Former US Route 99, US 99W, and US 99W in Red Bluff

[Max Rockatansky]

I recently visited Red Bluff which gave me a chance to check out former US Route 99 and the US 99W/US 99E split.  Interestingly US 99 through Red Bluff was once entirely aligned on Main Street and was not a split route.  US 99W/US 99E from Red Bluff south to Sacramento was approved by the AASHO on August 6th, 1928.  The argument to justify the split US 99 alignment between Red Bluff and Sacramento was that Legislative Route 3 on the east bank of the Sacramento River had double the traffic of US 99 on the west bank on Legislative Route 7.  US 99 split into US 99W/US 99E at the intersection of Main Street and Antelope Boulevard in downtown Red Bluff.

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/10/former-us-route-99-in-red-bluff-us.html

[nexus73]

99E/99W on the southern end in Oregon met in Junction City.  This was on the north end of town.  A restaurant called Junction House was there until it burned down.  There were a few miles of the original concrete north of Junction City on 99W that lasted until the late 20th century.  It was paved with asphalt and widened a bit, which erased a blast from the past.

The north end of 99E in PDX still features the original expressway with a couple of interchanges as I recall.  It looks like something built in the early postwar era. 

Rick

[sparker]

I recently visited Red Bluff which gave me a chance to check out former US Route 99 and the US 99W/US 99E split.  Interestingly US 99 through Red Bluff was once entirely aligned on Main Street and was not a split route.  US 99W/US 99E from Red Bluff south to Sacramento was approved by the AASHO on August 6th, 1928.  The argument to justify the split US 99 alignment between Red Bluff and Sacramento was that Legislative Route 3 on the east bank of the Sacramento River had double the traffic of US 99 on the west bank on Legislative Route 7.  US 99 split into US 99W/US 99E at the intersection of Main Street and Antelope Boulevard in downtown Red Bluff.

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/10/former-us-route-99-in-red-bluff-us.html

The fact that LRN 3 (99E) had considerably more traffic than LRN 7 (original 99, then 99W) back in 1928 reflected the level of local/commercial and agricultural traffic centered around the fruit-producing centers of Chico and Marysville/Yuba City relative to through CA-OR traffic, which didn't reach "critical mass" until a decade or so later; when that happened, traffic from Sacramento and the Bay Area, which tended to use the more direct 99W (which also had fewer slogs through the larger town centers that typified 99E) started to exceed that of the eastern branch.  That being said, traffic on 99E south of Chico was always equal to or greater than the average 99W traffic (except from Davis to Woodland); but it significantly diminished (and still does!) between Chico and Red Bluff, something that became more pronounced after I-5 was completed in the Valley.