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. Since then, U.S. Highway 20 has been the longest US highway.

Table of contents

1 History
2 States traversed
3 Major cities on the route
4 Related routes and spur routes
5 Oddities

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 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

Major cities on the route

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. Interstate 80 is within 40 miles of it between Cleveland and Lincoln. The western 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), and takes a route along the Cape Cod Canal, the canal essentially dividing the highway.
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 (near Sandusky, Ohio near Lake Erie lies to the north of U.S. Highway 20 and is both the lowest-numbered US highway and the northernmost and thus not a violation of the numbering system for U.S. highways - if only on a technicality.

Even so, the lowest-numbered even U.S. Highway route that it ever meets is US 20.

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 10 was completed in Utah. US 6 takes the older route through Price, Utah.

Its route through greater Los Angeles was 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 was always recognized and signed as a north-south route in California.

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.