Talk:New England Interstate Route 8

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1 Merge
2 Route in VT
3 Others that might be merged
4 VT length
5 VT 8 used to go to East Wallingford along 100 and 155

[edit] Merge

This might actually be a good idea. Save for minor realignments (and the expressway section in CT), the route is more or less the same as the 1922 route. We couls conceivably do the same thing for some of the other New England routes (like NE-9, NE-12, NE-26, and NE-28). Polaron 14:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Route in VT

Did the original NE-8 just travel along present-day VT-100 from the MA state line to Wilmington, VT? Or did it go through present-day VT-8 to Wilimington via VT-9 (NE-9)? Polaron 19:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

From further reading, it looks like NE-8 originally may have traveled along MA-8 then MA-8A then VT-100 (via a short VT-112 segment) to end at VT-9 in Wilmington. Polaron 19:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Here are the general differences I can see (from 1925 and 1929 maps):

Obviously the freeway in Connecticut - it used (113 and??) 110 from Stratford, then the fairly obvious old route - ended in Winsted in 1925, and began again at Bonny Rigg Corners (NE 5/US 20) - finished by 1929
8A in North Adams
VT 100 from Heartwellville through (or at least to) Wilmington (at least in 1929); don't have anything beyond that

But yeah, basically it looks like it was a continuous transformation from NE 8 to CT/MA/VT 8 to their current alignments. I'm still not sure if the merge is a good idea - it definitely seems good in theory, but there might be some problems. One way I'm thinking about it is - what would happen if the U.S. Routes were suddenly abolished? Would we immediately split up all the articles? --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 23:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Others that might be merged

NE 9 - VT/NH/ME
NE 10 - CT/MA/NH (has the issue with 10 being realigned to New Haven rather than Old Saybrook, but that would be covered anyway in the CT 10 article, and was not done in 1926, but in the 1932 renumbering)
NE 11 - VT/NH, but 111 rather than 11 in ME - not sure what the history of this is
NE 12 - CT/MA/NH/VT (swapped with 32 south of Norwich in 1932)
NE 18 - NH/VT
NE 23 - NY/MA
NE 25 - NH/ME
NE 26 - ME/NH
NE 28 - MA/NH
NE 32 - CT/MA (swapped with 12 south of Norwich in 1932, some MA changes after 1929, and then extended into NH - might be messier, but it might be worthwhile to cover it as a multi-state route even if it's not the same as the NE Route)

That only leaves NE 17, which is now CT 2 and US 44, on its own. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 23:47, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VT length

From town road maps (in parentheses = concurrent with VT-100)

Stamford: (0.393+0.282+0.139+0.197+0.061+0.491+0.207+0.057+0.405+0.362+0.114+0.386+0.291+0.357+0.668+0.522+0.169+0.184+0.467) = 5.752
Readsboro: (1.030+0.331+0.123+0.557+0.151)+0.061+2.446 = 4.699
Searsburg: 0.172+1.495+0.617+0.419 = 2.703

Total length: 13.154 mi