Interesting that the conclusion was "blame PA".
Interesting, I agree. One of the things that PennDoT objected to was changing a US route designation that had already been established. Given that, and given that the proposed US 46 would have swallowed most of US 322 as it existed at the time (with an east terminus in Lewistown), do you think PennDoT would have been more agreeable if AASHO had suggested numbering the entire NYC-Cleveland route as US 322 (instead of US 46)?
After all, it was just a year or two later that PennDoT agreed to extend US 322 east from Lewistown to Atlantic City. This extension was redundant with other US routes from Lewistown to Hershey, so one could argue that US 322 could have been extended to NYC instead, and the Hershey-Atlantic City route could've been assigned a different number.
The x22s are all a mess.
I believe US 122 was intrastate and that's why that was decommissioned.
US 222 doesn't serve a major purpose south of of Lancaster PA and barely goes into MD. And really, PA 272 is the better route south of Lancaster anyway.
US 322 really could be split into two routes instead of the long concurrency with US 22 (and really, this is where the US 46 routing would make sense.)
US 422 IS split into two routes...and the eastern portion, though important, is an intrastate route and should be a state route.
US 522 really could be split into two routes, where the northern portion could be an state route.
Really...US 46 could travel from Cleveland to Lewisburg PA over US 322, then take over US 522 northward to Sunbury, then take over PA 61 to Ashland, PA 54 to US 209, be concurrent with that until Lehighton, then PA 248 to PA 512 and then head over to NJ.