"Highways" that are actually city streets

[mapman1071]

Rockaway 'Freeway' in Queens - nothing more than a divided Super-Two expressway
http://goo.gl/maps/yMc2o

Rockaway Freeway Is a City Street, No Interchanges Arranged in a 1/1/1/1 with the IND Rockaway Subway El over the center lanes.

[mapman1071]

Frontage Roads for I-17 Phoenix, Black Canyon Highway Maintained by City of Phoenix
NB from 19th Avenue to Carefree Highway, SB From Carefree Highway to Van Buren Street then co-signed with 23rd Avenue from Van Buren Street to Durango Street.

Carefree Highway Peoria, Phoenix, Cave Creek, Scottsdale & Carefree
Currently 2 lanes from Lake Pleasant Parkway to I-17 and 4 to 6 Lanes from I-17 to Scottsdale Road/Tom Darlington Drive.

Lake Pleasant Parkway, Peoria to 27th Avenue, Phoenix (Co-Signed with AZ74) Maintained by ADOT
27th Avenue, Phoenix to Scottsdale Road/Tom Darlington Drive Matained by Phoenix & McDOT

[vtk]

In some regions of the country, "highway" is essentially just a synonym for "public road", with no implied importance or design standards.  There ought to be many examples for this thread from those regions.  The conclusion is therefore that an unimportant road named "___ Highway" is not really a strange phenomenon. 

For example, look at Lenawee County, Michigan.  Every north-south county road is given the suffix "Highway", regardless of the road's importance.  Most of them are gravel!

This is really just another facet of the following phenomenon of road naming in this country:  Nearly every road is named with a suffix that is a synonym for "road", such as "avenue", "street", "boulevard", "highway", et cetera.  In other uses, these words carry implications of certain physical characteristics, but as suffixes to road names, they are almost meaningless.  It's a bit like a surname: just because your name is "John Shepherd" doesn't mean it's strange that you don't care for a flock of sheep.  With roads, the suffix is often chosen simply because it sounds nice or to give more variety to an area's road names, without regard to what kind of road that suffix word would otherwise describe.

If there's a thread like "boulevards that are narrow and undivided" or "parkways that allow trucks and aren't limited-access" or "terraces in completely flat topography" and NE2 yawns at it, this is why.

PS – Somewhere around central Ohio is a little town with a Broadway that's just an 18-foot-wide strip of asphalt from the main through road to the edge of town, which is about 200 feet.  I don't even remember where.  It's not that big a deal.

[NE2]

just because your name is "John Shepherd" doesn't mean it's strange that you don't care for a flock of sheep.

Sure it is. How else can you fall asleep?

[Lytton]

On Oahu, there is Nimitz Highway and Sand Island Parkway. To be fair, Nimitz Highway does have a route assigned to it, Route 92. But, it is mostly a street that goes by the waterfront and the only parts that aren't in Honolulu is the small connector from H1 to the main gates of Pearl Harbor and Hickam AFB.

Sand Island Parkway is the continuation after Sand Island Access Road and it isn't really a parkway at all. For one thing, the four-lane road only goes for less than a mile after the bridge until it reverts to a two-lane road and is still called a Parkway.

[jfs1988]

Mission Blvd in Ontario, California.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jfs1988/7666053628/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jfs1988/7666053770/in/photostream/

Mission Blvd between CA-83 (Euclid Ave) & CA-60 (Pomona Freeway) acts as an expressway. There are even highway mileage signs. This section parallels railroad tracks and is south of the Ontario Airport.

[kendancy66]

Here is an interesting twist on the highway theme

http://goo.gl/maps/IGVij

This is not a real "highway", just the entrance to Laguna Hills High School.  Their nickname is the Hawks.

[ftballfan]

Mulholland Highway barely looks wide enough for two cars to pass each other in some areas.

[JCinSummerfield]

Not just the N-S roads in Lenawee County, vtk.  A large majority, including E-W routes are suffixed "Hwy".   

[vtk]

Not just the N-S roads in Lenawee County, vtk.  A large majority, including E-W routes are suffixed "Hwy".   

Ahh.  I've only ever paid attention to the road names while travelling west to east from Adrian through Deerfield and Petersbrug towards Dundee, Ida, or Monroe, or straight thru on M-50 – so I saw just about every N—S road but no E—W ones except the few I drove on.

[hm insulators]

Imperial Highway in the Los Angeles area might qualify, even though it's a very long street. It runs from LAX all the way to Yorba Linda.

[kiwislark]

Some examples from Auckland, New Zealand:

Mount Wellington Highway

https://maps.app.goo.gl/xKpmDFcyGpb3rTPQ9

Ellerslie Panmure Highway

https://maps.app.goo.gl/GRWDijYGYj9BUUcS7

Main Highway

https://maps.app.goo.gl/SahZvgHaLn6pKG379

Hibiscus Coast Highway

https://maps.app.goo.gl/f7Nb4mpNm1niN6HG7

Albany Highway

https://maps.app.goo.gl/6d8Jo9upF8fU43nN8

[Max Rockatansky]

CA 49 north of US 50 in Placerville on Spring Street and Colma Road. CA 49 in Sonora and Downieville would also fit this thread.

[Flint1979]

There are counties in Michigan that use the term, "Highway" on roads. Dixie Highway is usually nothing more than what a city street would be. I know Eaton and Lenawee Counties for sure use the term, "Highway."

[DandyDan]

Will County, IL between Joliet and New Lenox has an Illinois Highway. I always found myself amused when we passed that road on our way to my uncle's former house.

My original thought was Airline Highway in Waterloo, IA, but that one was formerly in the Iowa Highway system. Both times I drove it, it didn't seem worthy of being called a highway, though.

[PColumbus73]

In Horry County, SC, a lot of the rural county roads are addressed as 'Highways', i.e. Hwy 19, Hwy 66, Hwy 111, as if they are on the same level as the signed US and SC routes like US 501, SC 31, and SC 90.

[KeithE4Phx]

Frontage Roads for I-17 Phoenix, Black Canyon Highway Maintained by City of Phoenix
NB from 19th Avenue to Carefree Highway, SB From Carefree Highway to Van Buren Street then co-signed with 23rd Avenue from Van Buren Street to Durango Street.

The original Black Canyon Highway was AZ 69, and ran along 43rd Ave. from Grand Ave. north, beginning around 1936 or '37.  Later (circa 1950), it was moved into Phoenix along what would later become I-17.  As you stated, it's strictly the frontage roads on either side of I-17 now, and has been for decades.

A couple others:

Hunt Highway through Sun Lakes, southern Gilbert, and Pinal County in a few segments, from 88th St. in Sun Lakes to AZ 79 just north of Florence.  All segments are either county or town (Gilbert) maintained.

Bush Highway from the north end of Power Rd at the Mesa City Limits to AZ 87 north of Saguaro Lake.  It is an unnumbered Maricopa County highway through the Tonto National Forest.  Prior to at least the mid '70s, Power Rd. was only south of Main St./Apache Trail (then US 60-70-80-89), while Bush Highway was north.

[LilianaUwU]

Route Penney in Québec City. Street View

[bing101]

Whitnall Highway in the San Fernando Valley:

http://goo.gl/maps/icp1d

Was originally going to be much more:

http://cahighways.org/257-264.html#258

That's interesting given that parts of the route went in a diagonal direction. The northwest end of the proposed Whitnall freeway in the proposed route is where CA-118 is today. However CA-118 goes east-west toward the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley.