[Talk-us] highway=trunk for NHS routes?

[Paul Johnson]

On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 3:40 PM, Mark Wagner <mark+osm at carnildo.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 12:22:04 -0500
> Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 4:21 AM, Volker Schmidt <voschix at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > You can find detailed PDF maps of all NHS Routes, state-by-state at
> > > a web page of the Federal Highway Administration
> > > ​[...]. On these maps you will find plenty of NHS roads that are
> > > definitively not trunk roads.
> > > Just two examples in Arizona:
> > >
> >
> > I will agree isn't what could handle 'trunk' volume in a densely
> > settled area in EU or NY.
> > If we follow the physical description checklist rigidly, we'd conclude
> > there are few trunk roads outside of metropolises.
> >
> > Both appear to be well maintained in the photos; the width of paving
> > greatly exceeds the two marked lanes. Out where "50 Miles to Next Gas"
> > signs still live, this is a major road.
> >
> > US160 is the most significant road for literally miles. ​
> > US180 is the tourist main feeder to the Grand Canyon . .
> >
>
> WA-127 is on the NHS map.  You could call it "important" or
> "significant" in the sense that it's part of the shortest route from
> Walla Walla to Spokane, and the only bridge across the Snake River for
> 50 miles in either direction, but that doesn't make it important in any
> absolute sense.  The state DOT estimates that it sees maybe 800
> vehicles a day, and if it doesn't have a "Next gas: 65 miles" sign,
> it's only because nobody bothered to put one up.


Reminds me of US 26 between Cairo and John Day in the Oregon outback.  As
soon as you pass the town of Cairo at the OR 103 split, there's a "No Gas
Next 120 miles" sign.   I'm glad the sign was there, though, or I would
have been stranded in a remote and unfamiliar part of the Oregon outback
instead of turning back to Nyssa for more gas.  And it's nothing but a
two-lane highway winding along wash beds across open high-altitude outback
in early summer.  It's certainly the primary route through the area,
serving a more southerly region than US 30 (which almost meets crossing the
Snake River and again much farther west in Portland, and actually meets end
to end with US 30 in Warrenton at the terminus of both routes, IIRC).  In
120 miles, I encountered one other vehicle.  Learned from a State Trooper
in John Day that it was a good thing I did top up a little as nobody even
bothers to patrol that strip more than once every other week.  So...really
don't think that's a trunk at all.
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