2026 Is a big year for Roadgeeks in America

[akt85]

In 2026, the Federal U.S. Highway Numbering System (I.e. US 31, US 90, US 41) turns 100 while the Interstate Highway System turns 70.

[NE2]

My year is bigger than yours.

[Quillz]

Last year was equally big, since the US highways were 99 years old and the interstate highways were 69 years old. And they will be big in 2027 when they become 101 and 71 years old, respectively.

There really isn't anything special about the number 100 beyond us deciding there is. It's just another number.

[Max Rockatansky]

I guess?  We'll probably do something for November 11th in reference to the US Route System on our Facebook page.  I'm honestly not sure how that is all that tangibly different from other US Route posts we do though. 

Speaking for myself, now that I have the catalog for California State Highways fleshed out on Gribblenation most of my in-state focus has been on back roads.  I don't anticipate that changing much in 2026.  Can't really comment on what Adam, Doug or Dan might do.

[LilianaUwU]

ok and

[Scott5114]

My year is bigger than yours.

Weird way to find out someone is using the Hebrew calendar, but all right.

There really isn't anything special about the number 100 beyond us deciding there is. It's just another number.

Change that 1 to a 4 and this could be a quote from AASHTO.

[Quillz]

My year is bigger than yours.

Weird way to find out someone is using the Hebrew calendar, but all right.

There really isn't anything special about the number 100 beyond us deciding there is. It's just another number.

Change that 1 to a 4 and this could be a quote from AASHTO.

They're not wrong. No number is particularly special outside of cultural attitudes. It's like how 40 was a significant number in the Bible, a lot of ancient civilizations used 60 as an important number. Modern society likes 100 but there's nothing special about it beyond it just being a number.

This may or may not be an endorsement for US 400.

[Max Rockatansky]

My year is bigger than yours.

Weird way to find out someone is using the Hebrew calendar, but all right.

There really isn't anything special about the number 100 beyond us deciding there is. It's just another number.

Change that 1 to a 4 and this could be a quote from AASHTO.

They're not wrong. No number is particularly special outside of cultural attitudes. It's like how 40 was a significant number in the Bible, a lot of ancient civilizations used 60 as an important number. Modern society likes 100 but there's nothing special about it beyond it just being a number.

This may or may not be an endorsement for US 400.

Special or not I usually pre-plan to have our best stuff release on significant dates.  An example would be recently when I scheduled a Facebook post about The Slab along US 101 near Leggett to release at West Coast New Years.  There wasn't a particular reason to tie it into a New Years post but it definitely got more attention that way.

[TBKS1]

The Arkansas state highway system will be celebrating its 100 year anniversary since its initial creation/numbering in April, so I guess 2026 is a pretty big year for the Arkansas roadgeeks too... for the very few of us out there.

[NWI_Irish96]

My year is bigger than yours.

Weird way to find out someone is using the Hebrew calendar, but all right.

I assumed he meant that he spent January 1 in UTC+14 and will be spending December 31 in UTC-11.

[1995hoo]

Last year was equally big, since the US highways were 99 years old and the interstate highways were 69 years old. ...

So you're saying last year was a nice year for the Interstate system.

[hotdogPi]

Related thread:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=24306.0 (created all the way back in 2019)
"What would a 2026 commemorative coin for the US highway system look like?"

In this thread, I proposed that the existing commemorative denominations of 50¢, $1, and $5 would have matching US route numbers of US 50, US 1, and US 5; I was immediately told that US 5 would have no interest, but the other two are well known enough that they could work.

Unfortunately, this didn't happen.

[formulanone]

There's always someone spoiling someone else's fun because "it's just a number" which is ironic for a forum filled with grid fanatics who memorize route numbers all day. Or people who still get bent out of shape over I-238 and I-99, or that US 6N and US 57 exist.

Nobody is proclaiming route rapture is going to occur and tolls lifted for the year, so just roll with it, mkay?

[CtrlAltDel]

Last year was equally big, since the US highways were 99 years old and the interstate highways were 69 years old. And they will be big in 2027 when they become 101 and 71 years old, respectively.

There really isn't anything special about the number 100 beyond us deciding there is. It's just another number.

"Us deciding there is" is how everything special is determined.

That is, I'm not sure why you're shitting on this. If you don't want to recognize the centennial, you don't have to. There's a good chance that, even on this board, no one would notice.

[Quillz]

Last year was equally big, since the US highways were 99 years old and the interstate highways were 69 years old. And they will be big in 2027 when they become 101 and 71 years old, respectively.

There really isn't anything special about the number 100 beyond us deciding there is. It's just another number.

"Us deciding there is" is how everything special is determined.

That is, I'm not sure why you're shitting on this. If you don't want to recognize the centennial, you don't have to. There's a good chance that, even on this board, no one would notice.

I do recognize it. I'm just not expecting much to happen in regards to it.

[Max Rockatansky]

Last year was equally big, since the US highways were 99 years old and the interstate highways were 69 years old. And they will be big in 2027 when they become 101 and 71 years old, respectively.

