Does US 441 still exist within Great Smoky Mtns Nat'l Park?

[usends]

Background: in 1952 the US 441 designation was extended over Newfound Gap through Great Smoky Mtns Nat'l Park.  Then in Nov. 1970 AASHO approved the National Park Service's request to allow US 441 signage to be removed from within the boundaries of GSMNP. 

So the question is: did this decision actually decommission US 441 within the Park?  Or did AASHO never actually decommission the Park segment; rather they simply allowed it to go unsigned?

Factors suggesting that US 441 was never actually decommissioned:
- The language in AASHO's meeting minutes did not use terms like "eliminated" or "decommissioned".  Rather, it simply referred to "discontinuing the US 441 shield".  (But is that just semantics?)
- AASHTO's latest (1989) route log noted several US routes as having separate segments (like US 20, 89, 287, 191, etc.)  However, the log did not reference separate segments for US 441.  (But that could have been an oversight.)

Factors suggesting that US 441 was indeed decommissioned:
- The road is under the jurisdiction of NPS, and they do not refer to the road as 441, nor do they mark it as 441 on their official maps.
- The stated reason for removing the signs was because commercial truck traffic was (is) not allowed in the Park.  But truck traffic is banned on lots of other signposted routes.  So the removal of US 441 signage suggests something beyond simply banning trucks, namely that the road through the Park is no longer US 441.

Note: this poll allows you to change your vote (if you are so inclined after reading others' comments)

[Roadgeekteen]

It does according to wikipedia

[bulldog1979]

From the AASHTO Archives:

June 28, 1971

Mr. George S. Willoughby, Jr.
State Highway Administrator
State Highway Commission
P. O. Box 25201
Raleigh, North Carolina 27611

Dear Mr. Willoughby:

As we had discussed, the matter of the routing of U.S. 441 through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was discussed at length by the Route Number Subcommitteee, and later the Executive Committee of AASHO approved the recommendations of the Route Numbering Subcommittee.

Mr. Frank Turner advised the Executive Committee that Superintendent Herzog of the National Park Service had advised him that it was the desire of the service to take down all U.S. Route Markers within the National Parks.

It was the action of AASHO that the U.S. Numbered System was created by joint action of the member departments through AASHTO and that the system is administered by the AASHTO Executive Committee, and further that AASHO has no jurisdiction of any roads not under thee official control of its member departments.

So, therefore, if the part of the system through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in question is not under your official jurisdiction, we have no authority to approve a U.S. marking through the Park. In case you have certain official maintenance and operating obligations for that section of the route, theen the matter would be negotiated between you and the Park Service.

As I understood your letter, the section of the route through the National Park is not under your jurisdiction. Therefore, our Executive Committee is without authority to press for the marking to remain. It could, however, remain up to the park boundaries on either side.

Yours truly,


A. E. Johnson
Executive Director

November 25, 1970

Mr. Keith Neilson, Superintendent
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Gatlinburg, Tennessee 37738

Dear Superintendent Neilson:

Your request of August 20 concerning the discontinuance of U.S. 441 through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was considered by the U. S. Route Numbering Subcommittee at its meeting in Houston, Texas, on November 6th. Since this request has been supported by the State of Tennessee and the State of  North Carolina, approval has been given to remove the U. S. Route Number markings within the boundaries of the National Park.

Yours very truly,

A. E. Johnson
Executive Director

These two letters tell me that the designation itself was removed, and not just the signage.

[SEWIGuy]

It's pretty much a distinction without a difference. Since the Park Service oversees the road, it really doesn't much matter if the route is "official" though the Park or not.

[kphoger]

It does according to wikipedia

Which means nothing on its own.

[Max Rockatansky]

It's pretty much a distinction without a difference. Since the Park Service oversees the road, it really doesn't much matter if the route is "official" though the Park or not.

It kind of is an interesting distinction given the NPS does weird things like sign some highways but not others.  As an example CA 120 (Yosemite) and CA 180 (Kings Canyon) are signed on NPS lands despite not being Caltrans inventory but CA 89 (Lassen).

[usends]

It's pretty much a distinction without a difference. Since the Park Service oversees the road, it really doesn't much matter if the route is "official" though the Park or not.

So, if I understand, your point would be: since the road through the Park is not under the jurisdiction of NC or TN DOTs, the decision has technically always been entirely up to NPS.  AASHO never really had the authority to commission or decommission US 441 within the Park.  So if the Park does not signpost it or refer to it as US 441, that means it is not US 441.  One of the letters quoted in post #3 does seem to support that position.

