Former US highway segments

[mrsman]

Froggie, it looks like you were about to write something else; care to elaborate?

I wasn't, but to clarify my point, there is no reason why "an easily identifible system of alternate routes in case the freeway is closed or traffic is severely delayed" needs to be a US route.  It can be any sort of route.  Pennsylvania has their colored routes (i.e. "Red Route", "Orange Route", etc).  Wisconsin signs "Alternate I-xx".  Minnesota signs them as county routes, as in most cases the old highway is now, at best, functionally classified as a minor arterial (and more often/likely a collector).

With regards to PA's colored DETOUR routes (I'm assuming that's what you're referring to); when those were first erected, the press (at least in the Philly area) was very quick to slam the nomanclature on the grounds of being overtly vague & convoluted.  One editorial suggested using a simple ROUTE XX DETOUR instead and be done with it.  Even worse if one ever tried to follow one of these colored detour routes, the signage is extremely sparse and inconsistent (again, at least around the Greater Philadelphia area).

As far as your "an easily identifible system of alternate routes in case the freeway is closed or traffic is severely delayed" needs to be a US route comment is concerned, if the I-99 Freeway example of US 220 was PA 220 instead; I'd be stating the same argument (move the non-Interstate back to its original pre-freeway route). 

IMHO, if there's two parallel routes (one freeway, one not) and the non-freeway was numbered before the freeway was built and said-freeway later becomes an Interstate (like the US 220/I-99 example in PA); rather than have one road w/two numbers on it and the other road remain unnumbered, why not have both roads carry separate numbers?

Let's be honest, while the US system still has some federal hierarchy in it (namely AASHTO); it's not as full-blown a federal system like the newer Interstate system is.

Sorry to chime in late, but I think part of the reason we don't see US highways going back to their old routes is that in many states signage as a state highway or a US highway implies state maintenance.  Perhaps with the construction of the freeway, the state no longer wants to maintain the old route and leaves it to local maintenance.

Now I would prefer having touring routes, so I would love to see a business route or a US route or a state highway on a well-paved alternate, even if it isn't maintained by the DOT.

[NWI_Irish96]

Recently in Indiana, former US 31 through Kokomo became state road 931.

When did they reroute US 30 in Fort Wayne? I noticed IN 930 driving through there the other day.

According to Wikipedia, SR 930 came to be in 1998 when US 24 and US 30 were rerouted onto I-469. Of course, INDOT would love nothing better than to get rid of SRs 930, 931 and 933.

Long before INDOT started their 9xx kick, a former alignment of US 6 was named SR 106.

[cjk374]

For the most part Louisiana uses Business bannered US routes for old US alignments. The newest ones being BUS US 171 in Zwolle and BUS US 84 in Mansfield as highways were four-laned around those towns. Some old alignments are 3xxx state routes like LA 3208 being the old US 80 to the old Mississippi River Bridge. Many (very old) alignments of US 71 in particular say Jefferson Hwy or Old Jefferson Hwy and a few of them are still state routes (LA 480, LA 1225, LA 1239-1 to name a few)

When US 167 was widened, Quitman was bypassed, and LA 155 which multiplexed with 167, took over the old US 167 through Quitman to where 155 turned off to its junction with LA 146.  The part of old US 167 from that point southward to the LA 811 junction is now maintained by Jackson Parish.  Then LA 811 takes over the old 167 from that junction southward to North Hodge and a junction with the current 167.

The maintenance on the old alignment at the Jackson/Lincoln Parish line, the Weyerhaeuser sawmill near Dodson, and the part that runs under the L&A overpass south of Winnfield are unknown by me.