AASHTO Fall 2024 Meeting Minutes

[TheStranger]

IMO, the most important aspect of navigation is...

...making sure a route is signed at all.

Yes, this is what I have long believed. Routes are first and foremost for navigation. They should be signed. Period. The average motorist does not know and does not care that CA-2 is maintained by Santa Monica within the city limits. What they probably do care about is why it's not signed, especially if they are trying to navigate without GPS (which can still happen today, especially with older boomers like my parents). Concepts like relinquishment are perfectly fine, AS LONG AS the routes are signed. This is supposed to happen, but never does.

We might get to a point soon (not quite there yet) where Santa Monica Boulevard is better signed for Historic 66 than it has been for relinquished Route 2.

The historic 66 movement actually led to a lot more signing along the CA 66 road about 14 years ago, though I haven't been down Foothill since then to know if it's still well-signed between 210 and 215.

I often bringing up Historic US 40's extremely deep signage presence in Fairfield because it shows how much, putting up trailblazers really isn't the impossible/inconvenient action that other municipalities and CalTrans seems to act like it is.

After all, Route 77 - a very unimportant freeway spur in Oakland with ZERO mention on 880 or 185 - has better trailblazer signage than the aforementioned 221, which while short, is a valuable connector between Route 121 and 29/12 in Napa!

Also, GPS does mention the numbered routes often in their turn-by-turn guides - I witnessed this a few weeks ago going to Fremont, where despite the lack of 84 signs at the Thornton Avenue exit from 880, GPS still made sure to bring up the route number (which is still signed on Thornton as soon as you get off the freeway).

I'm actually okay with California's idea of not having concurrencies when they are clearly redundant. I used to not like it, but I realized it's actually not a bad idea. Since you can't be on CA-1 without being on US-101 at times, just signing the more important route makes sense. It's when you have actual equal-level concurrencies (say, CA-44 and CA-89), that you need concurrent signage. Especially when they ultimately go in different directions.

It goes both ways. I don't think states that sign every single state route to the point you'll have 5-6 concurrencies is necessary, but I can appreciate they are at least signed. Doing the extreme in the other direction isn't any more useful, either. (Looking at you, CA-190 which clearly goes across the Sierra but can't technically be signed because not state maintained).

I would be more okay with "California is ignoring one route on the pullthrough overhead" as long as there are trailblazers.  Kinda like the whole 95 on 128 thing in suburban Boston.

The poor signing for Route 1 around Rice Avenue in Oxnard and on US 101 to Ventura is on the other hand, way more egregious.  If it's going to be this way, why have the southern Route 1 be connected to the rest of the route at all, especially when it previously was completely separate as US 101A and before that, 1934 Route 3?

the "TO 99" thing in Sacramento is not my favorite either, because it isn't like 99 is a "scenic alternate" to ignore the way that 1 kinda serves from Oxnard to SLO.  99 is arguably the more important freeway in the Central Valley than 5!

[Voyager]

Heh, now I'm reminded of when I proposed Sequoia National Forest Route 190 on one of these Fictional threads for Sherman Pass Road. 

The thing that gets me with CA 190 is that got built all the way to Horseshoe Meadows (over 10,000 feet).  That super cool road was relinquished in favor of an expressway alignment that never got built through the Kern River Fault.

I can't imagine that being worth keeping open even for a few months of the year, and then it would have to dip down into the Kern Canyon Fault and then go right back up the Kaweah Range.

[Max Rockatansky]

Heh, now I'm reminded of when I proposed Sequoia National Forest Route 190 on one of these Fictional threads for Sherman Pass Road. 

The thing that gets me with CA 190 is that got built all the way to Horseshoe Meadows (over 10,000 feet).  That super cool road was relinquished in favor of an expressway alignment that never got built through the Kern River Fault.

I can't imagine that being worth keeping open even for a few months of the year, and then it would have to dip down into the Kern Canyon Fault and then go right back up the Kaweah Range.

What is strange about 190 is that the gap was planned as state highway.  The unfinished gaps in 180 and 168 were planned to be filled with Forest Service roads.  It makes way more sense to have the Forest Service involved in keeping seasonal roads open in that part of the Sierra.

[Voyager]

Heh, now I'm reminded of when I proposed Sequoia National Forest Route 190 on one of these Fictional threads for Sherman Pass Road. 

The thing that gets me with CA 190 is that got built all the way to Horseshoe Meadows (over 10,000 feet).  That super cool road was relinquished in favor of an expressway alignment that never got built through the Kern River Fault.

I can't imagine that being worth keeping open even for a few months of the year, and then it would have to dip down into the Kern Canyon Fault and then go right back up the Kaweah Range.

What is strange about 190 is that the gap was planned as state highway.  The unfinished gaps in 180 and 168 were planned to be filled with Forest Service roads.  It makes way more sense to have the Forest Service involved in keeping seasonal roads open in that part of the Sierra.

I guess technically that's how 120 exists in YNP - the highway technically has a gap in it that is maintaned by the park, but its still signed I believe as the highway itself. Wonder if that's how 168 (although it seems like the Piute Pass Highway was a very short lived idea) and 190 would have existed. And then there's 203 through Minaret Summit that to this day I can't figure out where it would have connected on the west side (somewhere near Bass Lake?).