Updated August 4, 2023
It’s an official designation -- and then some.
The Las Vegas Strip was declared "America’s first nighttime scenic byway" on June 30, 1995, by the director of the Nevada Department of Transportation (with some encouragement from the Nevada Commission on Tourism, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, and the Clark County Comprehensive Planning Commission).
Five years later, on June 15, 2000, it was designated an "All-American Road" and recognized as a nighttime scenic byway by the Federal Highway Administration.
The Strip Scenic Byway stretches from Sahara Avenue to Russell Road. To maintain the designation, signs along the four miles of the Strip must be well-maintained and new signs require a certain amount of neon and animation. There’s also a little funding involved from a National Scenic Byway Grant committee (Congress designated at least $22 million for projects along the nation’s Scenic Byways in 2022) and the Strip is part of the Federal Highway Administration’s marketing campaigns for its Scenic Byway program.
Also in 2000, Las Vegas city officials and boosters began a big project to line Las Vegas Boulevard between Sahara and Washington avenues north of the Strip Byway with 25 vintage neon signs from the Neon Museum’s boneyard. The first two signs, the old "H" and horseshoe from Binion’s and the gigantic silver slipper from the casino of the same name, were completed in April 2001 at a cost of $400,000. After that, one or two signs were installed, one per block per year, over the next decade or so.
The effort paid off in 2009, when that same stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard through downtown was also designated a National Scenic Byway. The primary qualifier was all the neon, but the stretch was also recognized for its cultural, historic, and nighttime scenic attractions.
Two other federal National Scenic Byways in Nevada include 29 miles of Eastshore Drive along Lake Tahoe, from just south of Incline Village to just north of Zephyr Cove, and 37 miles along the shores of Pyramid Lake north of Reno, the nation’s only byway completely within a tribal reservation.