The disagreement here is whether Ely counts as a "major population center" in the sense that it will induce the main E/W route to 'trunk'. In my opinion, maybe, but probably not. We're talking about upgrading 400+ miles of highway to 'trunk' on account of one town with less than 4,000 people. This is a super duper edge case with respect to the trunk definition given in the 2021 Highway Classification wiki page, which has had a considerable amount of voices in developing.

I'm not 100% opposed to this being upgraded, but the discussion needs to happen first and with more voices than just you and I, given the "edgeness" of it. Until that happens, yes, I am insisting that this keeps the same classification it has had for the last 12 years.