Along the highway, the children see a sign stating that. old towne is 36 1/3 miles away and bridgeway is 52 1/4 miles away. how far is it from old towne to bridgeway

The distance from Old Towne to Bridgeway is 15 11/12 miles.  

Step-by-step explanation:

In order to find the distance from Old Towne to Bridgeway, we need to subtract the posted distances for these two cities.  Since Old Towne is 36 1/3 miles away and Bridgeway is 52 1/4 miles away, we need to subtract 36 1/3 from 52 1/4.  We cannot subtract fractions with unlike denominators, so we need to find the lowest common denominator of 3 and 4, which is 12.  When we make the fraction of 1/4 over a denominator of 12 we get 3/12 and when we convert 1/3 to a fraction with a denominator of 12, we get 4/12.  Since we can not subtract 4 from 3, we need to take one away from 52 and add it to our fraction to become 51 15/12.  Subtracting 51 15/12 - 36 4/12 = 15 11/12 miles.