U.S. Highway 6

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US-6
Primary Highway

Length:

 3,205 mi (5,158 km)
Major cities/towns (over 100,000 pop.): Denver, CO
Lincoln, NE
Omaha, NE
Des Moines, IA
Joliet, IL
Gary, IN
Cleveland, OH
Hartford, CT
Providence, RI
Commissioned: 1926
Decommissioned: None
Direction: East-West
States traversed: Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Connecticut
New York
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Indiana
Illinois
Iowa
Nebraska
Colorado
Utah
Nevada
California
MAJOR JUNCTIONS
JUNCTION MILEPOST
California
US-395 INY 0.00
Nevada
US-95 ES 19.02
NY 0.00
US-50 WP 37.95
Utah
US-50 MI 89.402
I-15 UT 160.57
UT 173.42
US-89 UT 177.95
UT 187.47
US-191 CAR 229.95
I-70 /
US-50 		EM 300.36
US-191 GR 181.96
Colorado
-not finished yet-
Legend
  deleted (no longer in system)   unconstructed
  closed   crossing with no access
  begin/end concurrency, bold route is carried through
  a bold route on white background indicates termini.
BROWSE STATE HWYS
CA: I-5 CA-7
U.S. Highway 6 shield in California
U.S. Highway 6 shield in California

U.S. Highway 6 is a largely east-west United States Highway that connects Bishop, California with Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. From 1937 to 1964, it was the longest U.S. highway at 3,652 miles (5,877 km), extending south from Bishop to Long Beach, California. In 1964, it was decommissioned south of Bishop as part of a California state highway renumbering, leaving 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 at 3,205 miles (5,158 km).

Contents

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Route description

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California

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State Law

Legal Definition of Route 6: California Streets and Highways Code, Chapter 2, Article 3, Section 304


 Route 6 is part of the Freeway and Expressway System, as stated by section 253.1 of the California State Highway Code.
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New York

US 6 runs for 78.09 miles in New York state. It enters and exits the state close to Interstate 84 but separates in the interior of the state, taking a more southerly route.

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Route log

Orange County (45.93 miles)

US 6 enters New York state from Pennsylvania multiplexed with US 209. US 209 splits off after 0.9 miles while US 6 closely parallels I-84 for another 16.9 miles. US 6 then overlaps with NY 17M for 5.2 miles until it reaches NY 17. US 6 then travels along the NY 17 freeway for 12.8 miles until just before the junction with I-87. US 6 exits from NY 17 and crosses under I-87 but has no junction with it. It then travels through the Bear Mountain State Park for 10.1 miles with the last 3.0 miles multiplexed with the Palisades Interstate Parkway. The Palisades Interstate Parkway ends at a traffic circle with US 9W and US 202. US 6 is joined by US 202 at this point and crosses the Hudson River.

Rockland County (0.25 miles)

US 6/US 202 cross the Hudson River on the Bear Mountain Bridge.

Westchester County (15.01 miles)

After traveling for 3.8 miles along the east bank of the Hudson River, US 6/US 202 has a short (0.7-mile) three-way overlap with US 9 heading into the city of Peekskill. US 202 separates from US 6 after another 0.8 miles. US 6 then goes through the town of Cortlandt and the rest of Westchester County (9.6 miles). US 6 has a junction with the Taconic State Parkway in this area.

Putnam County (16.90 miles)

US 6 heads northeast through Putnam County until reaching the town of Carmel (7.8 miles). It then turns and heads southeast for 5.2 miles and picks up US 202 again. US6/US 202 then head east, closely paralleling I-84 to the Connecticut state line (another 4.0 miles further). There is a junction with I-684 and I-84 shortly after US 202 joins US 6 in this area.

