State routes above the highest arbitrary number in that state

[GaryV]

"You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"

Arbitrary:  adjective
subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision.
decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.
having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical: an arbitrary government.
capricious; unreasonable; unsupported: an arbitrary demand for payment.
Mathematics. undetermined; not assigned a specific value: an arbitrary constant.
(Dictionary.com)

An arbitrary route number would be one chosen by random or at a whim.  Any numbering that is based on a system, or based on a relation to another road number, would not be arbitrary.

[hotdogPi]

"You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"

Arbitrary:  adjective
subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision.
decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.
having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical: an arbitrary government.
capricious; unreasonable; unsupported: an arbitrary demand for payment.
Mathematics. undetermined; not assigned a specific value: an arbitrary constant.
(Dictionary.com)

An arbitrary route number would be one chosen by random or at a whim.  Any numbering that is based on a system, or based on a relation to another road number, would not be arbitrary.

You might be misinterpreting my initial post. Most route numbers that aren't part of a grid are arbitrary; they are pretty much chosen at random. The non-arbitrary ones are those that actually have meaning, and they are often not part of the main numbering block.

[sparker]

Right now, except for former U.S. highways that retained their number (299) and adjunct routes to former alignments (330,371), 285 remains the highest fully independent number that has ever been assigned.  But there are a lot of unused lower numbers due to deletions and relinquishments; it's likely Caltrans will keep reassigning those until the end of time!

That's actually a pretty good question:

Will California ever break out of the relinquishment spree and actually assign a route number - whether new or recycled - in the next 20-30 years?  As funny as that might be to ask, it's been 20 years since the last newly designated state route of 210, and about 22-23 since the newest new-build number (261) was signed.

Some of those unbuilt trans-sierra routes and things like Route 39 (where the middle section will never be signed again) are good examples of where one portion should retain the older, existing number, while the disconnected other portion should be signed as another number entirely.

The prerequisite for doing anything like this is actually caring about such things.  At present, that doesn't describe Caltrans, either as an omnibus agency or even divided into its twelve regions.  Also, since the routes are legislated entities, the state legislature would have to become involved (even if it meant tacking a couple of phrases onto a funding bill); it's not like the "good old days" , when the Division of Highways would call the Speaker of the Assembly (or the director or an assistant would just meet him for drinks) and slip him the legislative language required for route alterations, and lo and behold, it would be done within a couple of months.  With term limits and interest groups haranguing them at all turns, today's legislators barely have time to tend to their own constituents' needs, much less act as "errand boys or girls" for state agencies. 

In short, set the bar real low in regards to the prospects for this type of activity. 

This actually leads to a followup thought I've always wanted to ask about the 1934 numbering project:

How were the signed routings decided?  Obviously they correlated to LRNs, but usually a signed route would comprise of several LRNs (i.e. US 101 upon LRN 2, but also on a different LRN for the segment north of SF).  If the automobile clubs (CSAA/ACSC) were responsible for signage, did they also factor in to the selection of numbered routings at the time?

Now that's a really good question.  At one point or another I've read every back issue (is there anything else?) of California Highways and Public Works, and can't for the life of me recall any discussion of how the SSR numbering idioms came about and what parties were involved with those decisions; only the results (the distribution I discussed in a previous post in this thread) were published.  Whether ACSC (the Auto Club of Southern California) and CSAA (California State Automobile Association; the NorCal version) had much in the way of input -- which might be possible, seeing as the distributions were parsed for north and south regions -- might be found in the not-for-public-consumption archives of both the old Division of Highways and the auto clubs themselves.  I'm guessing that such an endeavor will take more than a bit of research and, of course, time.  What is certain is that their logos (a circle for the south and a diamond for the north) showed up on both U.S. and state shields for the first 20-odd years of state highway signage; apparently the location of the signage was a joint public/private project with the clubs having their input as to what the various reassurance and junction signage looked like in the field (if only that dynamic could be repeated in the modern era!). 

LRN's came about more or less as routes were legislated: 1-4 were the "majors":  S.F. north to Oregon, S.F south to Mexico via L.A. and San Diego, Sacramento north to Oregon, and Sacramento south to L.A.  5-13 were generally east-west connectors between and among the "majors", with the exception of LRN 7, which provided an inland Oregon-bound alternative from the Bay Area and eventually merging with LRN 3.; 11 & 13 crossed the Sierra range.  Above that, the LRN numbers were deployed as the state legislature continued to commission the routes.   

