Former NV 40/Valley of Fire Highway

[Max Rockatansky]

Came across Valley of Fire Highway/Former NV 40 in my photo albums today:

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/08/2016-fall-mountain-trip-part-7-former.html

I'm to understand that NV 40 was supposed to become part of NV 169 but ultimately never did.  Does anyone know NV 169 ultimately wasn't assigned to Valley of Fire Highway...seems kind of odd considering it has a Nevada Scenic Byway designation.

[roadfro]

I'm not 100% certain, but it's probably due to ownership.

The pre-1976 state routes were legislatively defined in state law (NRS 408), and not all defined routes were owned by NDOH/NDOT. Legislative definitions were removed from state law in the 1976 renumbering process that also saw the federal aid highway system classifications renumbered statewide. Post-1976, any road on the federal aid system owned by NDOT got a new state highway number that (typically) corresponded with the new FAP/FAS/FAU/SAR designation.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm not 100% certain, but it's probably due to ownership.

The pre-1976 state routes were legislatively defined in state law (NRS 408), and not all defined routes were owned by NDOH/NDOT. Legislative definitions were removed from state law in the 1976 renumbering process that also saw the federal aid highway system classifications renumbered statewide. Post-1976, any road on the federal aid system owned by NDOT got a new state highway number that (typically) corresponded with the new FAP/FAS/FAU/SAR designation.

That's more or less what I suspected, I know we had talked about some of the legislatively defined routes prior to 1976 never being NDOH maintained previously.  It seems that Nevada Scenic Byways can pretty much be applied to any roadway that meets the criteria regardless of ownership looking through the list on Wikipedia.