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CA 9

Started by Max Rockatansky, June 14, 2018, 09:06:52 PM

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Max Rockatansky

Drove the full routing of CA 9 from CA 17 south to CA 1 in Santa Cruz today:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmhyamcN

I've always really liked 9 from CA 17 southward towards CA 236.  Up to Boulder Creek 9 is an absolute blast to drive with lots of curves and largely gentle grades.  I'm always surprised by how many people are really packed into Boulder Creek and Felton. 


nexus73

Such a beautiful countryside!  Back in 2013 I sure enjoyed the drive along 35 to 1, then south to Monterey.  Now I know there is even more to see in that neck of the (most literally!) woods thanks to you.  Hope I am around long enough to make it down that way again!

Rick
US 101 is THE backbone of the Pacific coast from Bandon OR to Willits CA.  Industry, tourism and local traffic would be gone or severely crippled without it being in functioning condition in BOTH states.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: nexus73 on June 14, 2018, 10:00:21 PM
Such a beautiful countryside!  Back in 2013 I sure enjoyed the drive along 35 to 1, then south to Monterey.  Now I know there is even more to see in that neck of the (most literally!) woods thanks to you.  Hope I am around long enough to make it down that way again!

Rick

Oddly I've found the route you described to be the best way to get to/from San Francisco.  I'd rather glide along Skyline and 9 over the Saratoga Gap than sitting around in grid lock down on I-280 or US 101.  There was actual a substantial number of commuters heading north on 9.  I suppose that could be the one of the best commutes ever if you have a good handling car or one from hell if you have a truck.

nexus73

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 14, 2018, 10:24:04 PM
Quote from: nexus73 on June 14, 2018, 10:00:21 PM
Such a beautiful countryside!  Back in 2013 I sure enjoyed the drive along 35 to 1, then south to Monterey.  Now I know there is even more to see in that neck of the (most literally!) woods thanks to you.  Hope I am around long enough to make it down that way again!

Rick

Oddly I've found the route you described to be the best way to get to/from San Francisco.  I'd rather glide along Skyline and 9 over the Saratoga Gap than sitting around in grid lock down on I-280 or US 101.  There was actual a substantial number of commuters heading north on 9.  I suppose that could be the one of the best commutes ever if you have a good handling car or one from hell if you have a truck.

Back routes beat freeway driving when going to PDX as well.  I always use 99E from Salem to the Rose City.  It has the usual expected traffic but it is not jammed up like I-5.

Rick
US 101 is THE backbone of the Pacific coast from Bandon OR to Willits CA.  Industry, tourism and local traffic would be gone or severely crippled without it being in functioning condition in BOTH states.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: nexus73 on June 15, 2018, 07:57:44 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 14, 2018, 10:24:04 PM
Quote from: nexus73 on June 14, 2018, 10:00:21 PM
Such a beautiful countryside!  Back in 2013 I sure enjoyed the drive along 35 to 1, then south to Monterey.  Now I know there is even more to see in that neck of the (most literally!) woods thanks to you.  Hope I am around long enough to make it down that way again!

Rick

Oddly I've found the route you described to be the best way to get to/from San Francisco.  I'd rather glide along Skyline and 9 over the Saratoga Gap than sitting around in grid lock down on I-280 or US 101.  There was actual a substantial number of commuters heading north on 9.  I suppose that could be the one of the best commutes ever if you have a good handling car or one from hell if you have a truck.

Back routes beat freeway driving when going to PDX as well.  I always use 99E from Salem to the Rose City.  It has the usual expected traffic but it is not jammed up like I-5.

Rick

Oddly I was finding 99 up in the Seattle Area flowed infinitely better than I-5 or I-405 in rush hour.  That's pretty a pretty sad that a mostly surface level roadway is a better option for a limited access roadway.  I've often wondered if I would get similar result with using the El Camino Real on CA 82.

myosh_tino

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 15, 2018, 10:04:51 PM
I've often wondered if I would get similar result with using the El Camino Real on CA 82.

