Mystery routes

[kphoger]

Missouri lettered routes. Like part of the Forrest Gump quote: "You never know what you're gonna get." One time I turned onto MO E near Silex in Lincoln County and ended up in High Hill, on I-70 in Montgomery County.

Sometimes, the highway will gradually deteriorate and you're not quite sure at what point state maintenance ended. I remember taking one that eventually turned to gravel, then worse gravel, all the while heading farther and farther downhill into the woods, until I wasn't sure I'd even be able to find a spot to turn around if I wound up in a Stephen King short story.

[sparker]

Northern California has a number of these routes that peter out more or less at random.  CA 3's northern terminus is an "END CA 3" sign assembly at the east town limits of Montague, about 6 miles east of Yreka.  The sole reason the highway was extended east to Montague was that the original SP Siskiyou RR line, until 1927 the only through RR line between California and Oregon, bypassed the Siskiyou County seat of Yreka and passed through Montague to avoid having to construct trackage through the narrow Shasta River canyon (now traversed by CA 263, formerly US 99).  There was a passenger station in Montague, so it was deemed necessary to have an all-weather (read plowed in winter) road between the two towns so folks could get in and out of the area (this, of course, was prior to widespread vehicle ownership).  Even local passenger service on that RR line was gone by the early '60's, so CA 3 east of I-5 today is nothing more than a local server -- even so, ending it at the town limits seems a bit gratuitous.

Also consider CA 281 south of Clear Lake -- its north end is, in plain terms, arbitrary; although long-range plans call for a NW extension along the lake shore to Kelseyville, the present end leaves one hanging.  As I write this, there's a chance that this highway may be engulfed in flames in the immediate future -- the "Clayton" fire is encroaching on Lower Lake, a few miles east at the junction of CA 29 and 53, and is threatening areas to the north and west (shades of last year's Valley fire which decimated Middletown, a few miles to the south).  Lake County is fast becoming California's premier tinderbox (lack of rainfall will do that to you!). 

And then there's always CA 169, tucked into the lower reaches of the Klamath River canyon.  Bifurcated into two sections, with only dirt logging roads connecting these, each 1-lane paved section just ends without fanfare; the Yurok tribe, which owns and occupies most of the land between the segments, is in no hurry to see these connected -- and it's not as if hordes of traffic are clamoring for a shortcut between US 101 and CA 96! 

There are numerous other single-ended or "spur" routes in NorCal, but most of them either terminate at a point of interest (e.g., CA 151 and Shasta Dam, CA 284 and the Frenchman Reservoir fishing area, and CA 191 and the city of Paradise) or did so in the past (CA 222 and the now-defunct Talmadge state mental facility east of Ukiah).  Others have gone by the wayside, such as the original CA 188 from Emerald Bay to Fallen Leaf on the west shore of Lake Tahoe, and CA 194 from Sierraville north a few miles to a hunting lodge originally reserved for state legislators and their families (I wonder who thought of that one!).  Both were gone by the 1970's (194 was never signed, and it's unclear if any 188 signage existed) and the numbers re-used elsewhere.   

[Max Rockatansky]

^^ I'm surprised you didn't hit on 211 going 5 something miles south of US 101 over the Eel River Bridge where it just ends suddenly and the whole saga of it being the only part of the incomplete CA 1 through the Lost Coast.

[epzik8]

Maryland Route 591, an old alignment of U.S. Route 1 over the Octoraro Creek in Cecil County, consists of two disconnected dead-end roads, and is only signed on the roads themselves and not along U.S. 1.

[sparker]

Yeah, I forgot about CA 211; late-night posts sometimes miss a few things.  I would have categorized it as (at least as it is currently deployed) one of those routes that actually ends at something (the town of Ferndale), despite its status as the detritus of what originally was to be CA 1 through the "Lost Coast".  I've actually seen some maps showing 211 extending down forest roads to the vicinity of Garberville (inaccurate, to say the least); it seems some folks don't want the Lost Coast to stay lost -- I, for one, would rather maintain some areas as practically inaccessible (don't need hordes of RV's clogging every inch of road in Humboldt and Mendocino counties).

The Ferndale bridge on CA 211 is an amazing structure -- one of the few old bridges to survive the 1964 flooding substantially intact (albeit with minor damage to its approaches); it, along with some local roads on the west side of the Eel River, became a temporary substitute for the washed-out US 101.  Used to visit Ferndale quite a bit in the '90's; an old buddy from the audio business was manufacturing vacuum-tube amplifiers in Ferndale during that time (under the wacky name "Juicy Music"), so I stopped periodically on my many trips from the Bay Area to Portland or Seattle to touch base with him.  Ferndale's a nice old town, replete with more than its share of antique shops -- always an interesting side-trip when one is in the area.

