Could we ever see another mass renumbering of state highways again?

[CNGL-Leudimin]

When did we last have one? Numbers are pretty ingrained into our memory now.

In Spain pretty much every road that is not a National highway has been renumbered since the late 80s , as the various regional networks were formed. Previously there was a country-wide, three-layer numbering system, of which only the National highways survive. If anyone is interested on this, I can open a thread over at International Highways.

California in 1964.

Known by me as "The Purge", as they removed many US Routes.

[Revive 755]

Are FAP and FAS numbers still used in any context in Illinois?  I'm still a little fuzzy on that.

They are still listed in bid plans for project let by IDOT.

[sparker]

Extremely unlikely in CA due to official apathy regarding route continuity and/or signage.  Playing devils' advocate here, Caltrans does have a lot on its plate at present, not all of which are its own doing.  HSR, shepherding local projects, commute rail/Amtrak California and transit issues up the wazoo!  Worrying about highway minutiae -- even though that's what they did for the first 70 years of their existence -- seems to play second fiddle to juggling input from folks who by all rights shouldn't be addressing roadway issues.

The only thing they never seem to tire of these days is deploying roundabouts!  

[Max Rockatansky]

Extremely unlikely in CA due to official apathy regarding route continuity and/or signage.  Playing devils' advocate here, Caltrans does have a lot on its plate at present, not all of which are its own doing.  HSR, shepherding local projects, commute rail/Amtrak California and transit issues up the wazoo!  Worrying about highway minutiae -- even though that's what they did for the first 70 years of their existence -- seems to play second fiddle to juggling input from folks who by all rights shouldn't be addressing roadway issues.

The only thing they never seem to tire of these days is deploying roundabouts!

It's almost as though consolidating every state branch into one transportation body just created one tired agency that gets pushed around way more than it's predecessor.  The legislature essentially has full control over what Caltrans does and doesn't do.  In some cases like CA 51 the legislature even decided on what the highway will actually be signed in field.  Mass transit has been a hot topic in California for decades but the roadways and signage really have on the whole fallen way behind the times.  Interestingly even though the gas taxes are high in California the amount of revenue generated is in peril due to things like better fuel efficiency and alternate fuel sources.  Things like SB1 (Which largely guaranteed a large amount of road funding) and the weather related infrastructure problems of 2017 helped but it won't fix decades of state level apathy towards road.   Given all that the chances of another Renumbering essentially are about zero. 

[cpzilliacus]

In these modern times, do you think we'd ever see mass renumberings like that again?

Absolutely not. Even in days when the state DOT budgets are not under the severe pressure that they are right now, this involves a large amount of money that the DOTs do not have, and I cannot think of even one state legislature that would appropriate money for something like this. 

Especially in states like Virginia and West Virginia, where most secondary highways and roads are state-maintained too - making a project like this an order of magnitude more expensive.

[NWI_Irish96]

In these modern times, do you think we'd ever see mass renumberings like that again?

Absolutely not. Even in days when the state DOT budgets are not under the severe pressure that they are right now, this involves a large amount of money that the DOTs do not have, and I cannot think of even one state legislature that would appropriate money for something like this. 

Especially in states like Virginia and West Virginia, where most secondary highways and roads are state-maintained too - making a project like this an order of magnitude more expensive.

If I were to ever win a $250M+ lottery prize, I'd offer to pay INDOT the entire cost of re-signing if they adopt my plan.

[kkt]

In these modern times, do you think we'd ever see mass renumberings like that again?

"Ever" can be a very long time.  However I don't anticipate anything like that happening again for the foreseeable future.  It was a fairly painful process, and as pointed out already with GPS people are depending less on route numbers than in the past.

Extremely unlikely in CA due to official apathy regarding route continuity and/or signage.  Playing devils' advocate here, Caltrans does have a lot on its plate at present, not all of which are its own doing.  HSR, shepherding local projects, commute rail/Amtrak California and transit issues up the wazoo!  Worrying about highway minutiae -- even though that's what they did for the first 70 years of their existence -- seems to play second fiddle to juggling input from folks who by all rights shouldn't be addressing roadway issues.

The only thing they never seem to tire of these days is deploying roundabouts!

It's almost as though consolidating every state branch into one transportation body just created one tired agency that gets pushed around way more than it's predecessor.  The legislature essentially has full control over what Caltrans does and doesn't do.  In some cases like CA 51 the legislature even decided on what the highway will actually be signed in field.  Mass transit has been a hot topic in California for decades but the roadways and signage really have on the whole fallen way behind the times.  Interestingly even though the gas taxes are high in California the amount of revenue generated is in peril due to things like better fuel efficiency and alternate fuel sources.  Things like SB1 (Which largely guaranteed a large amount of road funding) and the weather related infrastructure problems of 2017 helped but it won't fix decades of state level apathy towards road.   Given all that the chances of another Renumbering essentially are about zero. 

It wasn't exactly an accident.  The legislature deliberately took more control.  They were responding to popular discontent with the number of urban freeways being built and proposed, with little consideration for the communities or the impacted landowners, and ignoring the possibility that public transportation would be more effective in some areas.

[skluth]

Why? California doesn't even put markers on their highways much of the time, especially if they've turned road maintenance over to a local community. Not an issue in semi-rural areas where you can pick up the signs once you leave the town hugging the interstate. But it's a real disaster if you are navigating by Rand McNally Road Atlas in the LA/OC/IE area. I doubt anyone would even notice if CA 39 was renumbered.

[Max Rockatansky]

Why? California doesn't even put markers on their highways much of the time, especially if they've turned road maintenance over to a local community. Not an issue in semi-rural areas where you can pick up the signs once you leave the town hugging the interstate. But it's a real disaster if you are navigating by Rand McNally Road Atlas in the LA/OC/IE area. I doubt anyone would even notice if CA 39 was renumbered.

At some point along the line having reassurance shields in California became an affair about who maintains the road rather than providing a navigational aid.  It wasn't that way for a really long time and it was fairly common for State Highways to be signed on non-state maintained roadways.  I'd settle for having just plain route continuity (looking at you Rice Avenue near Oxnard) over something like another renumbering.  The problem is that there is no secondary body to Caltrans that could pick up a large number of signage contracts like the Auto Clubs once did.

[achilles765]

I could never see Texas changing our state highway numbers.  Not a massive renumbering at least.  For one, we have too many of them and our system is more complex than most states.  With State Highway Routes, spurs, loops, FM and RM routes, Park Roads... and we all are way too familiar with the system we have now.  I can't imagine how they'd change it.  Sometimes a route will be renumbered for one reason or another...like FM 149 becoming SH 249 from Pinehurst to Houston when it was upgraded to a freeway.

[Road Hog]

I think some states can reclassify, if not totally renumber, state highways based on traffic counts and general utility.

However, the FM roads were built in Texas for that very purpose – farm to market – and they still perform that function today. Notwithstanding the massive growth of metro areas into former farmland.

[sparker]

In these modern times, do you think we'd ever see mass renumberings like that again?

"Ever" can be a very long time.  However I don't anticipate anything like that happening again for the foreseeable future.  It was a fairly painful process, and as pointed out already with GPS people are depending less on route numbers than in the past.

Extremely unlikely in CA due to official apathy regarding route continuity and/or signage.  Playing devils' advocate here, Caltrans does have a lot on its plate at present, not all of which are its own doing.  HSR, shepherding local projects, commute rail/Amtrak California and transit issues up the wazoo!  Worrying about highway minutiae -- even though that's what they did for the first 70 years of their existence -- seems to play second fiddle to juggling input from folks who by all rights shouldn't be addressing roadway issues.

The only thing they never seem to tire of these days is deploying roundabouts!

It's almost as though consolidating every state branch into one transportation body just created one tired agency that gets pushed around way more than it's predecessor.  The legislature essentially has full control over what Caltrans does and doesn't do.  In some cases like CA 51 the legislature even decided on what the highway will actually be signed in field.  Mass transit has been a hot topic in California for decades but the roadways and signage really have on the whole fallen way behind the times.  Interestingly even though the gas taxes are high in California the amount of revenue generated is in peril due to things like better fuel efficiency and alternate fuel sources.  Things like SB1 (Which largely guaranteed a large amount of road funding) and the weather related infrastructure problems of 2017 helped but it won't fix decades of state level apathy towards road.   Given all that the chances of another Renumbering essentially are about zero. 

It wasn't exactly an accident.  The legislature deliberately took more control.  They were responding to popular discontent with the number of urban freeways being built and proposed, with little consideration for the communities or the impacted landowners, and ignoring the possibility that public transportation would be more effective in some areas.

The 1973 Caltrans consolidation, which took place during Reagan's 2nd gubernatorial term, was actually less about satisfying primordial urbanist seniments or addressing homeowner and/or minority concerns than placing the then-nascent rail systems -- the local California Amtrak routes, Caltrain in the Bay Area, and the then-planned San Diego LR network -- within some level of state coordination.  That particular administration was not generally hostile toward freeway development in general, although "penny pinching" was being implemented on some projects, which had the effect of delaying completion in some.  The anti-freeway sentiment of the time was largely concentrated in the Bay area, with an offshoot up in Sacramento as well as some low-key rumblings in Long Beach concerning the proposed (with an adopted alignment) CA 1 freeway crossing the city along 10th Street, which featured considerable historical housing.  Nonetheless, no broadly-based statewide anti-freeway movement existed at that time, just the local instances that had gained some publicity, like the injunction against the CA 238 freeway through Hayward and Union City, issued in 1972.  Also at that time the state legislature had yet to be dominated by the Democratic Party; the majority ping-ponged between parties every couple of election cycles, with a moderate Republican, Bob Monaghan from Tracy, handing off periodically to one of the Bay's Burton brothers or one of the various associates of the old Unruh faction from the L.A. area.  The legislature wasn't at the time terribly apt to make radical changes, either on the progressive or conservative side -- neither party's leadership had enough time at the helm to do so.  It wasn't until the Brown administration ('75-'83) that anti-car and subsequently anti-freeway sentiment became a quasi-official Caltrans blanket policy under the leadership of Adriana Gianturco.  Brown gave her broad leeway to make policy from within the agency; she chose to wield a machete rather than a scalpel for the most part.  Using the 1975 advent of the Coastal Commission as a rationale, virtually every planned freeway -- adopted or not -- within the parvenu of the Commission (in the L.A. basin that extended about 5 miles inland) was rescinded or deleted, including the CA 1 (PCH) Long Beach segment cited above.  Uncompleted Interstates were excepted; curiously, freeways near the coast in San Diego county like CA 54 and CA 56 (52 had been done between I-5 and then-US 395 in 1968) were also exempted, although many of the planned inland connectors (CA 171, CA 157, CA 252) were deleted.  The first two were widely considered gratuitous, so their deletion was neither surprising nor mourned, but connectors to the third from I-805 were already constructed -- but became actual "roads to nowhere", touching down on local streets. 

But the point here is that the consolidation of Caltrans was primarily to combine various transportation-related agencies under one omnibus umbrella and to place rail development, in terms of LR, commute rail, and regional service as integral parts of transportation planning alongside the longstanding highway program.  It wasn't until two years later that any inkling of anti-automotive activity was embedded within the agency -- at least at the policy and planning levels -- where public transit, including rail and bus service, was framed as a desired substitute for car travel.   

[Quillz]

I don't think we're likely to see a massive renumbering all at once, but more gradual changes? Sure.

[kkt]

In these modern times, do you think we'd ever see mass renumberings like that again?

The era of rapid growth of the interstates, and the renumbering of US routes to interstates that came with it is over and doesn't seem likely to return in the short or medium term.

Confusion is a factor.  Most people will only want to renumber if there's a strong reason for it - better than "it doesn't fit the grid perfectly".

Both of those said, though, "ever" is a very long time.