What state or US highway has the most jogs in it? Or in the world? I believe the mostly defunct US Rte 66 had quite a few jogs in it. NY Rte 18 (near where I live) is a good example of what I’m talking about.
Inspired by this thread which asks about the longest continuously straight highway.
Is a jog the same as “not being straight,” or being simply a curvy road? Because that Route 18 does not seem curvy at all, and the dictionary definition that applies is “an abrupt change in direction; to turn sharply or veer.” I’m wondering if you’re using the term differently than I understand it.
In terms of density of curves per mile traveled, the Road to Hana in Maui is pretty damn curvy: 620 turns over 68 miles.
By jogging I’m referring to a highway that turns onto another highway for a short distance (often sharing another numbered route) and then turning and continuing on. So I’m not actually referring to a curvy road.
Roadgeeks like the ones who hang out on this forum would call numbered highways sharing a roadway with other numbered highways multiplexing. Is that what you’re asking? What numbered highway multiplexes with the largest number of other numbered highways?
If you mean what highway was created by twisting and turning onto pre-existing roads, I think that’s going to be impossible to answer. At least east of the Rockies, that’s how nearly all highways were created in the 1910s and 1920s. A diagonal route through the Great Plains might have made use of hundreds of extant section-line roads, while a similar number of country lanes and Main Streets of Pennsylvania were stitched together to create US 322 or whatever.
^But that’s calculating the most route numbers that apply to a single stretch of pavement, which is a different question. The OP is asking about what highway has the largest number of different multiplexes along its route.
A bit of a jog here, but I’ll toss this in as being related to multiplexing as defined above.
Names or numbered routes also contain a direction (or two), e.g. I-80 W (meaning west-bound) and I-80 E (meaning east-bound).
When two named or numbered routes share a stretch of roadway, that stretch can be (officially) going in two different directions at once! For example, California State Route 41 (a north-south route) shares a stretch with SR 46 (an east-west route). While you drive on that stretch (say, in the direction from Shandon towards the San Joaquin Valley), you are going north and east at the same time!
This gets interesting when the shared stretch goes in two fully opposite directions! In Berkeley CA, I-80 shares the road with I-580 for several miles – both of which are east-west routes. But the stretch through Berkeley actually is more nearly north/south in that local area. If you drive on that stretch, you are going east and west (or west and east in the other directions(s)) at the same time!
I doubt it will be an overall winner but it should qualify near the top of most changes per mile. Route 128 in the Boston area going into New Hampshire is an old road route that is confusing as hell to people not from the area. Much of the important parts are synonymous with I-95 but certainly not all of it and locals still commonly use the term Route 128 for directions even though there are much better ways to describe the signs you should follow (as in the modern road signs).
At one point south of Boston, Route 128 is both I-93 North and I-95 South on the same road.