Long, but not important

[Max Rockatansky]

CA 3 (146 miles) and CA 139 (122 miles) come to mind as longer state highways in California that are somewhat lengthy but serve extremely niche regional corridors.  Since we have a "short but important"  thread, what are some other examples of the reverse unimportant longer highways?

[NWI_Irish96]

IN 16 is a 105 mile road that does not connect any town larger than 2,000.

[hotdogPi]

MA 62. It's 82 miles long (quite long for Massachusetts) and goes mostly through suburbs, but it keeps turning, never forming a major corridor or being a major traffic generator anywhere.

[kphoger]

IN 16 is a 105 mile road that does not connect any town larger than 2,000.

Texas—Oklahoma—Kansas 23

264 miles, 3 states, no towns larger than 2500

1443 = Booker, TX
1393 = Beaver, OK
1388 = Meade, KS
2376 = Cimarron, KS
751 = Dighton, KS
99 = Gove City, KS
329 = Grainfield, KS
1285 = Hoxie, KS

And both endpoints are in the middle of nowhere.

[Takumi]

VA 40, 227 miles long. The largest town it serves is Rocky Mount, which has less than 5,000 people.

[JayhawkCO]

CO71. 224 miles long and the largest city served is Rocky Ford, population 3,957.

If you include NE71 and SD71, it runs 429 miles and the only city larger than Rocky Ford that it serves is Scottsbluff, NE, population 15,039.

[MATraveler128]

ME 6 in northern Maine is 207 miles long and really just connects Canada in two places. The largest city on its path is Dover-Foxcroft with only 4K people. There is no reason why it needs to be duplexed with US 201 from Jackman to the Canadian border,

[TheHighwayMan3561]

MN 1 is Minnesota's longest state highway at 346 miles, but the largest city it visits is 8,000 and is not going to be the primary route people are going to take to get there. The other major city is Ely at 2,000, but the locals call that part of the route Highway 169.

[hbelkins]

US 160.

[JayhawkCO]

US 160.

Don't disagree with you for the most part, but the portion between Walsenburg and its western terminus is important for sure.

[thspfc]

US-63

[thspfc]

If we're using the length/largest community served metric, AK-11 probably wins, even though it's actually very important.

[JayhawkCO]

US-63

Serves Rochester, a pretty decent sized city.

[JayhawkCO]

If we're using the length/largest community served metric, AK-11 probably wins, even though it's actually very important.

You could add in the Dempster, the James Bay Road, and the Trans-Taiga Road as well.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

US 83 has the Road to Nowhere nickname, and outside of South Texas probably fits this bill.

[Scott5114]

OK-3 might fit the bill. It's 600 miles long and serves several major cities, but most of that length is just tacked onto other highways. The few random independent sections aren't particularly important.

[Hobart]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the Chicago - Kansas City highway yet! It's literally just tacked onto other routes in Illinois, and most people would just take I-55 to I-70 anyways so it's limited access rather than drive down a bunch of surface level expressways through beautiful... Macomb?

[SeriesE]

Does I-40 in California count? 150+ miles but serves no major population centers.

[kurumi]

US 202. Over 600 miles long, and carrying a lot of traffic in some part of PA and NJ (a "bigshot freeway", to quote a roadgeek at Something Awful). But it bypasses larger cities, and is often overlapped with older, more familiar routes.

How common would it be to stay on US 202 for 100 miles or more, not just for curiosity, but because it's the best way to get where you're going?

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

US 127, at least in Ohio

[jp the roadgeek]

US 202. Over 600 miles long, and carrying a lot of traffic in some part of PA and NJ (a "bigshot freeway", to quote a roadgeek at Something Awful). But it bypasses larger cities, and is often overlapped with older, more familiar routes.

How common would it be to stay on US 202 for 100 miles or more, not just for curiosity, but because it's the best way to get where you're going?

I've actually done that.  Was driving home from MD to CT and wanted to avoid tolls, Philly, and NYC.  So I took US 1 up to Chadd's Ford, then US 202 from there to I-287 in Somerville.  And this was before they built the parkway portion between Montgomeryville and Doylestown, so it was slow going at times from King of Prussia to PA 611. 

[Rothman]

US 202 was part of my main route to Boston and popular parts of northern New England when I was a kid.

[SectorZ]

Maine 100. It's 140 miles long yet concurrent with other things for over 70 miles of its routing. It's the US 202 of Maine state routes, and ironically has a 50 mile concurrency with it.

[kphoger]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the Chicago - Kansas City highway yet! It's literally just tacked onto other routes in Illinois, and most people would just take I-55 to I-70 anyways so it's limited access rather than drive down a bunch of surface level expressways through beautiful... Macomb?

My strategy is to pretend the CKC doesn't exist.

[SEWIGuy]

US-63

Serves Rochester, a pretty decent sized city.

Sure, but it isn't a main route to or from the city - US-52 and I-90 carry much more traffic.  US-63 is a 1,200 mile highway that doesn't serve a single city of more than 150,000 people.  And this isn't in the west somewhere with vast open spaces.