That's an interesting question.

While US 101 is jammed during the morning and evening commutes, El Camino Real has a ton of signal lights, (some coordinated, some not) and a few HAWK signals that can gum up the drive up and down the peninsula.
Quote from: golden eagle
If I owned a dam and decided to donate it to charity, would I be giving a dam? I'm sure that might be a first because no one really gives a dam.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: myosh_tino on June 16, 2018, 01:45:14 AM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 15, 2018, 10:04:51 PM
I've often wondered if I would get similar result with using the El Camino Real on CA 82.

That's an interesting question.

While US 101 is jammed during the morning and evening commutes, El Camino Real has a ton of signal lights, (some coordinated, some not) and a few HAWK signals that can gum up the drive up and down the peninsula.

Yeah, that would be hugely problematic towards reducing traffic flow especially when pedestrian traffic levels are high.  The thing that I liked about 99 north of Seattle was that almost all the lights were timed and there was an exclusive lane for buses.  I was really surprised at how well the roadway kept flowing all the way into downtown.  The tricky thing is that configuration is generally not the best for pedestrian traffic and there was a couple over pass points in some obvious areas that were problems. 

Either way it poses an interesting question as to what route is the best in terms of getting from San Jose to San Francisco or vice versa during rush hour. 

djsekani

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 16, 2018, 11:06:45 AM
Either way it poses an interesting question as to what route is the best in terms of getting from San Jose to San Francisco or vice versa during rush hour.

Whichever route is not being suggested by Waze.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: djsekani on June 16, 2018, 05:17:37 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 16, 2018, 11:06:45 AM
Either way it poses an interesting question as to what route is the best in terms of getting from San Jose to San Francisco or vice versa during rush hour.

Whichever route is not being suggested by Waze.

Anything notable that the app might suggest in the Bay Area?  I've heard it causes quite the ruckus on some surface streets in the Los Angeles Metro Area. 

myosh_tino

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 16, 2018, 05:34:17 PM
Anything notable that the app might suggest in the Bay Area?  I've heard it causes quite the ruckus on some surface streets in the Los Angeles Metro Area.

There are documented cases in the S.F. Bay Area where Waze has been blamed for routing traffic onto small residential side streets.  One is in Fremont where commuters on I-680 north are routed off the freeway by Waze onto local side streets.  Complaints from residents have resulted in the city of Fremont restricting certain turns during the evening commute to force the apps to keep commuters on the freeway.

The other documented case is in the town of Los Gatos where Waze often directs weekend beach-bound traffic off of Hwy 17 onto residential side streets.  Hwy 17 is often congested as early as 8 AM on the weekends during the summer months with people trying to escape the heat by heading to the coast.  Los Gatos' response has been to ban all right-turns off northbound Hwy 9 except at Santa Cruz Ave.  This year, Caltrans began posting "Santa Cruz Traffic use Hwy 17" on VMSes.
Quote from: golden eagle
If I owned a dam and decided to donate it to charity, would I be giving a dam? I'm sure that might be a first because no one really gives a dam.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: myosh_tino on June 16, 2018, 07:04:15 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 16, 2018, 05:34:17 PM
Anything notable that the app might suggest in the Bay Area?  I've heard it causes quite the ruckus on some surface streets in the Los Angeles Metro Area.

There are documented cases in the S.F. Bay Area where Waze has been blamed for routing traffic onto small residential side streets.  One is in Fremont where commuters on I-680 north are routed off the freeway by Waze onto local side streets.  Complaints from residents have resulted in the city of Fremont restricting certain turns during the evening commute to force the apps to keep commuters on the freeway.

The other documented case is in the town of Los Gatos where Waze often directs weekend beach-bound traffic off of Hwy 17 onto residential side streets.  Hwy 17 is often congested as early as 8 AM on the weekends during the summer months with people trying to escape the heat by heading to the coast.  Los Gatos' response has been to ban all right-turns off northbound Hwy 9 except at Santa Cruz Ave.  This year, Caltrans began posting "Santa Cruz Traffic use Hwy 17" on VMSes.

Kind of amusing everyone and their dog always has the same weekend plans.  How bad does 9 get that drivers aren't even considering that an alternate over 17?  I would assume a lot of that Waze traffic is trying to bypass a lot of 9 on Bear Creek?

myosh_tino

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 16, 2018, 07:23:27 PM
Quote from: myosh_tino on June 16, 2018, 07:04:15 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 16, 2018, 05:34:17 PM
Anything notable that the app might suggest in the Bay Area?  I've heard it causes quite the ruckus on some surface streets in the Los Angeles Metro Area.

There are documented cases in the S.F. Bay Area where Waze has been blamed for routing traffic onto small residential side streets.  One is in Fremont where commuters on I-680 north are routed off the freeway by Waze onto local side streets.  Complaints from residents have resulted in the city of Fremont restricting certain turns during the evening commute to force the apps to keep commuters on the freeway.

The other documented case is in the town of Los Gatos where Waze often directs weekend beach-bound traffic off of Hwy 17 onto residential side streets.  Hwy 17 is often congested as early as 8 AM on the weekends during the summer months with people trying to escape the heat by heading to the coast.  Los Gatos' response has been to ban all right-turns off northbound Hwy 9 except at Santa Cruz Ave.  This year, Caltrans began posting "Santa Cruz Traffic use Hwy 17" on VMSes.

Kind of amusing everyone and their dog always has the same weekend plans.  How bad does 9 get that drivers aren't even considering that an alternate over 17?  I would assume a lot of that Waze traffic is trying to bypass a lot of 9 on Bear Creek?

Hwy 9 isn't much of an alternative unless 17 is closed due to a wreck or a mudslide/landslide.

The summer backups on 17 are pretty much confined to the segment between the Camden Ave/San Tomas Expwy and Hwy 9.  Hwy 17 goes from 3 lanes down to 2 just past Lark Ave and combine that with the additional traffic merging from 85 and you get a pretty jammed roadway on the weekends.
Quote from: golden eagle
If I owned a dam and decided to donate it to charity, would I be giving a dam? I'm sure that might be a first because no one really gives a dam.

sparker

Between CA 82 and US 101 there are options, the number of which tend to decrease the farther north one travels.  South of the Palo Alto/Mountain View line, there's Central Expressway, a number of successive routes on the south side of the Caltrain tracks (a few turns, but pretty intuitive) -- the housing side (the tracks more or less delineate the employment zone from that dominated by housing and services).  From Palo Alto on north, the default through street is Middlefield, which one can take as far north as Redwood City.  North from there, a few jogs here and there will keep you on course until about San Bruno, where the available corridors once again fan out to head into S.F. 

Nevertheless, keep in mind that the fact that I know about these routes indicates that thousands of other drivers also do -- don't expect rush-hour miracles.  The saving grace is that there often are long stretches of arterial without much in the way of signals or heavy crossing traffic, so while the overall time savings may not be that much, the aggravation factor is often quite a bit less. 

TheStranger

Quote from: sparker on June 17, 2018, 12:04:19 AM
Between CA 82 and US 101 there are options, the number of which tend to decrease the farther north one travels.  South of the Palo Alto/Mountain View line, there's Central Expressway, a number of successive routes on the south side of the Caltrain tracks (a few turns, but pretty intuitive) -- the housing side (the tracks more or less delineate the employment zone from that dominated by housing and services).  From Palo Alto on north, the default through street is Middlefield, which one can take as far north as Redwood City.  North from there, a few jogs here and there will keep you on course until about San Bruno, where the available corridors once again fan out to head into S.F. 

