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I can't point to a source on this other then my own memory. I'm certain this bridge used to carry US 71. I do not know if it did at the time the bridge opened but signage at Downtown Airport referred to US 71 well into the late 70s, possibly early 80s. US 71 was not on Broadway at that time and may have been moved to the Paseo Bridge with I-29 & I-35 around the time airline operations were moved to Kansas City International Airport. With the airlines gone and no other numbered route to replace the shields updating the signs was probably not a high priority. My mother told me the Paseo Bridge was formerly a toll bridge and US 71 may have relocated to it when the tolls were removed. The freeway between downtown and I-29 had been known as the Broadway Extension and had no highway number assigned to it for about 20 years before US 169 was moved to this route. North of I-29 the freeway had been US 169 but it followed I-29 to I-635 to enter Kansas on the Platte Purchase Bridge multiplexed with its parent US 69. This resulted in northbound I-29 multiplexing with southbound US 169 before realigning to this more logical route. I no longer live in the area so I can not easily source this from old newspapers at the library.
Five and a half years later after I posted this I'm surprised no one had a follow up. I came across a 1958 Missouri highway map recently that instantly reminded me of this post and explained the signs I saw growing up. It appears that US 71 was routed on what is now Missouri Highway 9 before the freeways were built. The signs I saw were probably directing traffic to Harlem Road to connect with US 71 then on Burlington in North Kansas City. If US 71 was moved to I-29 & I-35 and 9 extended from Riverside to North Kansas City on the old 71 alignment around the time the airlines left MKC for MCI no one probably got around to redoing the signs for a very long time. So Broadway bridge may never have carried US 71 after all but US 169 indeed was on the alignment in my previous post until the mid 90's. Skywayman (talk) 11:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