[Hobart]

Honestly, I'd consider it to exist, but in a really hand wavy fashion, similar to how US-20 is handled through Yellowstone. It's not signed, and doesn't actually exist, but it is functionally that route regardless of how little they sign it.

[Max Rockatansky]

Honestly, I'd consider it to exist, but in a really hand wavy fashion, similar to how US-20 is handled through Yellowstone. It's not signed, and doesn't actually exist, but it is functionally that route regardless of how little they sign it.

Yellowstone is mostly more straight forward.  Outside of US 191 in the Gallatin Mountains no US Route within Yellowstone has ever been actually defined by AASHO/AASHTO as actually existing.  The signage within Yellowstone definitely does not imply a continuation route for US 20.

[SEWIGuy]

It's pretty much a distinction without a difference. Since the Park Service oversees the road, it really doesn't much matter if the route is "official" though the Park or not.

So, if I understand, your point would be: since the road through the Park is not under the jurisdiction of NC or TN DOTs, the decision has technically always been entirely up to NPS.  AASHO never really had the authority to commission or decommission US 441 within the Park.  So if the Park does not signpost it or refer to it as US 441, that means it is not US 441.  One of the letters quoted in post #3 does seem to support that position.

Yes.

Furthermore, even if AASHTO views the mileage within the Park as part of US-441, since the DOTs have no responsibility for the road itself it's a meaningless designation.

[bulldog1979]

It's pretty much a distinction without a difference. Since the Park Service oversees the road, it really doesn't much matter if the route is "official" though the Park or not.

It kind of is an interesting distinction given the NPS does weird things like sign some highways but not others.  As an example CA 120 (Yosemite) and CA 180 (Kings Canyon) are signed on NPS lands despite not being Caltrans inventory but CA 89 (Lassen).

It could be an aversion to US Highway designations specifically, and not one to any designation.

[Scott5114]

What I don't get is why NPS would "desire ... to take down all U.S. Route Markers within the National Parks." Do they think that people are less likely to travel through the park if there are no shields inside? If so, seems to me the best solution would be to identify a route that bypasses the park and reroute the US route that way instead of having a gap in the route.

[usends]

What I don't get is why NPS would "desire ... to take down all U.S. Route Markers within the National Parks." Do they think that people are less likely to travel through the park if there are no shields inside? If so, seems to me the best solution would be to identify a route that bypasses the park and reroute the US route that way instead of having a gap in the route.

In the 1951 AASHTO archives, I did not see any indication that NPS was even consulted about the proposal to extend 441 through the Park.  All discussion was between AASHO and the three DOTs (GA, NC, TN), plus some US 441 highway association.  GSMNP was already heavily-visited, and one of the main rationales for extension was to provide a uniformly-marked route for tourists.  To me, this seems like a legitimate function of the state DOTs.  And I'm not sure NPS would have objected at the time, even if they had been consulted.  I get the impression that it wasn't until later years that the problem of commercial traffic using 441 as a through route became more of an issue.  As I see it, NPS's request to remove route markers was an attempt to address commercial traffic, not tourist traffic, so I don't know if I agree that 441 should have been rerouted.  However, I do agree with you in questioning whether removing signs would have effectively addressed the situation with commercial traffic.  It seems to me the discussion should have been more around enforcement, rather than route markers.

[fillup420]

I think it does exist as a route in the public's mind, its just not acknowledged as US 441 by the NPS. I know I have used that road to travel straight through the park. In my opinion, since US 441 is signposted right up to the park boundaries on each side, its route through the park is well implied, and basically defined. The lack of signs is most likely done to discourage thru and commercial traffic. Also, Newfound Gap Rd was NC 107 before the park was established, and US 441 was signed prior to ~1970.

[bulldog1979]

The NPS has a weird history with roadways through their parks, I think. When Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was created, the service was required to build a roadway through the park. There was a lot of discussion about how do to that. At one point, there was a deal to transfer jurisdiction of the section of roadway within the park to the NPS and away from the county road commission, but the commission didn't trust the service to follow through. In the end, Congress gave the NPS permission to fund improvements to H-58, the existing county highway through the area, and repealed the requirement for them to build their own roadway. That's why I joke that it literally took an Act of Congress to get H-58 paved.

[Scott5114]

See, to me, posting route shields right up to the park boundary but not inside the park itself doesn't encourage people to not travel through the park, it just makes them more likely to get lost inside the park itself.

