AASHTO Oct. 2010

[agentsteel53]

45 should be 310 or something similar to represent that it indeed connects 10 to 35 but isn't generally all that long.

then again, 27 should be 140.

[Revive 755]

45 should be 310 or something similar to represent that it indeed connects 10 to 35 but isn't generally all that long.

Or I-39, I-41, or I-43.  The I-49 corridor is more worthy of an I-x5 than today's I-45 corridor.

[Alps]

I've never gotten why I-85 has the number it does in the first place.  It's hardly transcontinental, and it would be perfectly happy as an east-west road even without the extension.  I-81 would be much more appropriate as a transcontinental than I-85.

I-85 isn't that much more skewed than I-81.  The north-south of the Southeast is much more of a northeast-southwest, so you have routes like I-26 crossing I-85 at a 90 degree angle.  I think it's done consistently enough that I won't complain.

[NE2]

Even I-74's not as bad as US 52.

[Quillz]

Even I-74's not as bad as US 52.

Aren't US highways that end in 2, 4, 6 generally supposed to run in a diagonal fashion? All the ones I can think of off the top of my head, such as US-6, US-52 and US-54 all run diagonal.

[NE2]

Nope: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1926us.jpg
52 and 54 are already somewhat diagonal, but 6 is east-west, as are other routes like 2, 4, and 64.

[agentsteel53]

not much of a correlation.  two of the more diagonal routes in the system are 68 and 79.

[mightyace]

62 and 42 are diagonal.

22 is not. (well, not much, anyway - NYC to Cincy)

[treichard]

Why weren't NC DOT's Interstate applications systematically rejected (according to tradition)?

[NE2]

Interestingly US 42 and I-71 have the same endpoints and take similar routes, but one is even and the other odd.

[Quillz]

Nope: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1926us.jpg
52 and 54 are already somewhat diagonal, but 6 is east-west, as are other routes like 2, 4, and 64.

I wouldn't call 6 a true east-west route, it's very diagonal. And I believe that's the reason it was numbered 6 as opposed to something else, like 60.

[agentsteel53]

originally 6 terminated in Pennsylvania (where 6N ends now) - it just received a radical extension in the 30s.  Dunno why they chose that route to extend over 32 and 38 - combining the two and extending that westward would've made quite a bit of sense as well.

[NE2]

Yes, check out the map I linked.

6 was extended as an outgrowth of the auto trail movement. Before 1926 residents of northern Pennsylvania created the Roosevelt Highway, and when it became US 6 they simply co-opted the number and pushed for extension as a transcontinental highway.

[agentsteel53]

where did the routing of 6 converge with the Midland Trail?  I know from Denver on west it is nearly identical to it, but what about east of there?

[PAHighways]

US 6 ended in Erie utilizing the current PA 97 alignment between there and Union City.