Government officials and business owners pay close attention to how many cars are on the roads. High traffic areas need more maintenance, and low traffic areas need to justify their existence. That's where the AADT comes in- the annual average daily traffic. Geotab gathered and crunched the numbers for both federal and state routes that are at least ten miles long to determine the least busy roads in the country.
You won't be surprised to find the route with the lowest AADT in the US is in Alaska. State route 11 (the Dalton Highway) covers 414 miles from Fairbanks to Deadhorse, and has an AADT of only 196. There are relatively few communities along the route, and people who need to travel from one city to another find it much simpler to fly. Yet the road is crucial for trucks carrying groceries and other supplies to mines, oil rigs, and small northern communities. Alaska, as usual, is an outlier.
Some of the other least-traveled routes are long and lonely, but quite scenic. When someone considers opening a gas station, they take AADT into account. You'll need to start with a full tank of gas, drinking water, and a fully charged phone. You might not have cell service, but you'll want to take pictures. However, lonely routes in the eastern part of the country are shorter and are more likely to provide services. Check your state to see if there's a road less traveled that you might want to check out to take advantage of cooler weather and see colorful leaves at Big Think. -via Atlas Obscura
(Image credit: Karen Deatherage/Bureau of Land Management Alaska)
That mix-up may explain why the overview for Florida is wrong. The real Florida State Route 29 (76 miles, from Carnestown to Palmdale) is in southwest Florida, from west of Lake Okeechobee to nearly Everglades City. That's also what the text says. But the overview map of each state’s loneliest road shows it as an east-west panhandle route, just south of Georgia. The real US 29 does go to Pensacola, but it quickly enters Alabama on its way to Maryland, and does not take the route shown.