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United States Numbered Highways

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Road transport

   The current U.S. Route shield is printed on a square blank with a black
   background. One state - California - uses an older "cutout" design.

   The system of United States Numbered Highways (often called U.S. Routes
   or U.S. Highways) is an integrated system of roads and highways in the
   United States numbered within a nationwide grid. As these highways were
   coordinated among the states, they are sometimes referred to as Federal
   Highways, but they have always been maintained by state or local
   governments since their initial designation in 1926. There has never
   been any funding difference between these routes and any other state
   highways. The numbers and locations are coordinated by the American
   Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), in
   which the only federal involvement is a non-voting seat for the United
   States Department of Transportation.
   Maps of the present U.S. Highway network (top) and Interstate Highway
   System (bottom)

   The Interstate Highway System has largely replaced the U.S. Highways
   for through traffic, though many important regional connections are
   still made by U.S. Highways, and new routes are still being added. The
   busiest freeway in the U.S. - Houston's Southwest Freeway - carries
   only U.S. Route 59.

System details

   In general, U.S. Highways do not have a minimum design standard, unlike
   the later Interstate Highways, and are not usually built to freeway
   standards. Many are the main streets of the cities and towns they run
   through. However, new additions to the system must "substantially meet
   the current AASHTO design standards".

   Except for toll bridges and tunnels, very few U.S. Highways are toll
   roads. AASHTO policy says that a toll road may only be included as a
   bannered route, and that "a toll-free routing between the same termini
   shall continue to be retained and marked as a part of the U.S. Numbered
   System." However, none of the four toll roads in the system follow
   this:
     * U.S. Route 51 uses part of the Northwest Tollway in Illinois; the
       old road is Illinois Route 251
     * U.S. Route 278 uses the tolled Cross Island Parkway is South
       Carolina; the old road is U.S. Route 278 Business
     * U.S. Route 412 uses the Cimarron Turnpike in Oklahoma; the old road
       is U.S. Route 64
     * U.S. Route 412 uses the Cherokee Turnpike in Oklahoma; the old road
       is U.S. Route 412 Scenic

Numbering

   The two-digit U.S. Routes follow a simple grid, in which odd-numbered
   routes run generally north-south and even-numbered routes run generally
   east-west. ( U.S. Route 101 is considered two-digit, with first digit
   ten.) Numbers generally increase from 1 in the east to 101 in the west
   and 2 in the north to 98 in the south. Numbers ending in zero or one
   (and U.S. Route 2), and to a lesser extent in five, were considered
   main routes in the early numbering, but extensions and truncations have
   made this distinction largely meaningless; for instance, U.S. Route 6
   was until 1964 the longest route. This grid is the opposite of the
   Interstate Highways, which increase from west to east and south to
   north.

   Three-digit numbers are assigned to spurs of two-digit routes. For
   instance, U.S. Route 201 splits from U.S. Route 1 at Brunswick, Maine
   and runs north to Canada. Not all spurs travel in the same direction as
   their "parents"; some are only connected to their "parents" by other
   spurs, or not at all, instead only traveling near their "parents". As
   originally assigned, the first digit of the spurs increased from north
   to south and east to west along the "parent"; for example, U.S. Route
   60 junctioned, from east to west, U.S. Route 160 in Kansas, U.S. Route
   260 in Oklahoma, U.S. Route 360 in Texas, and U.S. Route 460 and U.S.
   Route 560 in New Mexico. As with the two-digit routes, three-digit
   routes have been added, removed, extended and shortened; the
   "parent-child" relationship is not always present. Several spurs of the
   decommissioned U.S. Route 66 still exist, and U.S. Route 191 travels
   from border to border, while U.S. Route 91 has been largely replaced by
   Interstate 15.

   Several routes approved since 1980 do not follow the pattern:
     * U.S. Route 400, approved in 1994, has no "parent".
     * U.S. Route 412, approved ca. 1982, is nowhere near U.S. Route 12.
     * U.S. Route 425, approved in 1989, is nowhere near U.S. Route 25.

   In addition, U.S. Route 163, approved ca. 1971, is nowhere near U.S.
   Route 63. The short U.S. Route 57, approved ca. 1970, connects to
   Federal Highway 57 in Mexico, and lies west of former U.S. Route 81.

   While AASHTO guidelines specifically prohibit Interstate Highways and
   U.S. Highways from sharing a number within the same state (which is why
   there are no Interstates 50 or 60), the initial Interstate numbering
   approved in 1958 violated this with Interstate 24 and U.S. Route 24 in
   Illinois and Interstate 40, Interstate 80, U.S. Route 40 and U.S. Route
   80 in California. (US 40 and US 80 were removed from California in
   their 1964 renumbering.) Some recent and proposed Interstates, some of
   them out-of-place in the grid, also violate this: Interstate 41 and
   U.S. Route 41 in Wisconsin (which will run concurrently), Interstate 49
   and U.S. Route 49 in Arkansas, Interstate 69 and U.S. Route 69 in
   Texas, and Interstate 74 and U.S. Route 74 in North Carolina (which
   will run concurrently).