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Connecticut

US 6 is 116.3 miles in Connecticut. It begins in Danbury after crossing the New York state line, multiplexed with US 202. It runs for 3.8 miles in Danbury as a minor arterial road then climbs up on Interstate 84/US 7. The 4-way multiplex of I-84/US-7/US-6/US-202 continues for 3.3 miles after which US 7 and US 202 split off from I-84. US 6 follows I-84 for another 0.8 miles before returning to surface roads. US 6 then goes through the towns of Bethel and Newtown, and then overlaps with I-84 again for 6.4 miles between Newtown and Southbury. US 6 is a surface road again as it passes through Southbury, Woodbury, Watertown, and Thomaston. There is a 1.0 mile overlap with the CT 8 freeway in Thomaston. US 6 continues through the towns of Plymouth, Bristol and Farmington. In Farmington, US 6 again joins I-84 as it passes through West Hartford, Hartford, East Hartford, and Manchester (13.4-mile overlap). US 44 briefly joins I-84/US 6 (for 0.2 miles) as they cross the Connecticut River on the Bulkeley Bridge. After exiting I-84 in Manchester, US 6 is joined again by US 44 for 6.9 miles up to Bolton, where I-384 terminates. US 44 then follows a more northerly route while US 6 continues through Bolton, Andover, and Columbia. It then becomes a freeway in Columbia (at a junction with CT 66), passing through Coventry, Windham, Mansfield and Windham (again), ending at the eastern terminus of CT 66. This freeway portion is 5.3 miles long. US 6 then continues as a surface road to the towns of Chaplin, Hampton, Brooklyn, and Killingly. The unsigned portion of the Connecticut Turnpike then meets with US 6 shortly before crossing the Rhode Island state line.

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Rhode Island

US 6 runs 25.4 miles in Rhode Island. It has a business/bypass split in Scituate where US 6 Business runs along Danielson Pike and US 6 Bypass runs along North Scituate Bypass and Hartford Pike. The bypass route is officially recognized by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation as US 6.

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Route

US 6 takes the following route through the State:


Rhode Island State Highways
1A 2 3 4 5 7 10 12
14 15 24 33 37 51 77 78
81 91 94 96 98 99 100 101
102 103 103A 104 107 108 110 112
113 114 114A 115 116 117 117A 118
120 121 122 123 126 128 136 138
138A 146 146A 152 165 177 179 214
216 238 246 401 402 403  
Interstates
84 95 195 295 895  
U.S. Highways
1 1A 6 6A 44  
Decommissioned State Highways
1B 1C 11 84 95 142 195
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Massachusetts

US 6 runs approximately 118 miles in Massachusetts. It is a surface expressway or 4-lane road for approximately its first 54 miles from the Rhode Island line to the Cape Cod Canal, except for a section in New Bedford, where it runs along two one-way city streets. After crossing the canal via the Sagamore Bridge, it becomes a 4-lane freeway from Bourne to Dennis at the Exit 9A/B cloverleaf (Mile 78), then reduces to a Super-2 freeway with plastic stanchions posted on a small asphalt median. It remains like this until Orleans, where the freeway ends at a large rotary (Mile 90.6). Through Eastham and North Truro, US 6 is a 4-lane surface street. Through Wellfleet and southern Truro, US 6 is a former 3-lane road converted to 2 lanes with shoulders. In Provincetown, US 6 ends as it started in the state, as a surface expressway once again until it comes to an end at Route 6A at the Cape Cod National Seashore. Interestingly, since the end of the highway is on Federally-owned park land, there is currently no "End" marker.

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US-6 Massachusetts Trivia

The freeway and Super-2 sections of US-6 on Cape Cod are known as the Mid-Cape Highway. The Super-2 section has a secondary, less-formal name of "Suicide Alley", due to the high number of fatalities from head-on collisions before the median improvements were constructed. (When the Super-2 stretch was first built, it was marked with passing zones like any other 2-lane highway. The small asphalt/stanchion median was built in stages beginning in 1989 and finishing in 1992.) The Mid-Cape Highway carries a speed limit of 55 on the standard freeway and 50 on the Super-2.

