State Highways that are routed better than their US Highway Counterpart

[Max Rockatansky]

It's debatable if CA/NV 88 via Carson Pass is a more efficient road than US 50 over Echo Summit.  Granted US 50 gets you Lake Tahoe, but you have to slog through a lot of tourist areas to get over the Sierras.  Carson Pass is also an all year pass and slightly higher than US 50 but will almost always get you where you are going on the western side of the Sierras faster...especially if you are heading to the Bay area.

[amroad17]

There are quite a few state highways in Kentucky built better than their US counterparts.

[Tarkus]

I'd argue that WA-22 is routed better than US-97 around Toppenish.  While the stretch of US-97 from Toppenish north to Yakima is a 4-lane divided expressway (with some signals and at-grade intersections), and WA-22 goes right through the center of Toppenish, the latter is by far a quicker route if you're trying to get up to/from I-82, and, in turn, a quicker route to/from Yakima.  If they swapped the two, they'd also be in a direct line, rather than bouncing off one another at the junction.

[TheStranger]

In the 1930s/1940s, what was then Route 150 between Los Olivos and Santa Barbara was clearly the more direct route between the two compared to US 101, but freeway upgrades on 101 have negated that advantage to a degree.  (That segment of 150 is now Route 154)

From the late 1950s to 1965-1966, Route 24 offered the much more straightline route to Marysville/Yuba City in comparison with US 99W and US 99E; after the 1964 state route renumbering, that portion of 24 became part of a realigned (state) Route 99 and the newly designated Route 70.

When US 50 ran between the Bay Area and Sacramento along today's I-580, I-205, I-5, Route 4 and Route 99 corridors, Route 24 between Oakland and Sacramento offered a scenic but less out-of-the-way route; while the portion of 24 from Oakland to Walnut Creek still exists, the rest has become I-680 (was Route 24/I-680 until 1990 or so), Route 242, Route 4 (originally Route 4/24), and Route 160.

And of course, the most direct route from Oakland to Sacramento was US 40, so the fact that SR 24 is more direct than US 50 does seem to ignore the "elephant in the room."

Not really.

40 of course is the direct route but 24 to some extent was a viable (if slow) alternate, at least until US 40 started being upgraded to freeway as what is now I-80.

But that comparison was more designed to show that (former) US 50 between San Francisco and Sacramento has never been a practical route between the two locales, even when juxtaposed against a state highway routing that is mostly a scenic alternate north of Antioch.

[GeauxLSU]

SH 112 is shorter than US 271 between Poteau and Pocola by six miles.

[texaskdog]

US 63 in Rochester Minnesota through Lake City was longer than going up MN 58 from Zumbrota.  Well, now they routed US 63 around Rochester but now it is even longer and a really stupid alignment around town.  US 61 runs through Lake City anyway so there is little reason for US 63 to be on it's current alignment.