We have a situation like this with the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Lawton. OK-115 and OK-49 both pass through the park boundaries, but are not signed within it. Unfortunately, the implied route of the two features a concurrency, one end of which ends at a T-junction. If you enter the refuge on OK-49 eastbound and continue straight through with no turns you come out on OK-115 southbound. And any south or westbound entry will bring you to the T junction with no indication of what route goes where.

[hbelkins]

For what it's worth, there's a distinct gap in KY 70 through Mammoth Cave National Park.

[Bickendan]

Meanwhile, OR 62 is signed within the boundaries of Crater Lake NP.
It's possible that ORH 22 doesn't exist within the park, but there's also no indication that the OTC and ODOT considers there to be a discontinuity of OR 62's internal number either.

[roadman65]

https://goo.gl/maps/agFybGoEf5GcPV7w5
Question is, does AASHTO consider the Gatlinburg Bypass US 441 Bypass or is it implied?

[roadman65]

https://goo.gl/maps/sozSUbQbMUCstfWM6
Blue Ridge Parkway South End has a TO US 441 North sign. The NPS obviously don't consider Newfound Gap Road to be part of the route.

[Mapmikey]

https://goo.gl/maps/agFybGoEf5GcPV7w5
Question is, does AASHTO consider the Gatlinburg Bypass US 441 Bypass or is it implied?

It is considered part of the Foothills Pkwy

[Max Rockatansky]

Meanwhile, OR 62 is signed within the boundaries of Crater Lake NP.
It's possible that ORH 22 doesn't exist within the park, but there's also no indication that the OTC and ODOT considers there to be a discontinuity of OR 62's internal number either.

The signage on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon doesn't imply AZ 64 is discontinuous:

https://flic.kr/p/RVsi3Z

https://flic.kr/p/SVxSHW

Nor CA 120 in Yosemite:

https://flic.kr/p/VgfEQX

https://flic.kr/p/Wrckym

To your point with OR 62 at Crater Lake:

https://flic.kr/p/2mhGpSG

[zzcarp]

https://goo.gl/maps/sozSUbQbMUCstfWM6
Blue Ridge Parkway South End has a TO US 441 North sign. The NPS obviously don't consider Newfound Gap Road to be part of the route.

Yet just beyond that vantage point at the same intersection is this sign for "US 441 South", also posted by the NPS. It could be just be a case of imprecise signage, but this implies the NPS believes US 441 South begins at the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

[usends]

I have been combing through the AASHTO archive, and despite the results of this poll so far, the documents I have found overwhelmingly support the idea that US 441 does not exist within the Park.  I have presented all of this evidence on a new webpage about all of the US routes that have various types of gaps; the US 441 section is about halfway down. 

In a few different letters, AASHO/AASHTO reiterated the fact that they do not have authority to designate a US route along a road that is not under the jurisdiction of one of its member state highway departments.  In the '70s the National Parks Service was pushing to have all numbered highways removed from all Parks.  But obviously since then, certain individual Parks have determined that it is still in their best interest to use US or state numbered routes for navigation.

One of the interesting discoveries was more detail about the reason NPS wanted the 441 designation removed.  Truck traffic was banned through the Park in 1968 (when I-40 opened), but truckers were still going through the Park, and when they were questioned they insisted that, because the road was marked as a US route, it was not actually a Park Road, and therefore NPS did not have the authority to keep commercial traffic out.

[roadman65]

I have been combing through the AASHTO archive, and despite the results of this poll so far, the documents I have found overwhelmingly support the idea that US 441 does not exist within the Park.  I have presented all of this evidence on a new webpage about all of the US routes that have various types of gaps; the US 441 section is about halfway down. 

In a few different letters, AASHO/AASHTO reiterated the fact that they do not have authority to designate a US route along a road that is not under the jurisdiction of one of its member state highway departments.  In the '70s the National Parks Service was pushing to have all numbered highways removed from all Parks.  But obviously since then, certain individual Parks have determined that it is still in their best interest to use US or state numbered routes for navigation.

One of the interesting discoveries was more detail about the reason NPS wanted the 441 designation removed.  Truck traffic was banned through the Park in 1968 (when I-40 opened), but truckers were still going through the Park, and when they were questioned they insisted that, because the road was marked as a US route, it was not actually a Park Road, and therefore NPS did not have the authority to keep commercial traffic out.

Yet US 209 from Bushkill, PA to Milford, PA ban commercial vehicles as it transits the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area. Signs and the US Route still exist there.