[GaryV]

"You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"

Arbitrary:  adjective
subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision.
decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.
having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical: an arbitrary government.
capricious; unreasonable; unsupported: an arbitrary demand for payment.
Mathematics. undetermined; not assigned a specific value: an arbitrary constant.
(Dictionary.com)

An arbitrary route number would be one chosen by random or at a whim.  Any numbering that is based on a system, or based on a relation to another road number, would not be arbitrary.

You might be misinterpreting my initial post. Most route numbers that aren't part of a grid are arbitrary; they are pretty much chosen at random. The non-arbitrary ones are those that actually have meaning, and they are often not part of the main numbering block.

In Michigan, the highest state highway number is M-553.  It was not part of the pattern. (MI does not have a grid; rather the roads were numbered in roughly numerical order after the first batch which were based on length.)  But it was numbered because before becoming a state highway it was county road 553.  Is that an arbitrary choice or not?  It doesn't fit the pattern, but it wasn't chosen at random either.

[dvferyance]

What it really means who knows but I get were you are going with this. For Wisconsin it is 213 becasue that is the only route above 200 that does not relate to a US highway other than the really short 243 which relates to MN-243.

[Big John]

^^ I believe 13, 113 and 213 are segments of old continuous highway 13 running north of the Illinois state line.

[dvferyance]

^^ I believe 13, 113 and 213 are segments of old continuous highway 13 running north of the Illinois state line.

You have proof of this? I don't see how they were once all connected in one way.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

^^ I believe 13, 113 and 213 are segments of old continuous highway 13 running north of the Illinois state line.

You have proof of this? I don't see how they were once all connected in one way.

Yes. It's on Chris Bessert's site. WIS 13 was decommissioned south of Wisconsin Dells when 90/94 was completed, although 213 has since been extended southward on a different alignment.

[Duke87]

CT 319: SR 611. This is the highest signed state route number not related to a connecting or former route number.

It's a spur off CT 19 though...

In Michigan, the highest state highway number is M-553.  It was not part of the pattern. (MI does not have a grid; rather the roads were numbered in roughly numerical order after the first batch which were based on length.)  But it was numbered because before becoming a state highway it was county road 553.  Is that an arbitrary choice or not?  It doesn't fit the pattern, but it wasn't chosen at random either.

I would say that no, it is not arbitrary. And per the conditions outlined in the OP it would therefore count as a "state route above the highest arbitrary number".

The confusion perhaps is stemming from that several of the subsequent replies seem more focused on determining what the highest arbitrary number is than on listing numbers higher than it.

[Scott5114]

Oklahoma's route system is a very good example of this phenomenon, as illustrated by this chart I made for the Wikipedia roads project:


As you can see, all of the routes are fairly densely packed between 1 and 167 (although there are some gaps here and there due to decommissions and not duplicating US highway numbers). But 167 is the highest number in the 160's, there's only one in the 170s–171–nothing in the 180s, and nothing in the 190s until 199. There are a grand total of four highway numbers from 200—299 (three if you discount 251A as a lettered spur as the rest of this chart does–40A and 251A are only included because they're both orphaned). And then you have 325, which is the continuation of NM 456 (yeah), and 351 and 364 are both turnpikes and it looks like they're going for some kind of orderly system there.

So the "arbitrary number" cut-off for OK would be 168.

[US 89]

Until 1969, Utah's routes were numbered (more or less) in order of their creation, with somewhat of a number clustering theme. Decommissioned numbers were also commonly reused where available. By 1969, they had gotten to 280, and the 281-320 number block was set aside for routes serving state parks and institutions. That year, 90 mostly short state routes were deleted. Today, new routes are assigned previously decommissioned numbers, often close to existing route numbers in the area. There are enough decommissioned numbers in the 7-280 range that I don't think they will ever run out.

The exception is UT 900 and 901. These are "public safety interest highways"  that the state took over in order to prevent a nuclear waste rail line. Each route is a collection of low-quality BLM roads that aren't intended to ever be improved. I suppose those routes are "above the highest arbitrary number"  but of course, they are unsigned.

[dvferyance]

^^ I believe 13, 113 and 213 are segments of old continuous highway 13 running north of the Illinois state line.

You have proof of this? I don't see how they were once all connected in one way.

Yes. It's on Chris Bessert's site. WIS 13 was decommissioned south of Wisconsin Dells when 90/94 was completed, although 213 has since been extended southward on a different alignment.

If that is true then the title would strangely go to the very short and unsigned 199.