There really isn't anything special about the number 100 beyond us deciding there is. It's just another number.

"Us deciding there is" is how everything special is determined.

That is, I'm not sure why you're shitting on this. If you don't want to recognize the centennial, you don't have to. There's a good chance that, even on this board, no one would notice.

I do recognize it. I'm just not expecting much to happen in regards to it.

I wouldn't expect much of AASHTO.  They seem to be pretty oblivious to the mountain of documents and information they are sitting on.  Their social media page on Facebook is about the most bland thing I've ever seen.  They rarely hit on anything about the US Route System:

https://www.facebook.com/AASHTOspeaks?mibextid=wwXIfr

[Scott5114]

There's always someone spoiling someone else's fun because "it's just a number" which is ironic for a forum filled with grid fanatics who memorize route numbers all day.

To me, it's reached the point where the "I don't care about numbering systems" posts get on my nerves more than the people who complain when numbering systems aren't followed. At least "this is an X county number but it's in Y county, I wonder why" is something to talk about, whereas "Oh, it's all random" is something you learn early on and then never mention again because it isn't even interesting.

[Max Rockatansky]

There's always someone spoiling someone else's fun because "it's just a number" which is ironic for a forum filled with grid fanatics who memorize route numbers all day.

To me, it's reached the point where the "I don't care about numbering systems" posts get on my nerves more than the people who complain when numbering systems aren't followed. At least "this is an X county number but it's in Y county, I wonder why" is something to talk about, whereas "Oh, it's all random" is something you learn early on and then never mention again because it isn't even interesting.

None of it gets on my nerves per se.  Both tend to be something I often don't find that consistently interesting anymore.  It is pretty rare nowadays when someone has a new angle or lore piece to bring to the table. 

I think at this point the AASHTO database has been mostly farmed out.  That was really driving my interest in the US Route system for several years. 

[TBKS1]

There's always someone spoiling someone else's fun because "it's just a number" which is ironic for a forum filled with grid fanatics who memorize route numbers all day.

To me, it's reached the point where the "I don't care about numbering systems" posts get on my nerves more than the people who complain when numbering systems aren't followed.

I've often been the sort-of "fun killer" on a few of these threads previously for this very reason. I will say I honestly just got used to the very random aspect of a lot of states' highway systems and how incredibly complicated they are, also kinda adds to the challenge of memorizing them in my opinion. I'm mostly just here because I enjoy taking pictures of highway shields and clinching new highway mileage, and learning about highway systems in general regardless if they fall under any sort of ordering scheme.

[Max Rockatansky]

I do tend to think as a hobby we tend to be overly centric on numbered highways.  There are so many cool and interesting roads out there that often get overlooked because they don't have a highway shield assigned to them.

If anything over the years I've found that things tend to build upon each other.  There is often a trackable history from trails and stage roads which leads into the numbered highway stuff.  So much of that doesn't get captured all that often.

[Beltway]

PA I-99 signed between I-180 and NY border.

[Bruce]

2026 also marks the 75th anniversary of the Washington State Ferries system, and there's some celebrations planned. The whole point of milestone anniversaries is to celebrate and bring new publicity and energy to a thing you like. I would hope that we can celebrate the 100th anniversary of the USNH system and bring some attention and love to it rather than being spoilsports who bicker about stuff.

[Max Rockatansky]

2026 also marks the 75th anniversary of the Washington State Ferries system, and there's some celebrations planned. The whole point of milestone anniversaries is to celebrate and bring new publicity and energy to a thing you like. I would hope that we can celebrate the 100th anniversary of the USNH system and bring some attention and love to it rather than being spoilsports who bicker about stuff.

Celebrating it here or just in private road groups doesn't really doesn't accomplish that goal of bringing the US Route System wider attention.  So far Dale Sanderson's USends page has been the only mainstream hobby page I've seen hitting on commemorative dates consistently. 

[paulthemapguy]

Considering that this forum is a refuge for people who are highly interested in road systems and road maps, it will never cease to amaze me how frequently we see people write posts mocking and diminishing the interests in differing subsets expressed by other users. Some of you joined this forum because you wanted to seek refuge among other like-minded people, to avoid ridicule for having your specific interests, just to come here and ridicule others for their interest in a different subset within this hobby? Different people on the forum have different sub-interests. The act of mocking someone else for getting excited about a specific thing within the realm of roads and road maps is not only wildly hypocritical; it's defeatist, socially inept, hurtful, dismissive, and potentially destructive to people's passions that bring them to this forum in the first place. If you don't care about a particular thing said on the forum, go find something else that does pique your interest. You're not a better person than someone else because you don't care about something while the other person does care. And you're not adding anything by saying you don't care; rather, the dismissal of others' sub-interests is reductive, and it makes the forum a worse place.

[Max Rockatansky]

I think that I'm missing what is being taken as mocking?  I don't think that anything I said conveys that I don't care about the history of US Route System.