Divided and bannered routes

   Divided routes have been around since 1926, and designate
   roughly-equivalent splits of routes. For instance, U.S. Route 11 splits
   into U.S. Route 11E (east) and U.S. Route 11W (west) in Knoxville,
   Tennessee, and the routes rejoin in Bristol, Virginia. Occasionally
   only one of the two routes is suffixed; U.S. Route 6N in Pennsylvania
   does not rejoin U.S. Route 6 at its west end. AASHTO has been trying to
   eliminate these since 1934; its current policy is to deny approval of
   new ones and to eliminate existing ones "as rapidly as the State
   Highway Department and the Standing Committee on Highways can reach
   agreement with reference thereto".

   Bannered routes - those with a banner such as alternate or bypass - are
   also managed by AASHTO. These are sometimes designated with lettered
   suffixes, like A for alternate or B for business.

Naming

   The official route log, last published by AASHTO in 1989, has been
   named United States Numbered Highways since its initial publication in
   1926. In the log, "U.S. Route" is used in the table of contents, while
   "United States Highway" appears as the heading for each route. All
   reports of the Special Committee on Route Numbering, at least since
   1989, use "U.S. Route", and federal laws relating to highways use
   "United States Route" or "U.S. Route" more often than the "Highway"
   variants. The use of U.S. Route or U.S. Highway on a local level
   depends on the state.

History

Early auto trails

   In the early 1910s, auto trail organizations - most prominently the
   Lincoln Highway - began to spring up, marking and promoting routes for
   long-distance automobile travel. While many of these organizations
   worked with towns and states along the route to improve the roadways,
   others simply chose a route based on towns that were willing to pay
   dues, put up signs, and did little else.

Preliminary planning: the formation of the 1925 report

   Wisconsin was the first state in the U.S. to number its highways,
   erecting signs in May 1918. Other states soon followed, and the New
   England states got together in 1922 to establish the six-state New
   England Interstate Routes.

   Behind the scenes, the federal aid program had begun with the passage
   of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1916, providing 50% monetary support
   from the federal government for improvement of major roads. The
   Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1921 limited the routes to 7% of each
   state's roads, while 3/7 had to be "interstate in character".
   Identification of these main roads was completed in 1923.

   The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO), formed in
   1914 to help establish roadway standards, began to plan a system of
   marked and numbered "interstate highways" at its 1924 meeting. AASHO
   recommended that the Secretary of Agriculture work with the states to
   designate these routes.

   Secretary Howard M. Gore appointed the Joint Board on Interstate
   Highways, as recommended by AASHO, on March 2, 1925. The Board was
   composed of 21 state highway officials and three federal Bureau of
   Public Roads officials. At the first meeting, on April 20 and 21, the
   name - U.S. Highway - was adopted. It was also decided that the system
   would not be limited to the federal-aid network; if the best route did
   not receive federal funds, it would still be included. The tentative
   design for the U.S. Highway shield was also adopted, based on the
   official United States shield.

   Opposition soon formed from the auto trail associations, who rejected
   the elimination of the highway names. Six regional meetings were held
   to hammer out the details - May 15 for the West, May 27 for the
   Mississippi Valley, June 3 for the Great Lakes, June 8 for the South,
   June 15 for the North Atlantic, and June 15 for New England. The auto
   trail associations were not able to address the meetings, but as a
   compromise did talk with Joint Board members, and came out with general
   agreement with their plans. The tentative system added up to 81000
   miles (130000 km), 2.8% of the public road mileage at the time.
   The original U.S. Highway shield, in use from 1926 to the late 1940s
   Enlarge
   The original U.S. Highway shield, in use from 1926 to the late 1940s

   The second full meeting was held August 3 and 4, 1925. At that meeting,
   discussion was held over the appropriate density of routes. William F.
   Williams of Massachusetts and Frederick S. Greene of New York favored a
   system of only major transcontinental highways, while many states
   recommended a large number of roads of only regional importance. Greene
   in particular intended New York's system of only four major through
   routes as an example to the other states. Many states agreed in general
   with the scope of the system, but believed the Midwest to have added
   too many routes. The shield, with few modifications from the original
   sketch, was adopted at that meeting, as was the decision to number
   rather than name the routes. A preliminary numbering system, with eight
   major east-west and ten major north-south routes, was deferred to a
   numbering committee "without instructions".

