In 1977, the

Utah State Legislature The Utah State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Utah. It is a bicameral body, comprising the Utah House of Representatives, with 75 state representatives, and the Utah Senate, with 29 state senators. There are no term li ...

changed its system of how state route numbers were used and assigned. Prior to 1977 Utah used a system where every

U.S. Highway The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these h ...

and

Interstate Highway The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...

traversing the state was assigned a different Utah state route number. This state route number was not posted on signs, but was only used for legislative purposes, such as funding. There were many instances where having different route numbers for signing and legislative purposes could cause confusion. For example, the highway signed

Interstate 15 in Utah Interstate 15 (I-15) runs north–south in the U.S. state of Utah through the southwestern and central portions of the state, passing through most of the state's population centers, including St. George and those comprising the Wasatch Fro ...

was legislatively defined State Route 1, not route 15. State Route 15 also existed, but was a different route that passed through

Zion National Park Zion National Park is an American national park located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety ...

. In 1977, the state changed to a system where all highways would have the same legislative route number as its signed route number. For example, Interstate 15 would also be route 15 for legislative purposes. Many state routes were re-numbered to eliminate instances where a state route used the same number as a

traversing the state. In cases where two or more routes overlapped, only one of the route numbers sharing the same roadbed would be used in the legislative designation. The other routes in the overlap would have a discontinuity in the legislative description. For example, the stretch of highway between

Green River Green River may refer to: Rivers Canada *Green River (British Columbia), a tributary of the Lillooet River *Green River, a tributary of the Saint John River, also known by its French name of Rivière Verte *Green River (Ontario), a tributary of ...

and Crescent Junction is legislatively designated only

Interstate 70 Interstate 70 (I-70) is a major east–west Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from Interstate 15, I-15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to a park and ride lot just east of Interstate 695 (Maryland), I-695 in ...

. The other highways using this same pavement,

U.S. Route 6 U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to P ...

U.S. Route 50 U.S. Route 50 or U.S. Highway 50 (US 50) is a major east–west route of the U.S. Highway system, stretching from Interstate 80 (I-80) in West Sacramento, California, to Maryland Route 528 (MD 528) in Ocean City, Maryland, on the Atlanti ...

and

U.S. Route 191 U.S. Route 191 (US 191) is a spur of U.S. Route 91 that has two branches. The southern branch runs for from Douglas, Arizona on the Mexican border to the southern part of Yellowstone National Park. The northern branch runs for from the north ...

all have legislative gaps in their routes for this portion. A smaller change was codifying State Route 30 into law, which was informally created years earlier by combining other state routes. Though the law was changed in 1977, most signs changed over in 1978.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Utah Department of Transportation, Highway Resolutions
This site has a

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

for every state route with its former and current legislative route.
Utah Highways by Dan Stober
Personal website with an overview of most state routes in Utah, including pre 1977-8 designations. Renumbering Utah State Route Renumbering, 1977 Utah State Route Renumbering, 1977 1977 renumbering 1977 establishments in Utah 1977 disestablishments in Utah Highway renumbering in the United States