U.S. Highway 6
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U.S. Highway 6
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U.S. Highway 6
U.S. Highway 6 is a largely east-west United States Highway that connects Bishop, California with Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. It was the longest U.S. highway between 1937 and 1964 when it reached Long Beach, California. It was decommissioned south of Bishop as part of California's highway renumbering system, making U.S. Highway 20 the longest US highway. Since US 20 does not exist through Yellowstone National Park, US-6 is still the country's longest continuous US highway.
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History
US 6 was one of the first national arteries proposed in 1926 and went only as far west as the Hudson River in New York. It has since been extended westward, mostly at the expense of other routes including most of old U.S. Highway 32 between Joliet, Illinois and Council Bluffs, Iowa and old U.S. Highway 38 between Omaha, Nebraska and Denver, Colorado before 1937, after which it was extended to Southern California. In California it was a north-south highway, violating the convention that only east-west routes have even numbers.
In 1964, California truncated US 6 at Bishop in favor of U.S. Highway 395, California State Highway 14, U.S. Highway 99 (now Interstate 5), California State Highway 11 (now Interstate 110 and California State Highway 110), and California State Highway 1 from north to south. All of old and current US 6, at least as far west and south as the intersection with old US 99 is known as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway in honor of Union veterans of the American Civil War.
States traversed
- Massachusetts
- Rhode Island
- Connecticut
- New York
- Pennsylvania
- Ohio
- Indiana
- Illinois
- Iowa
- Nebraska
- Colorado
- Utah
- Nevada
- California
Major cities on the route
- New Bedford, Massachusetts
- Fall River, Massachusetts
- Providence, Rhode Island
- Hartford, Connecticut
- Scranton, Pennsylvania
- Cleveland, Ohio
- Sandusky, Ohio
- Bowling Green, Ohio
- Gary, Indiana
- Hammond, Indiana
- Joliet, Illinois
- Quad Cities (Illinois and Iowa)
- Iowa City, Iowa
- Des Moines, Iowa
- Council Bluffs, Iowa
- Omaha, Nebraska
- Lincoln, Nebraska
- Hastings, Nebraska
- Denver, Colorado
- Lancaster, California (until 1964)
- Los Angeles, California (until 1964)
Although it does not pass through either New York City or Chicago, it does pass through some of their outer suburbs.
Related routes and spur routes
Interstate 195 supplants it as a through route between Providence and Cape Cod. Interstate 84 supplants it, in general, between Hartford and Scranton, and was planned to extend east to Providence. Interstate 80 is within 40 miles (64 km) of it between Cleveland and Lincoln. Interstate 76 supplants it between Sterling, Colorado and Denver. Interstate 70 supplants it between Denver and Green River, Utah.
U.S. Highway 106 (decommissioned) was an alternative in eastern Pennsylvania. U.S. Highway 206 is a spur largely in New Jersey. U.S. Highway 138 is a child of US 38, which US 6 incorporated. An "Alternate U.S. Highway 6" existed in Connecticut; U.S. Highway 6N runs through Pennsylvania and Ohio as a shortcut to Lake Erie.
Oddities
- US 6 takes a semi-circular route through the Cape Cod Peninsula (dictated by topography). Formerly, it took both sides along the Cape Cod canal, but is now routed only on the north side.
- It is often reported to be a violation of the numbering system because it is wholly south of numerous other US routes with higher even numbers (8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 26). In fact, in north-central Ohio, part of it (from Cleveland, Ohio to Fremont, Ohio) lies to the north of U.S. Highway 20, the lowest-numbered even U.S. Highway that intersects US 6. At this longitude, US 6 is the northernmost U.S. Highway, though US 2 was once signed through Canada.
- Until 1964, it crossed U.S. Highway 66 twice (in Joliet and Los Angeles), and even crossed Interstate 10 (also in Los Angeles).
- Between Ely, Nevada and Grand Junction, Colorado it was duplexed with U.S. Highway 50 before Interstate 70 was completed in Utah. US 6 takes the older route through Price, Utah.
- Its route through greater Los Angeles once had its southern terminus farther east than its entrance into California on the California-Nevada state line. Even today its current 'western' terminus in Bishop, California, lies farther east than its entrance into California from the Nevada state line. It is currently recognized and signed as a north-south route in California, but it was apparently east-west until it was truncated to US 395.[1] (http://www.geocities.com/usend0009/End006/end006.htm)
- Although its general direction east of the California state line points it toward the San Francisco Bay Area, the steep Sierra Nevada made any extension toward any destination west of the Sierra Nevada (most likely along present-day California State Highway 120 through Tioga Pass to Manteca) at least as far south as Bakersfield impractical due to winter closures, engineering costs or environmental degradation.
- Taking US 6 all the way from upstate New York to the West Coast is one of the early, unrealized goals of the narrator character (Sal Paradise) in the famous "beat" novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac.