I received an e-mail today asking what happened to PA 299 near Erie International Airport, as the person noticed the shields were removed.
Checking PennDOT's Erie County Type 10 map, sure enough the route is no more except now SR 0299 designates the bridge over the Norfolk Southern tracks on the former route just south east of the airport. So now this (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Erie,+PA&ll=42.08464,-80.162709&spn=0.009093,0.02341&z=16&layer=c&cbll=42.084476,-80.162612&panoid=2u_rP2W13Mj7pYkF8rG3-w&cbp=12,161.06,,0,14.18) is the entire route.
I've never driven it but looking on Google Maps it appears to be just a side road. Why was it ever numbered in the first place?
It is a product of a time when the state highway system was growing and the Department of Highways was putting up shields on everything. As to why it stayed around this long, and not replaced by a quadrant route, is a question for District 1-0.
It was one of the early state aid application roads (LR A4710). These may have all been assigned numbers in the late 1920s, no matter how minor they were.
Everything that the Department of Highways built got an Legislative Route number but not a keystone, and this one didn't get the latter until 1930 during the second wave of route signings/changes when at the time PA 5 was PA 99.
I remember looking at this a while back, and I seem to remember that all the three-digit legislative routes got traffic route numbers. If you want to have a look at it I made some notes here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:NE2/PA_1928
I can't remember if state aid applications were the same way or not.
All of the one, two, and three digit LR routes did receive posted route numbers. The state aid segments got posted route numbers originally, to the point that the 1927 map looks like something that would put to shame anything conceived in the Fictional Highways thread. Then the DOH wised up and realized there can be state routes that don't need a shield.
I'm surprised that they left the SR 0299 designation on that bridge instead of using SR 4299 or 6299 for it...
Quote from: PAHighways on July 24, 2011, 11:02:07 PM
All of the one, two, and three digit LR routes did receive posted route numbers. The state aid segments got posted route numbers originally, to the point that the 1927 map looks like something that would put to shame anything conceived in the Fictional Highways thread.
Pics or it didn't happen.
I'll put it on a to-do list.
PennDOT has scans (http://www.dot.state.pa.us/Internet/Bureaus/pdPlanRes.nsf/PlanningAndResearchHomePage?OpenFrameSet&Frame=main&Src=%2FInternet%2FBureaus%2FpdPlanRes.nsf%2FinfoBPRHistoricTransportationMaps%3FOpenForm%26AutoFramed) of the 1911 LR map and the 1930 road map on their site, but none of the ones I mentioned.
SR 0299 borders the Eastern Edge of the Erie International Airport (Tom Ridge Field). Looking at the historic type 10 maps for Erie County There is no mention of SR 0299, which would have been a LR (Legislative Route) at that point in time. The first mention of it is in 1941 type 10 map, historic map.
ftp://ftp.dot.state.pa.us/public/pdf/BPR_PDF_FILES/Maps/Type_10_GHS_Historical_Scans/Erie_1941.pdf
They also list PA Route 199, which is currently Asbury Road (SR 4009), in the western end of the Airport. In and around the 1960s, PennDOT must have downgraded the road, from SR 199 to SR 4009. Unfortunately I am not in an area that I can look at the old Straight Lines to see what exactly happened.
I know that in the 2006 there was a airport runway extension that moved SR 0299, to the east (tword Erie). They had to replace the bridge that spans the railroad tracks that dissects Erie in and around 15th and 16th Street.
And again in the near future the runway will probably be expanded again, so SR 0299 (Powell Avenue) will need to be moved to the East again. But the airport has secure the money for the expansion to happen again.
It would have reverted to just LR 496 after the PA 199 decommissioning until 1985 when the Legislative Route system was replaced with the State Route system. Then it would have become SR 4009: http://tinyurl.com/ck75y29.
Quote from: PAHighways on December 29, 2011, 09:02:23 PM
It would have reverted to just LR 496 after the PA 199 decommissioning until 1985 when the Legislative Route system was replaced with the State Route system. Then it would have become SR 4009: http://tinyurl.com/ck75y29.
Hey thanks, I guess I didn't go far past the 1968 map. But also in 1985 they started RMS system, which is still a DOS based program that we use and replaced the cumbersome old Straight Line diagrams which goes back to the before the Days of PennDOT and into Commmonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Highways. Make me wonder when they will overhaul the RMS as well, it is well overdue.