Why did NYC and Atlanta get "cheated out" of an x0 US route?

[SkyPesos]

Looking at US routes of some cities, I found it strange that as the largest and most important city in the US, NYC didn't get an x0 US route, and the only real route west was US 22 (US 46 didn't make it far out). I wonder why it got cheated out of an x0 US route despite the status of the city.
Also noticed that Atlanta also got cheated out. It definitely wasn't as large as a city as it is today, but still a major railroad junction since before the US route days. So, I'm also curious about Atlanta's case.


Side note, why does US 10 end in Detroit in the east? I would've imagined that the Northeast was important enough for it to continue east, and have the east ends be something like US 10 Boston and US 20 NYC, which along with US 30, 40 and 50 going through Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC respectively, you have an x0 hitting every major city on the Northeast Corridor.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Regarding US 10, the Great Lakes and the appendage of Ontario that separates Michigan from New York causes a lot of weirdness.

[MATraveler128]

It does seem odd that New York doesn't have an x0 US highway. Maybe US 30 could've followed US 130 and US 1 up to the New York area. I've always wondered why US 30 and US 40 both end in Atlantic City.

It should also be noted that US 80 skipped Birmingham, Alabama too. Maybe Alabama wanted an x0 to serve the capital city? Who knows?

[US 89]

It does seem odd that New York doesn’t have an x0 US highway. Maybe US 30 could’ve followed US 130 and US 1 up to the New York area. I’ve always wondered why US 30 and US 40 both end in Atlantic City.

NY does have US 20... I would bet they easily could have had 30 ending in NYC or on Long Island if they hadn't been so opposed to the idea of US routes back in the day.

[Scott5114]

The guy in charge of NY route numbering at the time the US route system was created (whose name I forget) felt like it should be a very sparse system consisting of transcontinental routes only. The result was that NY got far fewer US routes than every other state, since the other states' leadership didn't have the same philosophical objections to loading up on as many US routes as possible, even if they weren't transcontinental. Further, NY wasn't particularly compelled to get an x0 route because, if the system were only transcontinental routes according to NY's vision, an x0 really wouldn't mean a whole lot more than anything else.

So it wasn't so much that NY got cheated, as it was that they didn't play the game to begin with.

[SkyPesos]

Regarding US 10, the Great Lakes and the appendage of Ontario that separates Michigan from New York causes a lot of weirdness.

I read on Wiki that US 10 was initially proposed at some point to use US 12 via Chicago. If that became the case for its Wisconsin routing, maybe the parallel routes between Chicago and Cleveland would be 10 and 20 instead of 6 and 20, possibly serving both Boston and NYC with an x0? Also US 22 was originally planned as a Cleveland-NYC route, using part of US 322. The routing to Cambridge OH (and eventually Cincinnati) came later.

[ran4sh]

NYC doesn't even have many US routes to begin with.

Atlanta, for whatever reason, got four north-south routes and only one 2-digit east-west route (along with a 3-digit route).

[froggie]

NYC got US 1.  So to say they got "cheated" seems a bit of a stretch.

[roadman65]

It does seem odd that New York doesn't have an x0 US highway. Maybe US 30 could've followed US 130 and US 1 up to the New York area. I've always wondered why US 30 and US 40 both end in Atlantic City.

NY does have US 20... I would bet they easily could have had 30 ending in NYC or on Long Island if they hadn't been so opposed to the idea of US routes back in the day.

NY could have given NY 17 US 20 and have NJ 17 carry it to Kearney, NJ that is close enough to NYC.  The rest of US 20 should have been US 4 to Albany and an x20 to Boston.

I always thought US 4 should really be NY 7 and MSR 9 and the current US 4 from Albany to Concord as a US 204.

[Mapmikey]

AASHO voted to have the Southern Tier Rd in New York placed in the US route system in Aug 1925.  But the Oct 1925 list of routes and assigned numbers does not have it.

The Georgia documentation does not include any items regarding dissatisfaction with Atlanta, which initially had only US 29, US 41 and US 78 when the system was official in late 1926.  Other states complained about this type of issue - Kentucky for example was the main driver behind getting US 60 moved away from Chicago because it did not have a x0 route.

The Lincoln Highway was fully placed into the US route system as US 30 then US 1.  US 1 is a diagonal route from Washington DC to Rhode Island, so it may not have been necessary to have a x0 and a x1 route in NYC.  I suppose US 30 could have replaced US 1 from Phila to Rhode Island.  This would've resulted in US 1 being only in RI, MA, NH and ME and perhaps US 11 would've been assigned on US 1 south of Phila.  The AASHO database does not contain the inner workings of the various committees, only their final outputs.

I imagine US 2 is equivalent to an x0 route since US 0 wasn't going to be a thing.  So Northern New England is served this way.

[SEWIGuy]

Regarding US 10, the Great Lakes and the appendage of Ontario that separates Michigan from New York causes a lot of weirdness.

I read on Wiki that US 10 was initially proposed at some point to use US 12 via Chicago. If that became the case for its Wisconsin routing, maybe the parallel routes between Chicago and Cleveland would be 10 and 20 instead of 6 and 20, possibly serving both Boston and NYC with an x0? Also US 22 was originally planned as a Cleveland-NYC route, using part of US 322. The routing to Cambridge OH (and eventually Cincinnati) came later.

Wisconsin wanted to put US-12 on its current route because it was WI-12 at the time.  In the end, it didn't really matter if it were a US-x0 or not.

[epzik8]

NYC got US 1.  So to say they got "cheated" seems a bit of a stretch.

Atlanta also has an x1, 41.