Bypasses where the mainline goes through town

[tchafe1978]

Lancaster, WI has a bypass of US 61. But instead of the mainline going around town and the route through town being a business route, US 61 stays on its longer, more out-of-the-way routing through town, whle the bypass is WI 129. There are even large signs at either end of the bypass pointing to "US 61 reccommended through truck route." This strikes me as a rather odd arrangement. How many other bypasses are arranged this way?

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=42.845262,-90.693169&spn=0.037318,0.104628&t=h&z=14

[agentsteel53]

so what you are looking for is bypasses that are cutoffs of longer, more meandering, business routes?

US-395 and Business US-395 in Ridgecrest, CA come to mind.  US-395 is a fairly straight route which avoids Ridgecrest to the southwest, running SE-NW.  Business US-395 (which was never an old alignment of US-395*) heads approximately north into Ridgecrest, makes a 90 degree turn, and heads west out of town to connect with mainline 395.

* Ridgecrest and the general China Lake area developed into something big well after the out-of-the-way 395 routing was selected - at the time, the decision was made to not serve an obscure mining town, not the fairly large city serving the military base that it later became.

another oddity of business 395 is the slew of CA-395 error shields on that road.



I do have a better photo of that shield somewhere.  I really need to dig it up, as that picture is monumentally wretched.

[agentsteel53]

or, alternately, if you are looking for examples of pairs signed mainline/bypass, as opposed to business/mainline ... the old 101/By-Pass 101 scheme in California, 1956 to 1964 or so, comes to mind.  



By-Pass 101 (as seen greened out here) was the Bayshore freeway, while mainline 101 was El Camino Real, the old 101 route.  it was renumbered to CA-82 in 1964, with the mainline 101 designation getting moved onto the freeway.

and no, I do not know what the rationale is behind business/mainline vs. mainline/bypass signing pairs.  Some states like to use one, some the other, and some, like California, cannot seem to decide.

[agentsteel53]

a third example ... (mods, feel free to combine my last 3 posts into one; I'm posting one at a time because this way I think it keeps the three ideas nicely separated for easier comprehension)

this time, an example closest to your US-61/WI-129 original post - a route whose mainline goes on a bit of a meander, and whose bypass is unsigned officially, and is in fact a route of a different classification.

US-395, again, this time up near Susanville, CA.  The mainline goes, and always has gone, on a little wander, angling northwest to serve Susanville and Johnsonville, before heading due east to angle around Honey Lake.  So you get, essentially, US-395 being the hypotenuse and one of the legs of a 45-45-90 right triangle, with the obvious cutoff being the other leg of the triangle.

while that other leg does not exist (as it would have to go through Honey Lake, or to the east of it, through a military supply depot north of the town of Herling), there is a route which cuts off about half of the Susanville triangle (in effect forming a similar triangle about half the size as the optimal one - not perfect, but still some very good time savings).

that cutoff is not signed well - it is county route A3, signed as a simple gantry for a turn off 395 with no indication that it will reconnect again, and save time as a through route.  It certainly does exist, and is a good-quality paved road, and it would make sense to have it be signed as Bypass* US-395.

* or By-Pass?  I think the last time California signed a By-Pass in 1964, it was so long ago that the hyphenated spelling was still the one in official use.  So, for all I know, it is still the one on the books, should they ever decide to resurrect the concept.

[1995hoo]

I assume Interstates with 3di bypass loops normally wouldn't count for this thread because they're routine, such as I-95 through Baltimore with the I-695 and I-895 bypass routes. The bypass loop is inherently longer in most such situations.

One exception that comes to mind, though, is I-75 in Macon. I-75 goes into Macon, meets I-16, and then turns northwest for the run to Atlanta. I-475 cuts off the in-town section via a bypass to the west. It's not a full beltway (though it's properly signed as an even 3di due to meeting I-75 at both ends), but it's a shorter bypass route around the city for thru traffic on I-75.

Speaking of I-75, I suppose the numbering in the Tampa Bay area is the reverse of the more common Interstate practice of having the mainline Interstate run through the city and the 3di being a bypass loop–I-75 passes by the area to the east and I-275 runs through Tampa and St. Petersburg and rejoins the mainline to the south. I suppose it fits the normal pattern of the "bypass" route being the longer distance if you interpret "bypass" to mean any subsidiary route (or "child Interstate"), but in terms of the common practice of the 3di being the bypass route it's the reverse of normal.

[froggie]

I wouldn't count the Interstates, period, because the long-standing policy on Interstates is that the 2-digit route goes through town and the 3-digit route takes the loop/bypass around.  Only in more recent times, especially in North Carolina, have we seen this situation be different.

I think the OP's intent was moreso looking at where this is the case with at-grade routes.

[tchafe1978]

Yeah, I wasn't really thinking of interstates, as that's a diffrerent concept. I thinking more like usually when a bypass is built, the routing of the main highway is moved from it's through-town routing onto the bypass, and the through-town route becomes a business route, or lesser classification, such as county highway. Whereas in this case, the main highway (US 61) was kept on its original alignment through town, and the bypass given a new designation. I know of no other instances of this in Wisconsin at least. I was wondering of there are any others somewhere out there.