Thinking aloud (as a northern San Mateo County resident), past 380 the general north-south corridors one has are as follows:

- US 101/Bayshore Freeway
- Airport Boulevard/Bayshore Boulevard (historic ALT US 101)
- Route 82/El Camino Real (historic US 101)
- Junipero Serra Boulevard (former Route 117)
- 280
- Skyline Boulevard/Route 35
- Route 1 depending on where your starting point is

All of the above corridors do head into SF in some form, though Route 1 piggybacks off of 280 and then the northern part of the Junipero Serra Freeway and Boulevard before splitting onto its long 19th Avenue run.


There's one L-shaped arterial (Hillside Boulevard) that connects US 101 via Sister Cities Boulevard/Oyster Point exit with Daly City, though it stops being a through road at East Market Street and becomes residential for the last 2 miles to a junction with Mission Street/Route 82 and John Daly Boulevard.
Chris Sampang

sparker

Quote from: TheStranger on June 17, 2018, 08:43:15 PM
Quote from: sparker on June 17, 2018, 12:04:19 AM
Between CA 82 and US 101 there are options, the number of which tend to decrease the farther north one travels.  South of the Palo Alto/Mountain View line, there's Central Expressway, a number of successive routes on the south side of the Caltrain tracks (a few turns, but pretty intuitive) -- the housing side (the tracks more or less delineate the employment zone from that dominated by housing and services).  From Palo Alto on north, the default through street is Middlefield, which one can take as far north as Redwood City.  North from there, a few jogs here and there will keep you on course until about San Bruno, where the available corridors once again fan out to head into S.F. 

Thinking aloud (as a northern San Mateo County resident), past 380 the general north-south corridors one has are as follows:

- US 101/Bayshore Freeway
- Airport Boulevard/Bayshore Boulevard (historic ALT US 101)
- Route 82/El Camino Real (historic US 101)
- Junipero Serra Boulevard (former Route 117)
- 280
- Skyline Boulevard/Route 35
- Route 1 depending on where your starting point is

All of the above corridors do head into SF in some form, though Route 1 piggybacks off of 280 and then the northern part of the Junipero Serra Freeway and Boulevard before splitting onto its long 19th Avenue run.


There's one L-shaped arterial (Hillside Boulevard) that connects US 101 via Sister Cities Boulevard/Oyster Point exit with Daly City, though it stops being a through road at East Market Street and becomes residential for the last 2 miles to a junction with Mission Street/Route 82 and John Daly Boulevard.


I've generally preferred (Old) Bayshore Highway through the edge of Brisbane when avoiding freeway traffic toward the City.  Many of the others head right through the commercial heart of Daly City and are a bit of a slog due to the sheer number of signalized intersections.  At least via Bayshore the signals tend to come in clusters, with free travel in between.  Also, one can access South 3rd Street in S.F., which is a relatively quick way to get to where I'm usually going (the North Beach area).  But -- just like anywhere in the area, one shouldn't expect miracles -- the goal is to keep from being overly aggravated while making the trip!

TheStranger

Quote from: sparker on June 18, 2018, 02:44:23 PM


I've generally preferred (Old) Bayshore Highway through the edge of Brisbane when avoiding freeway traffic toward the City.  Many of the others head right through the commercial heart of Daly City and are a bit of a slog due to the sheer number of signalized intersections.  At least via Bayshore the signals tend to come in clusters, with free travel in between.  Also, one can access South 3rd Street in S.F., which is a relatively quick way to get to where I'm usually going (the North Beach area).  But -- just like anywhere in the area, one shouldn't expect miracles -- the goal is to keep from being overly aggravated while making the trip!

Skyline/Route 35 isn't too bad north of 1 in Daly City, it's essentially an expressway-level road all the way into SF and up to Sloat Boulevard.  50 MPH speed limit and only 3 stoplights total between Route 1 and the SF border (Westmoor Avenue, Westline Drive, John Daly Boulevard/former Route 1), and then only 2 stoplights to Sloat (John Muir Drive, Lake Merced Boulevard).

When traffic gets heavy on the 19th Avenue segment of Route 1, Skyline combined with Great Highway, Geary Boulevard, and 25th Avenue provides a decent alternate to the Golden Gate Bridge, more scenic than fast, but certainly free-flowing for the majority of its length.

