Route 51 is a

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. It runs approximately from Route 115 in

West Warwick West Warwick is a town in Kent County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 31,012 at the 2020 census. West Warwick was incorporated in 1913, making it the youngest town in the state. Prior to 1913, the town, situated on the wester ...

to Route 12 in Cranston.

Route description

Route 51 starts at an intersection with Route 115 in

. It runs northward through residential areas before skirting the Cranston Country Club. It continues north, passes over

I-295 Interstate 295 is the designation for several Interstate Highways in the United States: *Interstate 295 (Delaware–Pennsylvania), a bypass of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania *Interstate 295 (Florida), a beltway around central Jacksonville *Interstate 29 ...

without an exit, and ends at Route 12 in Cranston. Route 51 is the only Rhode Island state highway that does not have any state-maintained sections. Also, many maps do not show the correct route for Route 51. Generally, maps which show Route 51 at all show it starting at Route 37 on Natick Avenue, then heading along Natick Avenue and Phenix Avenue, ending at Route 12. This route is incorrect according to

RIDOT The Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) is a Rhode Island state government agency charged with design, construction, maintenance and inspection of a wide range of transportation infrastructure. These include 3,300 lane miles of stat ...

, whose pavement management log shows Route 51 starting at Route 115; it comes close to Route 37 but does not intersect it.Scan of Route 51 from the RIDOT Pavement Log
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

) Also of note is that there is no Route 51 signage on Route 51 itself, though there are two blank sign posts that may have carried Route 51 shields at some point, and on Interstate 295, signage for exit 3B clearly stated RI 51. Those signs were all replaced in 2008 and the new signs show only RI 37, all reference to RI 51 on I-295 has been removed. According to

, the towns through which Route 51 runs requested that the signs be removed to give them time to prepare for the increase in traffic brought by a numbered route. There are also some trailblazer assemblies along Route 5 and Route 12.

Major intersections

References

External links

{{Attached KML, display=inline,title
2019 Highway Map, Rhode Island
051 Transportation in Kent County, Rhode Island West Warwick, Rhode Island Cranston, Rhode Island