[Avalanchez71]

The alltime mystery Nebraska route is Spur 67C south of Pawnee City.  First of all, it's a gravel road which spurs off of Nebraska Highway 65, which south of Pawnee City is a gravel road.  It goes west for 3 miles and just ends at a random intersection.

The one that is a mystery for me to figure out (partly because I've never been there) is Spur 16F in Cherry County.  It goes south from Nenzel on US 20, goes all the way to the southern boundary of the Samuel McKelvie National Forest and just ends.  I'm frankly surprised they have a forest in the Sand Hills.

Maybe the Children of th Corn crew jacked with the signs.

[Max Rockatansky]

Yeah, I forgot about CA 211; late-night posts sometimes miss a few things.  I would have categorized it as (at least as it is currently deployed) one of those routes that actually ends at something (the town of Ferndale), despite its status as the detritus of what originally was to be CA 1 through the "Lost Coast".  I've actually seen some maps showing 211 extending down forest roads to the vicinity of Garberville (inaccurate, to say the least); it seems some folks don't want the Lost Coast to stay lost -- I, for one, would rather maintain some areas as practically inaccessible (don't need hordes of RV's clogging every inch of road in Humboldt and Mendocino counties).

The Ferndale bridge on CA 211 is an amazing structure -- one of the few old bridges to survive the 1964 flooding substantially intact (albeit with minor damage to its approaches); it, along with some local roads on the west side of the Eel River, became a temporary substitute for the washed-out US 101.  Used to visit Ferndale quite a bit in the '90's; an old buddy from the audio business was manufacturing vacuum-tube amplifiers in Ferndale during that time (under the wacky name "Juicy Music"), so I stopped periodically on my many trips from the Bay Area to Portland or Seattle to touch base with him.  Ferndale's a nice old town, replete with more than its share of antique shops -- always an interesting side-trip when one is in the area.

Central and Southern California have a fair share as well too:

CA 178:  Basically this is one of the incomplete mountain routes that has the western segment end suddenly near Trona at the Salt Mines.  On the eastern segment the 178 alignment starts suddenly after taking Badwater Road south from CA 190.  Basically 178 was planned to cross the Panamint Range and down into Death Valley but it never happened due to it being impractical, the expanding park land that is now Death Valley National Park, and the China Lake Gunnery Range.
CA 190:  Basically the eastern segment is an intact route from CA 127 to US 395.  The western segment starts at CA 99 and ends near Quaker Meadow and becomes M90/Western Divide Highway.  CA 190 was planned to use Olancha Pass to reach the eastern CA 190...but it never happened.  Oddly enough you can use Sherman Pass Road which is actually paved to span the gap between both CA 190 segments.
CA 173:  I think that I mentioned this one before but it was the last dirt segment of State Route in California near Victorville.  The dirt section became unstable which created a gap between the sections CA 173 seen today.
CA 168:  The western segment ends suddenly at Huntington Lake and the eastern ends at Lake Sabrina...both are in the Sierras.  Supposedly the rough alignment of Kaiser Pass Road was planned to cross the high Sierra to create a complete mountain route which of course never happened.

[Rothman]

Sorry if these have been mentioned before:

M-152 ends right here, before any county line (although near one).  Why?  I don't know.

Although I sort of understand NY 335 being a connector between Delaware Ave (NY 443) and NY 32, the fact that it ends at Feura Bush Road bugs me, despite the fact that Feura Bush is a well-used arterial.

[jp the roadgeek]

NY 344 looks like a road to nowhere.  It's a spur off of NY 22 in Copake whose number ends at the MA line and takes you into an almost dead end valley in the Berkshires. 

[Brandon]

California routes 180, 190, 168, and various other unconstructed Sierra crossings end up being "routes to nowhere". 

the best, though, is Texas Farm Road 2119.  Rand McNally labels it as a connecting route heading north out of Pecos to US-62.  Wrong!  After thirty-seven miles, it is a dead end, with a gate in the middle of the road! 

I did the 37 miles back to Pecos averaging 101 mph. 

Did you even get as far as this sign on Google Street View?
https://goo.gl/maps/NTdNrNqvSfR2

[bulldog1979]

M-152 ends right here, before any county line (although near one).  Why?  I don't know.

State jurisdiction of M-152 actually runs right to the county line. MDOT usually posts the ends signage in advance of the terminus. Before they started using the "END" tab, they used an "ENDS" tab in place of the arrow below the marker in an advance junction assembly just before any terminus of a highway. The exception would be a few of the places where a designation ends but state maintenance continues under a different number, like US 2 and BL I-75; then the ends sign would probably be closer to the transition point.

[dvferyance]

Many of Virginia's secondary routes. Some of them are so minor they are basically no more significant then my own residential street here which is maintained by the city of New Berlin. Of course I can also say IL-110 is a mystery route to me.