Skyline Drive Between Bergen/Passaic: Designated Route 208 Once?

[hubcity]

I was intrigued by the not-quite-a-NJ-state-highway marker in the Shield Gallery referring to Skyline Drive:



I have to assume it's not referring to the Skyline Drive that passes between Bergen and Passaic counties (Bergen CR S-91, Passaic CR 692) through the Ramapo range. In fact, according to the Wikipedia article on NJ County Routes, it looks as though it actually may come from the Bergen 200-series designation for their Weehawken-to-Alpine route (which one can forgive them calling "Skyline Drive", since you can't evade a view of the NYC skyline while traveling it.)

The Wikipedia entry for the Bergen-Passaic Skyline Drive may be incorrect, though; I don't think it ever actually carried Route 208. I think the author based their conclusion on the existence of this sign:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Route_208_signage_on_Skyline_Drive.jpg

A sign which, having grown up there, I remember being put up in the 70's primarily to direct people home from the well-attended but inadequately-highway-serviced Jungle Habitat, albeit done in the style of much older Passaic County directional signs. (Even then, I remember thinking "shouldn't that also say 'To'?")  From there, there were two ways to get to all points south, west and east: to NJ 208 via Skyline Drive, or to NJ 23 via Ringwood Av/Newark-Pompton Tpk. To my mind, I'm pretty sure Skyline Drive itself never carried a state highway designation.

Here's how I remember it actually working back then: NJ Route 208's last northbound interchange was with West Oakland Av/US 202, after which the freeway ended, making a fairly hard left (since there was a restaurant directly in the mainline's path, with parking just beyond the large, well lit, blinking left-pointing caution arrow that still got run through every now and again) and terminating further southwest on W. Oakland Av. To get to Skyline Drive, one continued on W. Oakland Av across a substantially wide but not very long bridge over Ramapo River, and only then could you make a right onto Skyline Drive.  From my first acquaintance with the road in 1969 until I-287 finally came through, the end of NJ 208 was its T-intersection with W. Oakland Av. (still in use as northbound Exit 58 on I-287.)

So...anybody agree that a Wikipedia correction is in order?

(And as regards the Bergen 200 routes, I wonder if they gave either of the others scenic names?)

[NE2]

Typical sloppy Wikipedia writing by Mitchazenia. None of the sources cited actually support his bullshit history.

As best as I can tell, this is the correct history (main source is http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/nj/log/0.html):
*pre-1927: nothing.
*1927: Route 3 designated along a proposed state highway from Paterson along Hamburg Turnpike and current 511 to New York. Nothing with Skyline.
*1929: 3 cut back to Paterson; S4B designated along a proposed highway very roughly following current 208, Skyline, and 511. A 1934 map shows it proposed along an approximation of Skyline, but a bit to the south, as does a 1938 Bergen County map.
*1940s: first piece of S4B built, branching off 4 to Maple Avenue. The rest is not built until after 1953.
*1953: S4B renumbered 208. Officially extends only from 4 to Maple. There are still plans to take it to the state line, given the number.

The 1964 Rand McNally still shows the proposed alignment a bit south of Skyline. (The jog at US 202 is due to sloppiness in updating plans; the 1960 atlas continues the proposed route to Maple a tiny bit north of where it ended up.)

[Alps]

Absolutely did 208 never follow Skyline Drive. Of course, the "main source" cited on my website was originally written by the one doing the citing