When US-6 was first routed through Provincetown in 1926, the highway was signed along the rather narrow Commercial Street. After the Provincetown US-6 bypass was built, congestion and the increasing size of automobiles forced the town to post most of Commercial Street (all but the easternmost mile which hits the Truro line) as one-way westbound. Route 6A, when signed, was placed along the paralleling Bradford Street instead. There was an alternate plan at the time to make Bradford one-way westbound and Commercial one-way eastbound (which would have made both roads Route 6A), but this was rejected, as the town decided instead to let incoming traffic through the heavy Commercial Street business district.

US-6 was briefly signed on current I-195 between Route 105 and Route 28, however, when I-195 was completed, and the I-195 designation took over that section of freeway, US-6 reverted back to its older route.


Massachusetts State Highways
1A 2 2A 3 3A 4 6A 7A 8 8A 9 10
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20A 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 28A 30 31 32 32A 33 35 36
37 38 39 40 41 43 47 49 52 53 56 57
58 60 62 63 66 67 68 70 71 75 78 79
80 81 83 85 88 96 97 98 99 101 102 103
104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 114A
115 116 117 118 119 120 121 121A 122 122A 123 124
125 126 127 127A 128 129 129A 130 131 132 133 134
135 136 137 138 139 140 140 142 143 145 146 146A
147 148 149 150 151 152 159 168 169 177 181 183
186 187 189 192 193 197 198 203 213 220 225 228
240 286 295  
Interstates
84 90 91 93 95 190 195 290 291 295 391 395
495  
U.S. Highways
1 3 5 6 7 20 44 202  
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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.

While the route was intact as early as 1937, paving was not completed on the route until 1952, when the last 160 miles (257 km) of US 6, between Delta, Utah, and Ely, Nevada, received two lanes of fresh asphalt.

In 1964, California truncated US 6 at Bishop in favor of U.S. Highway 395, California State Route 14, U.S. Highway 99 (now Interstate 5), California State Route 11 (now Interstate 110 and California State Route 110), and California State Route 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. Massachusetts became the first state to so designate the route, in 1937; a formal dedication took place in 1953 at the road's western terminus in Long Beach.

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States traversed

U.S. Highway 6 traverses the following states:

Miles km state
118 190 Massachusetts
25 40 Rhode Island
116 187 Connecticut
78 126 New York
394 634 Pennsylvania
259 417 Ohio
? ? Indiana
? ? Illinois
320 515 Iowa
373 600 Nebraska
467 752 Colorado
373 600 Utah
? ? Nevada
41 66 California
3205 5158 Total


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Major cities on the route

Although it does not pass through either Boston, New York City or Chicago, it does pass through some of their outer suburbs.

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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, and may have been proposed to go into New York. 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" was designated on what is now Hwy 66 in Connecticut; U.S. Highway 6N runs through Pennsylvania and Ohio as a shortcut to Lake Erie. U.S. Highway 306 was not a designated highway, but an illustrated upside down US-306 sign was shown in a children's storybook by Leonard Kessler entitled, "Mr. Pine's Mixed-up Signs."

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Oddities

  • US 6 takes a semi-circular route through the Cape Cod Peninsula (dictated by topography). Someone leaving Provincetown, Mass. on 6 west will actually head east, then south, before finally turning west. Formerly, it took both sides along the Cape Cod canal (and was signed as "BYPASS 6"), but is now routed only on the north side (The south side is now signed "TO 6" from the Sagamore to the Bourne Bridge).
  • 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). The highway originally began in Long Beach, then diversed west into San Pedro then north along Figueroa Street through Downtown Los Angeles then shared several highways through Southern California, including the present-day Antelope Valley Freeway.
  • 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 U.S. Highway 395.[1]
  • 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.
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External links

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California


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Primary U.S. Highways
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30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 48 49
50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59
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