Everything you ever wanted to know about US 412 in Oklahoma

[Scott5114]

http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/memorial/highways/pdfs/us60/action28.pdf

[bugo]

Was this recently posted to the ODOT site?

Is there any new information in this document?  I didn't see any.

[Scott5114]

I dunno how recent it is. I just found it while researching US 60 (see the mammoth article I just published on Wikipedia). It gives a reason for US 412's existence (the Transportation Commission thought it might lure recreational travelers and thus $$$) and confirms that AASHTO does indeed have a rule prohibiting US highways on toll roads without a free alternative available (I seem to recall there was some argument on this point recently). Probably nothing absolutely groundbreaking here, but it's really neat to see the information come "from the horse's mouth", as it were.

The only thing that I found wanting was where the damned number came from! Oklahoma wasn't involved in that, though–Tennessee and Arkansas had the route already before Oklahoma had it extended.

Possibly more interesting in the US 60 archives was an AASHO letter about unrelated approved changes (to US 60 and some other routes, thus how I ran across it), where a paragraph at the end basically amounted to "We have rejected US-377 yet again and we will continue to do so until you bring it up to geometric design standards." Perhaps this is why ODOT finally got fed up, went rogue, and posted US 377 anyway. I hope when I research the other US highways in Oklahoma I might run into some more pieces of this puzzle.

[NE2]

The only thing that I found wanting was where the damned number came from! Oklahoma wasn't involved in that, though–Tennessee and Arkansas had the route already before Oklahoma had it extended.

Yep. I looked through AHTD minutes a while back and found nothing relevant. They pass the buck to "the various Chambers of Commerce in Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee" (p. 6). (Also see page 878 and 968 about the extension into Oklahoma.)