40th Anniversary of US-66 Decommission

[Scott5114]

I'm definitely not trying to argue that there should be a single number between every pair of major U.S. cities.  If it ever was specifically useful it's much less so now with everyone carrying an device around capable of getting you from anywhere to anywhere, turn by turn.  Was a desire to have single number on a Chicago-LA route the reason the route was given a single number when the US system was created?  I assumed so but maybe that just happened to be where 60, which became 66, was proposed.

So, what exactly are you saying? Given that 66 was already dead in California and Illinois, how would you go about forcing IDOT and Caltrans to accept extensions of a redundant route that had just been eliminated? If you are saying it should have just been kept as it was in 1985, how are you going to get around the policy changes with NMDOT that eliminated US 80 and ghosted US 85–or would it effectively be ghosted within New Mexico's borders anyway?

I mean if you really wanted to do this, you could write a federal law that required it, and then said if they left it unsigned they'd lose all their federal highway funding.

That would be really stupid and over the top, mind you, but that's how you'd force states to accept it.

[usends]

West of Wichita, it is mostly concurrent with other routes.  I understand wanting to get rid of it west of Wichita.
East of Wichita, it is mostly an independent route.  Not only do I not understand wanting to get rid of it east of Wichita, but I'd rather see it expanded even further.

Even heading east from Wichita, there are virtually no circumstances under which someone would use US 400 in its entirety.  You wouldn't do that if you were going to Joplin, nor if you were going to Springfield (and I understand this is why kphoger says it should be rerouted).  But as it stands, US 400 was never intended to connect important travel destinations; rather it was designed as an all-Kansas route which then connects to I-44 (pointlessly, I would argue).  Obviously KDOT would have been welcome to do that with a state designation, but that was not a situation that justified a US route designation.

I also want to comment on the statement that US 400 is mostly independent east of Wichita.  When it was first commissioned, that was less true, because US 400 had a 30-mile overlap with US 160.  But then KDOT rerouted US 160 along the former K-96 corridor.  This caused the distance along US 160 to increase by seven miles, making it yet another route that no one would follow from end to end.  So not only was US 400 misguided, but it also caused collateral damage to US 160. 

If the US route shield can be thought of as a special "certification" which gets applied only to highways which meet specific qualifications, then this ^ is the kind of crap that cheapens the brand in the mind of the consumer.  Unfortunately AASH(T)O has never been particularly good at defining those qualifications, let alone requiring the DOTs to abide by them.

[kphoger]

Even heading east from Wichita, there are virtually no circumstances under which someone would use US 400 in its entirety. You wouldn't do that if you were going to Joplin, nor if you were going to Springfield (and I understand this is why kphoger says it should be rerouted).

I think I've only done so once, and that was due to inclement weather.  I felt safer using US-400 all the way to I-44 than using those little shoulderless secondary routes I usually use instead.

But then KDOT rerouted US 160 along the former K-96 corridor.  This caused the distance along US 160 to increase by seven miles, making it yet another route that no one would follow from end to end.  So not only was US 400 misguided, but it also caused collateral damage to US 160. 

If the US route shield can be thought of as a special "certification" which gets applied only to highways which meet specific qualifications, then this ^ is the kind of crap that cheapens the brand in the mind of the consumer.  Unfortunately AASH(T)O has never been particularly good at defining those qualifications, let alone requiring the DOTs to abide by them.

I'd still argue that US-400 is the most important E-W US route in the southern half of Kansas.  I don't care what number the route from Wichita to K-171 has, but it deserves a US route number more than anything around it.

[hbelkins]

Even heading east from Wichita, there are virtually no circumstances under which someone would use US 400 in its entirety.  You wouldn't do that if you were going to Joplin, nor if you were going to Springfield (and I understand this is why kphoger says it should be rerouted).

During my aborted Wichita meet trip in 2013 (car breakdown while collecting counties south of Springfield; ended up overnighting in Joplin instead of finishing the trip to Wichita via the route I had planned), I did that in reverse -- I took US 400 all the way from Joplin to Wichita.

I'm curious as to what direct Joplin-Wichita route would be recommended, if not US 400.

[kphoger]

I'm curious as to what direct Joplin-Wichita route would be recommended, if not US 400.

The obvious one would be US-400 → K-171/MO-171 → MO-43.  It's five miles shorter than US-400 → K-66/MO-66.  But, even then, with that latter route, you're still not doing US-400 in its entirety:  you're leaving it ten miles before its eastern terminus.

If only going through Joplin to points farther east on I-44, such as Springfield, my preferred route includes a number of miles on Missouri's lettered highways, which is not ideal for a lot of people.  Now that Google Maps shows most of that route as its preferred routing, it's common to see Branson-bound RVs and heavy 18-wheelers sharing pavement on narrow, hilly, ill-maintained roads with no shoulder line.  Sticking to primary highways only, the best option is US-400 → K-171/MO-171 → MO-96 to Carthage—and then take your pick of (a) continuing on MO-96 to Halltown or (b) dropping down on I-49.

[Scott5114]

Unfortunately AASH(T)O has never been particularly good at defining those qualifications, let alone requiring the DOTs to abide by them.

For a while they had an actual scored rubric that they would use to deny unqualified US routes. This is why they denied the US 377 extension to US 66 so many times. The problem is that the rubric was so firmly against US 377's existence (it lost points for being too close to US 177 and for being promoted by an out-of-DOT interest group) that Oklahoma finally just had it written into federal law. (AASHTO then denied the designation anyway.)

I think that was about when they stopped being strict with designation requests, possibly because they realized that rogue states could do whatever they wanted and AASHTO risked becoming completely irrelevant if they protested too much.

[vdeane]

I think that was about when they stopped being strict with designation requests, possibly because they realized that rogue states could do whatever they wanted and AASHTO risked becoming completely irrelevant if they protested too much.

Isn't that largely what happened anyways?