To turn from Interstate-93 to one of New Hampshire’s most scenic corridors, the Kancamagus Highway, drivers must take Exit 32.
The well-known exit sign is a source of pride for locals in Lincoln and Woodstock and a marketing tool for businesses that have built their brands around Exit 32-themed beer and other merchandise.
“Obviously, we do love our Exit 32 up here,” said Kim Pickering, executive director of the Western White Mountains Chamber of Commerce. “It is a definer of our area.”
All that hype could end, though, if the exit were stripped of its beloved number and labeled with a different one, as one state lawmaker would have it. This week, Rep. Timothy Horrigan, a Durham Democrat, resurrected an attempt to renumber highway exit signs in New Hampshire on a mileage-based system instead of sequentially.
Horrigan said he wants to update the state’s highway system to meet federal standards, which New Hampshire currently receives a waiver to buck. Almost every other state labels exits by mileage.
“I like road signs as much the next guy, but our exit numbers are not, in my opinion, an iconic feature of our landscape,” Horrigan told the House Public Works and Highways Committee on Tuesday.
Concord’s Exit 14, for example, leading to downtown and the State House, is located at the 38th milemarker on I-93. Horrigan’s proposal would rename it Exit 38.
Lincoln and Woodstock, Pickering said, are lucky — even if Exit 32 were taken away from them, the towns are located at Milemarker 100, which she said could still be a fun number.
Growing up in New Hampshire, Pickering said she’s accustomed to the current exit numbers but hasn’t had a tough time navigating other states where the signs are labeled by mileage. She hasn’t yet heard from businesses in the area at to whether the re-labeling of Exit 32 would impact their branding or marketing.
Horrigan’s bill is unlikely to pass. The House committee quickly shot it down, saying it’s not urgent enough to spend money on, and the nearly $2.3 million project has been taken out of the state’s 10-year road maintenance plan, which is already running a $400 million deficit.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte, like her predecessor Chris Sununu, opposes the effort.