US-81 - Salina, KS to York, NE.

[edwaleni]

Does anyone know if Concordia, Kansas will ever get a bypass with US-81?

The entire route from Salina to York is 4 lane except one must traverse downtown Concordia. All the other small towns have been bypassed.

Lots of traffic lights and local left turners and dodgers for the local strip malls.

Is there a reason why out of all the towns on the route, this town got the special treatment?

[Ellie]

There's not really many comparable towns in Kansas? Belleville got bypassed but that's more due to the routing having to curve there than due to it being routed through initially and then a bypass being built. Plenty of towns along the route in Nebraska aren't bypassed (and some of the route is only one lane each way; a much bigger issue for the whole corridor).

[rte66man]

Does anyone know if Concordia, Kansas will ever get a bypass with US-81?

The entire route from Salina to York is 4 lane except one must traverse downtown Concordia. All the other small towns have been bypassed.

Lots of traffic lights and local left turners and dodgers for the local strip malls.

Is there a reason why out of all the towns on the route, this town got the special treatment?

You have to assume it boiled down to local politics. 

[triplemultiplex]

Getting a chuckle out of the mistake in the thread title.  Is there a York, New Brunswick?
(Just a county, it looks like.)

[Hunty2022]

Would US 81 be the first US Route in Canada/New Brunswick?

[hotdogPi]

NB did have US routes from 1963 to 1969 – NB was Nebraska initially until they decided that the US and Canada wouldn't have any duplicates, so they changed it to NE.

[kphoger]

There's not really many comparable towns in Kansas? Belleville got bypassed but that's more due to the routing having to curve there than due to it being routed through initially and then a bypass being built. Plenty of towns along the route in Nebraska aren't bypassed (and some of the route is only one lane each way; a much bigger issue for the whole corridor).

My first thought was actually, "I don't remember Concordia taking a lot of time to drive through, and I think there are only four stoplights."

And actually, a lot of those Nebraska near-bypasses nevertheless have speed zones, and my experience is that the police are very eager to catch speeders in those zones.

[Sykotyk]

There's not really many comparable towns in Kansas? Belleville got bypassed but that's more due to the routing having to curve there than due to it being routed through initially and then a bypass being built. Plenty of towns along the route in Nebraska aren't bypassed (and some of the route is only one lane each way; a much bigger issue for the whole corridor).

My first thought was actually, "I don't remember Concordia taking a lot of time to drive through, and I think there are only four stoplights."

And actually, a lot of those Nebraska near-bypasses nevertheless have speed zones, and my experience is that the police are very eager to catch speeders in those zones.

It's more the bridge on the north end of town. Heading north, it's one lane through the intersection at 6th. South has two lanes and a left turn. Once onto the bridge, it's 2 lanes each way. But narrow, no shoulders, and kinda steep from a dead stop. Especially for trucks.

And just that it's a bunch of lights. Belleville is kinda bypassed, just not as a freeway. But the fact the road stays a freeway long after I-135 ends at I-70, it is a bit of a shock. Then, you're back up to a rural four-lane expressway to York. And even with the lights and businesses around the I-80 area south of York, it keeps a bypass all the way past town.

And then US81 turns into a meandering, stunted road. Turning at NE92, going right into downtown Columbus. No real bypass there, though US30 to US81 has a bypass(?). And again, right through Norfolk. No bypass. After that, it's utility descends to a local route mostly, except long distance drivers shunning I-29 heading southeast to Kansas City and instead opting for the straight shot to places such as Wichita, Oklahoma City, etc.

[edwaleni]

Fixed the state identifier. My bad. Definitely not New Brunswick!!

[mrose]

For a very long time, US 81 continued as a full freeway north of I-70 for maybe three or four exits before narrowing to two lanes. It was probably another 15-20 years before any work was done on that corridor. I drove Oklahoma City to Lincoln once a year in the late 90s and early 00s and watched them finally begin upgrading the corridor from Minneapolis up to York, but only ever as expressway.

I think at one time the entire route of what is now I-135 + 81 up to York was requested to be added to the interstate system but was never approved. As someone who traveled that corridor a lot as a young child and then again later, it has been a fictional I-31 in my head as long as I've been able to read an atlas.

I'm a little surprised it wasn't that anyway, as I-135 is certainly one of the longer 3dis I know of.

[J N Winkler]

And actually, a lot of those Nebraska near-bypasses nevertheless have speed zones, and my experience is that the police are very eager to catch speeders in those zones.

They are pretty much gone now.  We took that route to visit relatives in Grand Island last Thanksgiving, and I recall it was 70 all the way from the south outskirts of York to the Kansas state line.  StreetView shows 65 for rural segments and 55 for town bypasses as late as 2018, so I suspect Nebraska DOT re-zoned sometime in the intervening four years.

Northbound US 81 near Geneva, entering town bypass segment, 2018--55 MPH

Northbound US 81 near Geneva, entering town bypass segment, 2022--70 MPH

Southbound US 81 near Geneva, entering rural segment, 2013--65 MPH

Southbound US 81 near Geneva, entering rural segment, 2023--70 MPH

For a very long time, US 81 continued as a full freeway north of I-70 for maybe three or four exits before narrowing to two lanes. It was probably another 15-20 years before any work was done on that corridor. I drove Oklahoma City to Lincoln once a year in the late 90s and early 00s and watched them finally begin upgrading the corridor from Minneapolis up to York, but only ever as expressway.

I was an undergraduate at KSU in the mid-1990's when the expressway construction was in full swing--the present US 24 interchange was under construction in 1995-96.

The US 81 freeway still ends at Limestone Road (the first section-line road north of the K-106 interchange near Minneapolis) and is still one of the few non-Interstate freeways in Kansas that has Interstate-like restrictions.

I'm a little surprised it wasn't that anyway, as I-135 is certainly one of the longer 3dis I know of.

Traffic volumes are pretty low, especially north of the state line.

[yakra]

Would US 81 be the first US Route in Canada/New Brunswick?

https://www.aaroads.com/shields/show.php?image=NB19520021&view=10
I'll go with US1.
I don't know if NB's route numbering system actually predates the US Routes, but NB1 starts in Saint Stephen, just across the river from Calais, the original terminus of New England Interstate 1 before the conversion to US1 came along and dragged it farther up along the ME/NB border to Fort Kent. Maybe it was a conscious continuation of that same "Coastal Route" number.