It's pretty indirect though for heading downtown or North Beach, I can definitely see that.
Chris Sampang

kkt

San Jose to San Francisco during rush hour.  There's no good choices.  I guess Central Expressway/Alma Road to Middlefield Road and then up to Skyline, although you might do as well just going up I-280.

sparker

Quote from: kkt on June 18, 2018, 04:43:16 PM
San Jose to San Francisco during rush hour.  There's no good choices.  I guess Central Expressway/Alma Road to Middlefield Road and then up to Skyline, although you might do as well just going up I-280.


As I've said, the goal of this exercise is to reduce driver aggravation, although the total travel times may not vary significantly from an all-freeway route.  West of El Camino Real, the N-S through streets are few and far between until over very close to I-280 (and difficult to traverse in San Mateo and Hillsborough).  I was attempting to stick to routes between El Camino/CA 82 and the US 101 freeway; while a bit more commercial than to the west, one can cover a decent amount of ground through Burlingame and Millbrae with only sporadic cross-traffic (hint: stay within sight of the Caltrain RR line!). 

Max Rockatansky

The odd original routing of 9 sure had a lot of twists with LRN history.  LRN 42 and 44 are particularly intriguing since they date so far back into the state highway system.  The closest I could track CA 9 shifting off of LRN 42/44 was some time between 1944 to 1956, does anyone have a more narrow window?

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/06/california-state-route-9.html

DTComposer

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 21, 2018, 06:03:07 PM
The odd original routing of 9 sure had a lot of twists with LRN history.  LRN 42 and 44 are particularly intriguing since they date so far back into the state highway system.  The closest I could track CA 9 shifting off of LRN 42/44 was some time between 1944 to 1956, does anyone have a more narrow window?

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/06/california-state-route-9.html

This 1942 topo shows CA-9 already off LRN 42/44 (i.e., current CA-236):

http://servlet1.lib.berkeley.edu:8080/mapviewer/searchcoll.execute.logic?coll=histopomon&map=CA_benlomond_62k_1942.sid

So I think the 1944 Thomas Bros. map you link to on your blog might just not have been updated yet?

(by the way, in that section of your blog you refer to LRN 55, when I think you mean LRN 116)

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: DTComposer on June 21, 2018, 06:54:33 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 21, 2018, 06:03:07 PM
The odd original routing of 9 sure had a lot of twists with LRN history.  LRN 42 and 44 are particularly intriguing since they date so far back into the state highway system.  The closest I could track CA 9 shifting off of LRN 42/44 was some time between 1944 to 1956, does anyone have a more narrow window?

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/06/california-state-route-9.html

This 1942 topo shows CA-9 already off LRN 42/44 (i.e., current CA-236):

http://servlet1.lib.berkeley.edu:8080/mapviewer/searchcoll.execute.logic?coll=histopomon&map=CA_benlomond_62k_1942.sid

So I think the 1944 Thomas Bros. map you link to on your blog might just not have been updated yet?

(by the way, in that section of your blog you refer to LRN 55, when I think you mean LRN 116)

You're correct, I was reading the maps too literally and should have caught the obvious error with LRN 55 since it was over on Skyline.  I added that Topo Map you linked over to the blog and fixed the errors.  That's interesting that a map from 1942 shows 9 on LRN 116.  Do you happen to have any maps that show LRN 42/44 as the alignment of CA 9? 

DTComposer

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 21, 2018, 07:21:32 PM
Quote from: DTComposer on June 21, 2018, 06:54:33 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 21, 2018, 06:03:07 PM
The odd original routing of 9 sure had a lot of twists with LRN history.  LRN 42 and 44 are particularly intriguing since they date so far back into the state highway system.  The closest I could track CA 9 shifting off of LRN 42/44 was some time between 1944 to 1956, does anyone have a more narrow window?