   After working with states to get their approval, the system had
   expanded to 75800 miles (122000 km), or 2.6% of total mileage, over 50%
   more than the plan approved August 4. The skeleton of the numbering
   plan was suggested on August 27 by Edwin Warley James of the BPR, who
   matched parity to direction, and laid out a rough grid. Major routes
   from the earlier map were assigned numbers ending in 0, 1 or 5 (5 was
   soon relegated to less-major status), and short connections received
   three-digit numbers based on the main highway they spurred from. The
   five-man committee met September 25, and submitted the final report to
   the Joint Board secretary on October 26. The board sent the report to
   the Secretary of Agriculture of October 30, and he approved it November
   18, 1925.

   These major transcontinental routes, along with the auto trails they
   roughly replaced, were as follows:
     * U.S. Route 1, Fort Kent, ME to Miami, FL: Atlantic Highway
     * U.S. Route 11, Rouses Point, NY to New Orleans, LA
     * U.S. Route 21, Cleveland, OH to Jacksonville, FL (where it met US
       1)
     * U.S. Route 31, Mackinaw City, MI to Mobile, AL
     * U.S. Route 41, Powers, MI to Naples, FL: Dixie Highway
     * U.S. Route 51, Hurley, WI to New Orleans, LA
     * U.S. Route 61, Canadian border north of Grand Marais, MN to New
       Orleans, LA
     * U.S. Route 71, International Falls, MN to Baton Rouge, LA (where it
       met US 61): Jefferson Highway
     * U.S. Route 81, Canadian border north of Pembina, ND to Laredo, TX:
       Meridian Highway
     * U.S. Route 91, Great Falls, MT to south of Las Vegas, NV
     * U.S. Route 101, Port Angeles, WA to San Diego, CA: Pacific Highway

     * U.S. Route 2, Houlton, ME to Bonners Ferry, ID
     * U.S. Route 10, Detroit, MI to Seattle, WA: National Parks Highway
     * U.S. Route 20, Boston, MA to Astoria, OR
     * U.S. Route 30, Atlantic City, NJ to Salt Lake City, UT (where it
       met US 40): Lincoln Highway
     * U.S. Route 40, Wilmington, DE to San Francisco, CA: Victory Highway
     * U.S. Route 50, Annapolis, MD to Wadsworth, NV (where it met US 40)
     * U.S. Route 60, Chicago, IL to Los Angeles, CA
     * U.S. Route 70, Morehead City, NC to Holbrook, AZ (where it met US
       60)
     * U.S. Route 80, Savannah, GA to San Diego, CA: Dixie Overland
       Highway
     * U.S. Route 90, Jacksonville, FL to Van Horn, TX (where it met US
       80): Old Spanish Trail

   Note that 10, 60 and 90 only ran about two-thirds of the way across the
   country, while 11 and 60 ran significantly diagonally. The way in which
   US 60 violated two of the conventions would prove to be one of the
   major sticking points; US 60 eventually became the famous U.S. Route 66
   in 1926.

AASHO and the states fine-tune the plan: 1925-1926

   The new system was both praised and criticized by local newspapers,
   often depending on whether that city ended up on a major route. While
   the Lincoln Highway Association understood and supported the plan,
   partly because they were assured of getting the U.S. Route 30
   designation as much as possible, most other trail associations lamented
   their obsolescence. At their January 14-15, 1926 meeting, AASHO was
   flooded with complaints.

   In the Northeast, New York still wanted fewer routes, and Pennsylvania,
   which had been absent from the local meetings, convinced AASHO to add a
   dense network of routes, which had the effect of giving six routes
   termini along the state line. (Only U.S. Route 220 still ends near the
   state line, and now it ends at an intersection with future Interstate
   86.) The indirect nature of U.S. Route 20, passing through Yellowstone
   National Park, led Idaho and Oregon to request that U.S. Route 30 be
   swapped with US 20 to the Pacific coast.

   Many local disputes centered on the choice between two roughly-equal
   parallel routes, often competing auto trails. At their January meeting,
   AASHO approved the first two of many split routes (specifically U.S.
   Route 40 between Manhattan, KS and Limon, CO and U.S. Route 50 between
   Baldwin City, KS and Garden City, KS). In effect, each of the two
   routes received the same number, with a directional suffix indicating
   its relation to the other. These splits were initially shown in the log
   as - for instance - US 40 North and US 40 South, but were always posted
   as simply US 40N and US 40S.

