In 1927, New Jersey's state highways were renumbered. The old system, which had been defined in sequence by the legislature since 1916, was growing badly, as several routes shared the same number, and many unnumbered state highways had been defined. A partial renumbering was proposed in 1926, but instead a total renumbering was done in 1927. Some amendments were made in 1929, including the elimination of Route 18N, and the addition of more spurs, as well as Route 29A, but the system stayed mostly intact until the 1953 renumbering.
Proposed 1926 Renumbering
A partial renumbering was proposed in 1926 to get rid of the duplicates and assigning numbers to many of the unnumbered routes. The proposed 1926 renumbering would have:
Spurs were also defined, being assigned a prefix of S. For example, Route S26 was a short spur of Route 26 connecting to Route 25 south of New Brunswick. A second spur of Route 4 was assigned Route S4A, but two separate spurs of Route 24 both received the Route S24 designation. While the majority of already-acquired routes were included in the new system, four sections of pre-1927 routes were not. The law authorizing the renumbering indicated that these were to remain, and so the State Highway Commission added a suffix of N to distinguish them from the new routes of the same number:
Chapter 126 of the 1929 public law amended the 1927 act, removing redundant designations and creating entirely new roads in the New York Metropolitan Area. The amendments included
Realigning Route 1 onto Route 18N, still left over from the first 1916 system
* Establishing Route S1A, today Route 67, from the remnants of Route 18N not taken over by Route 1
Truncating Route 3 to the Hawthorne-Paterson Line
* Establishing Route S3, running from Route 3 in East Rutherford to Route 6 in Clifton
Declaring that Route S4A would be built, "provided, however, the county of Atlantic shall first agree to construct a suitable continuation of said road from Little Beach to the city of Atlantic City". Atlantic County was unable to build most of this extension, hence Route S4A was never built; the portions that were built became designated as Route 87
* Establishing Route S4B, replacing the truncated sections of Route 3
Truncating Route 5 to roughly its current length, with an extension to the centre of Ridgefield
* Realigning Route S5 onto the southern portion of Grand Avenue
Realigning Route 6 to a new alignment east of Caldwell Township, bypassing Paterson
* Creating Route S6 along the portions of Union Boulevard formerly used by Route 6
