Wednesday, August 3, 2011

A Briefing on Route 66

  U.S. Highway 66 was once the busiest highway in the country. It was basically a victim of its own success. Beginning in the late 1950s, sections of it were bypassed and it was planned to be completely bypassed by the mid 1970s, but people in the affected towns had other ideas. Alot of lawsuits were filed to prevent,the bypassing of certain towns. Some towns were going to be bypassed by interstate highways by several miles and the people in those towns didn't like that idea because the bypass would completely pull traffic away from their towns and businesses would suffer as a result. It was finally agreed to route the new interstates along the edges of the towns, or right through the middle of them in some cases. The most notable example is the 42 mile stretch between Tucumcari, New Mexico and the Texas border. For many years Interstate 40 ended on the east side of Tucumcari and dwindled down to a two lane road and remained a two lane road all the way to the Texas border, where it became a freeway again.  The town of San Jon filed a lawsuit to force the highway planners to re-route the highway closer to town when they learned of plans to build the freeway six miles north of town, thus providing cross country travelers with no reason to patronize San Jon businesses. It was finally agreed to build the interstate on the north edge of San Jon. A good example of a freeway going right through the middle of town is Gallup, New Mexico,. It was originally planned for the freeway to go south of Gallup and miss the town by about two miles.Many towns still suffered, anyway, because the new freeways did not go directly through the downtown business district.  In some cases, a new commercial center sprang up along the interstate, after the downtown area had been bypassed. A good example of this is Winslow, Arizona.
  Other towns filed suit because the original plans called for an exit at each end of town and the town wanted another exit in the middle of town. The best example of this is Williams, Arizona. They won the fight and that middle exit is presently the most utilized exit in the town. Williams was the last town to be bypassed by highway 66 and that came on August 13, 1984, about ten years behind schedule. The next June, in 1985, U.S. Highway 66 was officially decomissioned as a federal highway and ceased to exist.
  Although U.S. Highway 66 is no longer a federal highway, most of the fabled road still exists. Parts of it are still a federal highway. Serving as business loops through various towns. Parts of it are state highways or county roads or city streets. Parts of it are privately owned and still other parts are abandoned and lie next to or near the interstate. In most cases these abandoned stretches are still open to the public in various forms, possibly as a foot trail or it can be driven by someone with a four wheel drive vehicle. Some portions of the highway have completely disappeared, but about 85% of the highway still exists.
 

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