[1995hoo]

I wouldn't count the Interstates, period, because the long-standing policy on Interstates is that the 2-digit route goes through town and the 3-digit route takes the loop/bypass around.  Only in more recent times, especially in North Carolina, have we seen this situation be different.

....

I understand this and that's why I made the point of noting how the Macon situation is a bit unique in terms of the 3di bypass route being the shorter route mileage-wise, which is normally not the case regardless of the standard policy of the 2di going through the city centre and the 3di going around. (Notice how I didn't mention the situation in Greensboro where I-40 was moved onto the bypass, the old route was renumbered as Green 40, and then the regular I-40 designation was moved back again after everyone rightly pointed out that the relocation made no sense.) I suppose the numbering convention makes it distinct from what the OP is addressing and I didn't quite pick up on the emphasis on the bypass route having a totally different number as opposed to the "Bypass/Business" combination we usually see here in Virginia until he mentioned it in the follow-up post.

The idea of giving one of the routes a new designation seems quite sensible if, as so often happens, the area around the bypass winds up being developed, especially if that development then spurs the construction of a further bypass route. That's the situation down in Charlottesville, where US-29 Bypass rejoins the north end of US-29 Business (Emmet Street) at the southern end of a long stretch of heavy commercial development that is itself longer than the "bypass" portion of US-29. For years they've been talking about building a new bypass further to the west, but I rather doubt it will happen in any of our lifetimes (among other reasons, there's concern about the impact on the reservoir). I have no idea what they'd do as to road numbering there, of course, but it seems like a fairly logical situation where you renumber one of the two routes. I'm not familiar with the Wisconsin situation you mention so I don't know whether this sort of thing applies there.

[TheStranger]

While California no longer uses the "bypass" route numbering...

Route 85's relationship to US 101 in San Jose probably fits this, as an addendum to Jake mentioning El Camino Real (Route 82), the original surface street 101 routing.

[agentsteel53]

While California no longer uses the "bypass" route numbering...

Route 85's relationship to US 101 in San Jose probably fits this, as an addendum to Jake mentioning El Camino Real (Route 82), the original surface street 101 routing.

what about 85/I-280 as a longer bypass of the whole of Silicon Valley - or does 280 count as an interstate loop which we are discounting from this discussion?

[TheStranger]

While California no longer uses the "bypass" route numbering...

Route 85's relationship to US 101 in San Jose probably fits this, as an addendum to Jake mentioning El Camino Real (Route 82), the original surface street 101 routing.

what about 85/I-280 as a longer bypass of the whole of Silicon Valley - or does 280 count as an interstate loop which we are discounting from this discussion?

I wonder how much of 280 WAS proposed pre-interstate (well, more specifically, pre-Yellow Book) - with the Junipero Serra corridor's north end existing in some form for decades before 280 was even conceived.

Had the Junipero Serra Freeway been constructed north of Brotherhood Way in SF, I do find it fascinating that one ostensible bypass leads straight into the edge of downtown SF (101 along the Bayshore and Central Freeways) while the other (280) is immediately adjacent to downtown SJ.

[pianocello]

In a way, this same thing happens in my hometown of Davenport. US-61 goes through town, but the preferred route for thru traffic (especially trucks) is around I-80 and I-280. The reason I mention trucks especially is because there is an extremely low railroad bridge (11'8") that trucks hit frequently.

[Ian]

New Hampshire has a BYPASS NH 28 that by-passes Manchester as well as a BYPASS US 1 that by-passes Portsmouth and ends in Kittery, Maine.

[Bickendan]

How much does US 30/Bypass US 30 in Portland count? While Bypass 30 does follow a shorter route circumventing downtown Portland, it's now the longer route in that it goes through St Johns, the breadth of North Portland, then Parkrose and along Sandy Blvd before ending in Wood Village, while US 30, taking the longer route, is shorter in time (remembering that the Banfield preceded I-80N).

[ftballfan]

Between Toledo and Flint, I-75 goes out of the way via Detroit, while US-23 connects the two directly (US-23 is also a freeway and has been for years).

[Bigmikelakers]

I-215 goes right through San Bernardino/Riverside while I-15 bypasses them both. Didn't used to be that way though.

[Desert Man]

I-215 goes right through San Bernardino/Riverside while I-15 bypasses them both. Didn't used to be that way though.

True, the two inner-city sections have went through hard times and urban blight, so the freeways aren't the cause themselves. Freeways have contributed to a speedy movement of people from older urban areas into new suburban tracts sprawling outward across the countryside. Riverside/San Bernardino counties were one of the nation's fastest growing areas in the late 20th century, while Orange county was in the mid 20th part.

[rte66man]

I44 bypasses Tulsa while I244 goes right thru downtown. 

rte66man

[Bigmikelakers]

I-80 bypasses central Des Moines while I-235 enters it.

[Kacie Jane]

Umm... those last two are examples where the mainline bypasses the town.  Although they are exceptions to the normal way of doing things for the Interstate system.

[thenetwork]

I want to say that I-277 in Charlotte is more the downtown thoroughfare than is I-77.  Am I correct??

[vtk]

OH-4 goes through Hamilton, OH, curving so that it makes an acute angle with itself entering and exiting the city.  And then there's By-Pass OH-4 to make the trip shorter -- not like there's a lot of through traffic following OH-4 long enough for that bypass to help much...