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/06/california-state-route-9.html

This 1942 topo shows CA-9 already off LRN 42/44 (i.e., current CA-236):

http://servlet1.lib.berkeley.edu:8080/mapviewer/searchcoll.execute.logic?coll=histopomon&map=CA_benlomond_62k_1942.sid

So I think the 1944 Thomas Bros. map you link to on your blog might just not have been updated yet?

(by the way, in that section of your blog you refer to LRN 55, when I think you mean LRN 116)

You're correct, I was reading the maps too literally and should have caught the obvious error with LRN 55 since it was over on Skyline.  I added that Topo Map you linked over to the blog and fixed the errors.  That's interesting that a map from 1942 shows 9 on LRN 116.  Do you happen to have any maps that show LRN 42/44 as the alignment of CA 9? 

So far the only references I could find were the CA Highways and Public Works article that first mentions the state sign routes and defines 9 as "Santa Cruz to Milpitas, via Redwood Park" - which would imply LRN 42/44:

http://archive.org/stream/californiahighwa193436calirich#page/n287/mode/2up

And the map a few pages earlier, which is inconclusive because of lack of scale/detail but could make the argument that 9 did go on the LRN 42/44 alignment:

http://archive.org/stream/californiahighwa193436calirich#page/n275/mode/2up

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: DTComposer on June 21, 2018, 08:16:51 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 21, 2018, 07:21:32 PM
Quote from: DTComposer on June 21, 2018, 06:54:33 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 21, 2018, 06:03:07 PM
The odd original routing of 9 sure had a lot of twists with LRN history.  LRN 42 and 44 are particularly intriguing since they date so far back into the state highway system.  The closest I could track CA 9 shifting off of LRN 42/44 was some time between 1944 to 1956, does anyone have a more narrow window?

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/06/california-state-route-9.html

This 1942 topo shows CA-9 already off LRN 42/44 (i.e., current CA-236):

http://servlet1.lib.berkeley.edu:8080/mapviewer/searchcoll.execute.logic?coll=histopomon&map=CA_benlomond_62k_1942.sid

So I think the 1944 Thomas Bros. map you link to on your blog might just not have been updated yet?

(by the way, in that section of your blog you refer to LRN 55, when I think you mean LRN 116)

You're correct, I was reading the maps too literally and should have caught the obvious error with LRN 55 since it was over on Skyline.  I added that Topo Map you linked over to the blog and fixed the errors.  That's interesting that a map from 1942 shows 9 on LRN 116.  Do you happen to have any maps that show LRN 42/44 as the alignment of CA 9? 

So far the only references I could find were the CA Highways and Public Works article that first mentions the state sign routes and defines 9 as "Santa Cruz to Milpitas, via Redwood Park" - which would imply LRN 42/44:

http://archive.org/stream/californiahighwa193436calirich#page/n287/mode/2up

And the map a few pages earlier, which is inconclusive because of lack of scale/detail but could make the argument that 9 did go on the LRN 42/44 alignment:

http://archive.org/stream/californiahighwa193436calirich#page/n275/mode/2up

My speculative guess would be that LRN 42/44 was a necessary short-term routing for CA 9 given that LRN 116 was adopted in 1933.  Both LRN 42 and 44 would have been well established by the time 1934 rolled around for the Signed Highways, they both appear on the 1918 state highway map:

https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239613~5511905:Road-Map-of-the-State-of-California?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=83&trs=86

Given that the one page says "Redwood Park" specifically though I would say that is solid evidence for 9 being on LRN 42/44.  If I remember correctly Big Basin was called "California Redwood Park" in it's early existence.

Max Rockatansky

I made some updates the existing CA 9 article based off the research updates I did regarding CA 236 yesterday.  Essentially the biggest change in the article (besides better graphical fidelity) is narrowing down CA 9 moving off Big Basin Highway (Legislative Routes 42 and 44) onto Legislative Route 116 from Waterman Gap to Boulder Creek sometime between 1937-1940:

https://www.gribblenation.org/2018/06/california-state-route-9.html



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