   The most heated argument, however, was the issue of US 60. The Joint
   Board had assigned that number to the Chicago- Los Angeles route, which
   ran east from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City, but then angled sharply to
   the northeast, running more north-south than east-west in Illinois.
   Kentucky strongly objected to this, as it had been left off any of the
   major east-west routes, instead receiving the U.S. Route 62
   designation. This, along with the part of U.S. Route 52 east of
   Ashland, KY, was assigned the U.S. Route 60 number in January 1926,
   while US 62 was given to the Chicago-Los Angeles route, contingent on
   the approval of the states along the former US 60. But Missouri and
   Oklahoma did object - Missouri had already printed maps, and Oklahoma
   had prepared signs. A compromise was proposed, in which US 60 would
   split at Springfield, MO into US 60E and US 60N, but both sides
   objected. The final solution resulted in the assignment of U.S. Route
   66, which did not end in zero, but was still seen as a nice round
   number.
   The "final" U.S. Highway plan as approved November 11, 1926
   Enlarge
   The "final" U.S. Highway plan as approved November 11, 1926

   With 32 states already marking their routes, the plan was approved by
   AASHO on November 11, 1926. This plan included a number of
   directionally-split routes, several discontinuous routes (including
   U.S. Route 6, U.S. Route 19 and U.S. Route 50), and some termini at
   state lines. Major numbering changes had been made in Pennsylvania by
   the publishing of the first route log in April 1927, in order to align
   the routes to the auto trails, and U.S. Route 15 had been extended
   across Virginia. Further modifications and additions were made in the
   next few years.

Criticism by the press

   Much of the early criticism of the U.S. Highway system focused on the
   choice of numbers to designate the highways, rather than names. Some
   saw a numbered highway system as cold and heartless compared to the
   more colorful names of the auto trail systems. The New York Times wrote
   "The traveler may shed tears as he drives the Lincoln Highway or dream
   dreams as he speeds over the Jefferson Highway, but how can he get a
   'kick' out of 46, 55 or 33 or 21?" Ernest McGaffey was quoted as
   saying, "Logarithms will take the place of legends, and 'hokum' for
   history."

Before the Interstates: 1926-late 1950s

   In 1934, AASHO attempted to eliminate many of the split routes by
   removing them from the log, and designating one of each pair as a
   three-digit or alternate route, or U.S. Route 37 in one case. AASHO
   described this in the October 1934 issue of American Highways:

          When the U.S. numbered system was started in 1925, a few
          optional routings were established which were designated with
          the affix: "North," "South," "East," or "West." This procedure
          has never been to the traveling public, and while there are but
          a few roads numbered in this manner in the entire country, it is
          believed that they should be eliminated wherever possible, by
          the absorption of one of the optional routes into another route.

          Wherever these optional routes are not of sufficient length for
          them to become a part of another numbered road, it is proposed
          to give the regular number to the older or shortest route, and
          the other route is to bear the same number with a standard strip
          above the shield carrying the word "Alternate."

   Some states accepted this, and marked the routes as requested. But
   several states refused, including California, Mississippi, Nebraska,
   Oregon and Tennessee. In 1952 AASHO re-recognized the splits in U.S.
   Route 11, U.S. Route 19, U.S. Route 25, U.S. Route 31, U.S. Route 45,
   U.S. Route 49, U.S. Route 73 and U.S. Route 99.

   General expansion and the occasional elimination continued to occur
   through the years. One of the more interesting cases was the proposed
   extension of U.S. Route 97 to Alaska along the Alaska Highway,
   cancelled because the Yukon Territory refused to renumber its section
   as 97. For the most part, the U.S. Highways remained the primary method
   of intercity travel; the main exceptions were toll roads such as the
   Pennsylvania Turnpike and parkways such as the Merritt Parkway. Many of
   the first high-speed roads were U.S. Highways: the Gulf Freeway carried
   U.S. Route 75, the Pasadena Freeway carried U.S. Route 66, and the
   Pulaski Skyway carried U.S. Route 1/9.

Post-Interstate era

   The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 appropriated funding for the
   Interstate Highway System, a vast network of freeways across the
   country. By 1957, AASHTO had decided to assign a new grid - opposing
   the U.S. Highway grid - to the new routes. Though the Interstate
   numbers were to supplement, rather than replace, the U.S. Highway
   numbers, in many cases, especially in the West, were routed along the
   new Interstates, as there was no need for the states to maintain two
   parallel routes through sparsely populated territory. Major
   decommissioning began with California's 1964 renumbering, and the 1985
   removal of U.S. Route 66 is often seen as the end of an era.

   The last U.S. Highway to be fully paved was U.S. Route 183 between Rose
   and Taylor, Nebraska, paved ca. 1967.

   AASHTO has recognized that state highways are now symbols of good roads
   as the U.S. Routes once were. Thus it has acted to rationalize the
   system by eliminating all single-state routes less than 300 miles (480
   km) in length "as rapidly as the State Highway Department and the
   Standing Committee on Highways of the American Association of State
   Highway and Transportation Officials can reach agreement with reference
   thereto". New additions to the system must serve more than one state
   and "substantially meet the current AASHTO design standards".

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