CA 116

[Max Rockatansky]

This past November I drove a CA 116 from Cotati east to CA 121 near Schellville.  CA 116 was a renumbering of Legislative Route 104 during the 1964 renumbering.  Before the 1964 renumbering the only part of LRN 104 with a Sign State Route was CA 12 from Sebastopol west to CA 1 in Jenner.  LRN 104 in turn was adopted in 1933 as one of the numerous highways added to the State Inventory during said year.

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/01/california-state-route-116.html

[sparker]

It seems that the 1964 decision to replace CA 12 from Jenner to Sebastopol with the CA 116 decision was because the Bodega Bay-Sebastopol route -- part of the freeway & expressway system additions -- as a LRN 51 western extension dating from the system's original 1959 iteration -- was considered to be the more direct and favorable route to reach the coast -- as well as serving Bodega Bay, considered to be a more popular tourist destination than Guerneville or Jenner.  The avoidance of a 12/116 "bump" at Sebastopol was a prime consideration as well, along with the periodic flooding of then-LRN 104 through the Guerneville-Monte Rio area along the lower Russian River canyon.  So the renumbering took place and CA 12 signage terminated at CA 116 as it does today -- but plans were afoot to bring the county road, which intersected CA 1 near the small community of Bodega, into the state system in short order.  But residents in the western part of Sebastopol voiced objections to the state assuming maintenance and signing the road because of the potential for increased traffic through their neighborhoods, preferring (at the time) a realignment to the south.   The DOH didn't demur to that request, and Sonoma County elected to not cede the existing route to the state.  That situation, dating from around 1970, has never been resolved, and CA 12 continues to terminate in Sebastopol as a result -- and the present Caltrans policy of avoiding the assumption of maintenance on surface roads -- even in rural areas -- has made such a resolution moot.