🛣 Headlines About California Highways – November 2019

[cahwyguy]

It's getting closer. Here are the headlines about California Highways for November 2019. I've gone through all of these for my site updates. All that's left if a catch-up review of AAroads, some mail from Max R (Tom), and adding some more memorial pictures.

As I wrote in the post: It's that time of the month again: time for sharing the collection of headlines about California highways from November. It's been an interesting and busy month, especially as I've been working on that highway pages. That's what the little ✔ means – because all month I've been going through these headlines for the pages, and the next post on the blog should be the page updates. This, of course, means I'm still working on the updates, so let's get the headlines out of the way so I can get back to work.

But first: It is Thanksgiving time, and I'd like to express my thanks for those who read and enjoy these posts, who comment on them, and who share information with me for my pages. This is truly a community effort – I'm not doing this to make money. You help make this a resource for the community.

There's lots of interesting stuff in here, so dig in, and as always, .... ready, set, discuss.

Headline Post: https://cahighways.org/wordpress/?p=15623

[Plutonic Panda]

Not as many anti highway articles this month. Must be my birthday present! I am glad the road to Idyllwild is back open. I will be interested to see if they modernized 243 at all.

I am not happy about CA 99 widening being defunded. Yes, we all knew SB-1 gave monies to mass transit and active transportation. It seems this project was promised money and then Newsom backed out. Newsom doesn't seem like he ha the slightest clue on what to do with the HSR situation. It will be very embarrassing if Texas has revenue service on their HSR before California can even decide the direction it wants to go with its system.

I would propose bringing this issue back to the voters. CA voters didn't approve a nearly 100 billion dollar train. Better yet CA voters should be asked to let China or Japan build our system and bypass many red tape laws to get it going.

Thanks a million for doing these lists. I always look forward to them.

[Max Rockatansky]

I highly doubt the widening of CA 99 in Tulare County will be held up very long.  Defunded doesn't mean "cancelled" and there is a strong push to six lane the entirety of the freeway between Bakersfield and Sacramento it seems.  I was more disappointed that the current project in Madera County didn't extend widening all the way to the Fresno County Line.

I missed out on 243 reopening by about a week which makes the fact I lost the bulk of my pictures years ago even worse.  243 was listed as being open for about 7 miles south of I-10 which turned out to be open to locals only.   It would have been nice to have a "panoramic" portion of the Panoramic Highway in the blog on Gribblenation. 

Really CA 1 in Big Sur is no problem if one uses the southbound route out of Carmel...or on a weekday.  Overwhelmingly the tourists try to take CA 1 north out of Cambria to avoid riding the cliff face.  I couldn't fathom using public transportation in Big Sur, to me you go there for the sake of driving and not being shuttled like it's summer in Yosemite.  The charging stations kind of would blight the feel of being alone in a really remote coastal mountain range.  I guess there always is the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road.

I mentioned this in the California thread but I wonder what happened to the embossed US 66 shield that used to be on the Roy's Sign.  It was clearly replaced recently with a cheaper looking replica during the recent relighting.

At any length I'd say CA 229 and CA 266 easily beat CA 139 in terms of being "quiet."  I can think of numerous State Highways over 10 miles in general that have segments that are more quiet than CA 139...how about CA 155 for starters?

That swinging gate on I-5 near Castaic would have been really well during the summer peroxide spill.  Had I not noticed the cars backed up for miles I would have been stuck for a solid six hours...good thing I know how to get to San Francisquito Canyon Road.