sometimes some good cafe's, most other times there's almost always a good Mexican restaurant as the only restaurant. God Bless Texas!!

PA has a type of highway that is below the state routes. Most people don’t even know they exist. The signs are very small, and I don’t think I have ever heard someone refer to one of these by their four digit number.

While in in Law Enforcement Academy I learned another little known fact about Farm to Market roads. Cattle, horses, sheep, swine, goats, and implements of husbandry have the rightof way.

FM1960 was the main road the leads to Willowbrook Mall in Northwest Harris County. Oh the 1980's when I was young

Here in Missouri, the lettered routes are frequently mistakenly called county roads. They're really supplemental state routes, but are laid out in such a way so that there's no more than one route in each county bearing that letter or letter combination. If such a route crosses a county line, that road becomes the only road with that letter or letter combination in all counties it passes through (usually no more than two, although I know of a route K that traverses 3 counties). Those that cross state lines become numbered routes in neighboring states. On these routes, MoDOT uses all letters EXCEPT G (looks like a 6), I (looks like a 1), L (not sure why), Q (looks like an O), and S (looks like a 5). R is limited to a route RA designation only, with such routes leading to Recreational Areas, hence the "RA" designation. Only one route in the entire state uses an X, that being a route AX, which leads to and from Axtell, in Macon County. 2-letter combos typically consist of two of the same letter or the first letter being an A. Other combinations exist, though, such as BA in St. Louis County (leads to and from Babler State Park), AR in Ozark County (only 2 miles, becomes route 87 in Arkansas), RB in Stone County (not sure what's up with that), and the aforementioned RA routes. Only 6 lettered routes in Missouri have 60 MPH speed limits, with the rest being limited to no more than 55 MPH. Lettered routes very rarely if ever use directional banners. Aa fas as MoDOT is concerned, if you use such a route, they just assume you know what you're doing.

My hometown has 2 FM roads, 2100 and 1942. FM 1960 which runs east and west, north of Houston used to be designated an urban road

Farm-to-market roads are also used in Georgia, but they don't have the separate designation that Texas uses. Instead the difference is different funding than that used for State highways.

I grew up on an FM road and I had no clue they weren't as ubiquitous elsewhere in the country. I would just assume they were everywhere that historically had farming communities

I'm a trucker and was once hauling a load from near El Paso to Waco. Since I-20 went too far north and I-10 went too far south, my GPS (which, in hindsight, I shouldn't have followed) took me on a stretch of well over 100 miles of FM roads through the absolute middle of nowhere. No cell service, no other traffic, no buildings, seemingly no road maintenance in the past 20 years, definitely no lines on the roads, and a speed limit of 70mph. I was a little concerned that the rough road would destroy my truck and leave me broken down with no way to contact anybody and possibly no hope of being found, but fortunately, no such disaster happened.

I remember when I took a trip from Indianapolis to Minneapolis and driving through Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota before reaching the Twin Cities on I-94, there were exits where they weren’t these FM Roads but the county roads were still lettered, definitely something that I remember finding unique when I took that 9 hour drive to and from Minneapolis a year ago since Indiana doesn’t have roads like this. Indiana just does the basic county road system but sometimes it can be a blur from the way some of them are set up so you may think you’re a certain distance from a certain town and it turns out it’s a different, bigger town that you’re some distance away.

It Stands for "Farm to Market". It was used to develop transportation in rural areas.

One of my favorite things is just driving down some fm roads to some good CR roads and just back roading. Nothing beats a slow road with the back drop of the piney woods.

I love Texas Farm Roads. I grew up in Texas and you can drive all over the county at 75 mph. You are also guaranteed a quality paved highway no matter how far out in the country you are. When you see the "State Maintenance Ends" at the end of a farm road, you are not sure what type of road you are getting next.

I think that it's worth looking into how WV numbers county roads. I've never really seen it anywhere else in the US

Great video bro. I didn't even know I needed to know this but you made it sound cool and interesting

They covered up a lot of my roads I grew up on when they built Richland-Chambers Reservoir. Their are gravel roads and dirt roads and oil field roads that subdivide the farm to market roads. As a teenager (I'm 67 now) going parking at the oil field and telling girls about the oil field monsters was a great way to pass the time!

I just noticed something. Westheimer Road (5:17), which has the designation of FM 1093, is: 1. Longer than what is shown, as it ends in Eagle Lake 2. Your path after State Highway 6 is off. You're following Westheimer Parkway, which turns into Pin Oak Rd in Katy. This is not FM 1093 nor is it Westheimer Road. There is a road that looks like it connects SH6 to another yellow line that borders the big green area. That road is Westheimer (FM 1093). Once it meets up with the unlabeled road (which is Westpark Tollway), FM 1093 becomes the frontage road for Fort Bend Westpark Tollway (the prior is in Harris County) and will remain as the frontage roads until Fort Bend Westpark Tollway ends. Then FM 1093 will continue as a two lane road until it ends in Eagle Lake. 3. On the other side of that line that is marked as Westheimer, while Westheimer does proceed close to downtown Houston, the FM 1093 designation actually ends at I-610.

One more difference in FM Roads and State Highways in most areas of Texas is that FM Roads do not have a maintained shoulder and State Highways have either a paved shoulder or a gravel shoulder and they are maintained (or most of them are maintained). If you go off the road on a FM road you better have a good grip on your steering wheel because your literally driving off into the weeds! This is also why FM Roads don't look as wide as State Highways - because they aren't! FM Roads in big urban areas usually are maintained the same as State Highways but if you follow them far enough out of the city you may notice the road gets narrower due to losing the shoulder.

It is a wonderful rural road system. Very smooth and well tended. Typically two wide travel lanes(one each way) in the middle with broad paved shoulders. Farm vehicles use the shoulder while cars and trucks at highway speeds use the two travel lanes. If a vehicle faster than you overtakes you, you are obliged to move right onto the shoulder and let them pass, then move back left onto the travel lanes.