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Adecommissioned highway is ahighway that has been removed from service by being shut down, or has had its authorization as a national, provincial or state highway removed, the latter also referred to asdownloading. Decommissioning can include the complete or partial demolition or abandonment of an old highway structure because the old roadway has lost its utility, but such is not always the norm. Where the old highway has continuing value, it likely remains as a local road offering access to properties denied access to the new road or for use by slow vehicles such as farm equipment andhorse-drawn vehicles denied use of the newer highway.
Decommissioning can also include the removal of one or more of the multiple designations of a single segment of highway. As an example, what remains asU.S. Route 60 (US 60) betweenWickenburg, Arizona, andPhoenix, Arizona, carried the routes of three US Highways (US 60,US 70,US 89) and one state highway (Arizona State Route 93).[1] Since then, US 60 was diverted to other routes.
Decommissioned highways are common in theUnited States. Even in the early years of theUnited States Numbered Highway System, some highways had short lives as US Highways especially if they were themselves short routes, such as the earlyUS 110 in Wisconsin. Indeed, the fourteen shortest U.S. Numbered Highways that have ever existed were stripped of "US" status in 1982 or earlier. Extensions of US Routes have implied the elimination of earlier designations; for example,US 6, which originally went no farther west than theHudson River inNew York, was extended toLong Beach, California over routes that included an old Indiana State Road 6, most of an oldUS 32 betweenChicago andOmaha, all ofUS 38 between Omaha andDenver, and an old California State Route 7 mostly in theMojave Desert. US 6 was itself pared back toBishop, California, in theGreat Renumbering of California in 1964.
As the states buildfreeways as a new classification ofhighways, the state may strip the old highway of its old designation as a numbered highway or downgrade it to a lesser status. For example,US 66, which connectedLos Angeles andChicago from 1926 until 1985, lost its designation as a U.S. Highway in favor of faster, more directInterstate Highways which had supplanted it. Some highways may be partly decommissioned, such as two segments ofM-21 in Michigan fromHolland toGrand Rapids asInterstate 196 and betweenFlint and theCanadian border at theBlue Water Bridge asInterstate 69 (I-69) supplanted much of it and M-21 remained in existence between Grand Rapids and Flint.[2]US 33 inLancaster, Ohio, was signed asUS 33 Business following relocation of US 33 and construction toInterstate Highway standards. Other highways have been wholly decommissioned in favor of newer Interstates, as was the case withTexas State Highway 9.[3] However, the reverse can also be done, such asI-170 inBaltimore being removed in favor ofUS 40 (which was previously routed on parallel-running one-way streets) because its parent route (I-70) had been cancelled due to longstanding opposition.[citation needed]
Some state routes built onfreeway alignments may be upgraded to Interstate Highway standards (or already built to Interstate standards) and receive Interstate designation, such as the case withPennsylvania Route 60 being largely replaced byI-376.[4] On the other hand, some routes are downgraded, as withUS 61 in Minnesota, which becameMinnesota State Highway 61 from Duluth to the Canadian border. At times, a state can abandon a number as the reason for state maintenance of the entire route no longer exists; Arizona transferred the shortArizona State Route 62 to the Mohave County government after a mine inChloride closed and so did the economic purpose of the town.[5] At the extreme a decommissioned route may be demolished, as was done withCalifornia State Route 480. Once part of the Interstate Highway System, it required retrofitting to remain in service after the1989 Loma Prieta earthquake to remain in use; instead the highway was demolished.
"Alternate", "Bypass" and suffixed routes (such asUS 6A in Connecticut, the old US 71 bypass around Kansas City that disappeared in favor of Interstate 435 andMissouri Route 291, andthe former US 30S in Ohio) have often been redesignated as lesser routes, in accordance with a policy of the AASHTO that now deprecates such highways, especially if short and confined to one state.
Some states have decommissioned state highways which were within a state-numbered system because significant parts of those highways were not up to state standards, such as being unpaved and unlikely to ever be paved, as withNevada State Route 49.
Indiana removed all state and US Highway designations inIndianapolis within theInterstate 465 beltway, either truncating the highway at the beltway (U.S. Highway 136), deleting the highway altogether (Indiana State Road 100), or diverting the routes onto the beltway. Similar removals happened inFort Wayne after the completion ofInterstate 469 in 1998.
A decommissioned route may also find other use besides automobile use. TheAbandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike, a bypassed section of thePennsylvania Turnpike that features two vehicletunnels that were overcapacity after the Turnpike saw a surge in usage afterWorld War II, is perhaps the most notable example of this, as it has since become a bike and pedestrian trail and, due to using the alignment for the stillbornSouth Pennsylvania Railroad, is also unofficially arail trail.
Even as superhighways supplant older surface routes, some historical highways get attention from those with antiquarian (and commercial) interests in the continued recognition of such routes. US 66 in the midwestern and southwestern United States is a prime example of such efforts; "Historic Route US 66" markers, completely unofficial, designate most of the old surface road, some of which has literary significance (as inJohn Steinbeck's novelThe Grapes of Wrath).
Many ofQuebec'sAutoroutes supplant old through routes.
InNew Brunswick, when abypass road orfreeway is constructed, it normally takes the number of the road it replaced, often removing portions of the old road from the provincial highway system entirely. Most become local or county roads; in some cases (such as theMoncton-FrederictonHighway 2, bypassed asfreeway in 2001) a section of the old road would be retained as part of some other provincial highway because it reaches a major town the new road had bypassed.
In 1997 and 1998, the province ofOntario undertook a major highway decommissioning project, dropping over 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi) of road from the provincially maintained highway system. Most of the former highways are now numbered ascounty roads. See alsoList of former provincial highways in Ontario.
TheThousand Islands Parkway in Ontario was originally four lanes and part ofOntario Highway 401, Canada's busiest highway, before 401 traffic was bypassed inland on completion of thatfreeway in 1968. Two of the lanes are provincially maintained for automobile traffic by theSt. Lawrence Parks Commission but the other pair have been replaced withfootpaths and abicycle trail.
In Germany,[citation needed] manyAutobahns supplant an older through route, as inBundesstraße 60 (best translated as Federal Highway 60), which disappeared as the A40 Autobahn supplanted it.
In theRepublic of Ireland,National Primary Routes are often realigned after the construction of newmotorway sections,dual carriageways or bypasses. The old route thus loses its national route status and is usually redesignated as aRegional Road.
Most (old system) state and national routes inNew South Wales are decommissioned routes. Among those was state route 30 between Ryde and Kellyville that existed between 1974 and 1993.[6]
