U.S. Route 42
highway in the United States

U.S. Route 42 (US 42) is an east–west United States highway that runs southwest–northeast for 350 miles (560 km) from Louisville, Kentucky to Cleveland, Ohio. The route has several names including Pearl Road from Cleveland to Medina in Northeast Ohio, Reading Road in Cincinnati, Cincinnati and Lebanon Pike in southwestern Ohio and Brownsboro Road in Louisville. Traveling northeast, the highway ends in downtown Cleveland and traveling southwest ends in Louisville.
Interstate 71 (I-71) fully supplanted US 42 as an interurban highway in the early 1960s, relegating US 42 to its current role as an ordinary town-to-town surface road. Additionally, I-71 passes through Columbus, whereas US 42 bypasses Columbus. It remains intact as a route; no part of it has ever been diverted to any Interstate highway. It is not the "parent" of any US route with a related number.
In spite of its even number, US 42 is posted north–south in Ohio.
Route description
Kentucky
U.S. Route 42 starts in Louisville, Kentucky, heading northeast through Prospect on the Oldham County and Jefferson County line. From here US 42 is a two lane road passing through the northern Kentucky hills paralleling between Interstate 71 and the Ohio River.
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This entry incorporates text from “U.S. Route 42” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.