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Discontinuous California Routes.... and the plan to never complete them

Started by ZLoth, September 15, 2016, 08:22:28 AM

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ZLoth

Here is my gripe.... why does CalTrans have discontinuous routes/split with no obvious near or far future plans to complete them. A few examples:

  • California Route 65 - We have the northern half from Roseville to Marysville. We have the southern half from Exeter to Bakersfield. What's in between will NEVER be completed, especially since we have California Route 99 and Interstate 5 fulfilling the needs.[/*]
  • California Route 84 - The northern half is barely marked as it is, and runs from Sacramento to Rio Vista. We have the southern half running from San Gregorio State Beach to Livermore. The chances of closing the gaps? None.[/*]
  • California Route 160 - Thanks to the relinquishing of the route through downtown Sacramento, we have a small piece north of Sacramento, and the rest in South Sacramento.[/*]
Why doesn't CalTrans give it up, and just give these routes two new numbers?
I'm an Engineer. That means I solve problems. Not problems like "What is beauty?", because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems and call them "paychecks".


Max Rockatansky

Probably the biggest issue is that the numbers are legislatively based meaning that Caltrans really can't do anything on their own to change them.  It seems simple enough to change up but everything becomes a wriggamoral once it ends up in the hands of a legislature to change.  Some other notables that we've discussed a lot on this board recently are; 178, 190, 168, 39, and 146.  At least with 190 there is an implied connection in kind of a round about way with Mountain Routes 90, 50, and 99 along with Sherman Pass Road in addition to J41.  146 serves two sides of the same National Park so basically all that conversation was just conjecture about finding a path between the two.   178 won't ever be finished due to the nasty terrain in the Panamint Range in addition to the expansion of Death Valley in to a National Park.  168 never seems to have had an adopted route across the Sierras between it's two segments.  And 39....well that's just 39.  Since we're talking about gapped routes I'll add in 173 which was the only dirt highway in the state catalog until that segment was abandoned.

I'm surprised there was no mention of 16 being gapped also.

Quillz

190 is the only one that can realistically be connected, via Sherman Pass. 178 might be  possible as some roads do cross into Death Valley. None of the others will be completed.

oscar

Quote from: ZLoth on September 15, 2016, 08:22:28 AM
  • California Route 160 - Thanks to the relinquishing of the route through downtown Sacramento, we have a small piece north of Sacramento, and the rest in South Sacramento.[/*]
Is there any continuation signage in the relinquished segment, to link the two segments that are still Caltrans-maintained? That's been done with other routes, such as 1 in Santa Monica and a few other places to the south, to maintain a semblance of a continuous route.

Another example of a discontinuous route is 54, with a never-built segment in the middle with an implied connection over a county road, plus a relinquished segment within El Cajon city limits. (That relinquishment, unusually, does not require the city or Caltrans to pretend that 54 still exists within city limits. An End 54 sign at the southern city limits officializes the truncation.)
my Hot Springs and Highways pages, with links to my roads sites:
http://www.alaskaroads.com/home.html

Avalanchez71

Fritz Owl would just advise that these should not be CA state routes but become interstate routes and roll on through the parks and monuments.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: Quillz on September 15, 2016, 01:46:25 PM
190 is the only one that can realistically be connected, via Sherman Pass. 178 might be  possible as some roads do cross into Death Valley. None of the others will be completed.

178 would be a simple fix on Trona Road.   Swap maintenance with Inyo County on the eastern 178 and then at minimum there would be a complete route to 190.  Badwater really ought to be the wonky county maintained route given how much it gets washed out in Death Valley National Park anyways.

TheStranger

Quote from: oscar on September 15, 2016, 02:11:56 PM
Quote from: ZLoth on September 15, 2016, 08:22:28 AM
  • California Route 160 - Thanks to the relinquishing of the route through downtown Sacramento, we have a small piece north of Sacramento, and the rest in South Sacramento.[/*]
Is there any continuation signage in the relinquished segment, to link the two segments that are still Caltrans-maintained? That's been done with other routes, such as 1 in Santa Monica and a few other places to the south, to maintain a semblance of a continuous route.

No signage linking the two segments at all now, probably because I-5 between Richards Boulevard and Cosumnes River Boulevard has become the predominant north-south through route between the American River south shore and Freeport.

Quote from: oscar on September 15, 2016, 02:11:56 PM
Another example of a discontinuous route is 54, with a never-built segment in the middle with an implied connection over a county road, plus a relinquished segment within El Cajon city limits. (That relinquishment, unusually, does not require the city or Caltrans to pretend that 54 still exists within city limits. An End 54 sign at the southern city limits officializes the truncation.)

Wasn't the middle section signed as Route 54 at one time (unlike the Route 39 gap north of Whittier and south of Azusa)?
Chris Sampang

emory

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 15, 2016, 08:42:25 AM
And 39....well that's just 39.

The 39 gap is now closed and defined. It's up to Caltrans to sign the road.

Quote339.  Route 39 is from:
   (a) Route 1 near Huntington Beach to the southern city limit of
Buena Park.
   (b) Route 5 in Buena Park to Route 72 in La Habra via Beach
Boulevard.
   (c) Beach Boulevard to Harbor Boulevard in La Habra via Whittier
Boulevard.
   (d) Whittier Boulevard in La Habra to Route 2 via Harbor Boulevard
to the vicinity of Fullerton Road, then to Azusa Avenue, Azusa
Avenue to San Gabriel Canyon Road, San Gabriel Avenue southbound
between Azusa Avenue and San Gabriel Canyon Road, and San Gabriel
Canyon Road, other than the portion of the segment described by this
subdivision that is within the city limits of Azusa, Covina, and West
Covina.

But as you can see, local relinquishments have created NEW gaps!

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: emory on September 15, 2016, 04:44:27 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 15, 2016, 08:42:25 AM
And 39....well that's just 39.

The 39 gap is now closed and defined. It's up to Caltrans to sign the road.

Quote339.  Route 39 is from:
   (a) Route 1 near Huntington Beach to the southern city limit of
Buena Park.
   (b) Route 5 in Buena Park to Route 72 in La Habra via Beach
Boulevard.
   (c) Beach Boulevard to Harbor Boulevard in La Habra via Whittier
Boulevard.
   (d) Whittier Boulevard in La Habra to Route 2 via Harbor Boulevard
to the vicinity of Fullerton Road, then to Azusa Avenue, Azusa
Avenue to San Gabriel Canyon Road, San Gabriel Avenue southbound
between Azusa Avenue and San Gabriel Canyon Road, and San Gabriel
Canyon Road, other than the portion of the segment described by this
subdivision that is within the city limits of Azusa, Covina, and West
Covina.

But as you can see, local relinquishments have created NEW gaps!

Yet up in the mountains it still remains in the field...except not since it will likely never be fixed.

Occidental Tourist

Quote from: emory on September 15, 2016, 04:44:27 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 15, 2016, 08:42:25 AM
And 39....well that's just 39.

The 39 gap is now closed and defined. It's up to Caltrans to sign the road.

Quote339.  Route 39 is from:
   (a) Route 1 near Huntington Beach to the southern city limit of
Buena Park.
   (b) Route 5 in Buena Park to Route 72 in La Habra via Beach
Boulevard.
   (c) Beach Boulevard to Harbor Boulevard in La Habra via Whittier
Boulevard.
   (d) Whittier Boulevard in La Habra to Route 2 via Harbor Boulevard
to the vicinity of Fullerton Road, then to Azusa Avenue, Azusa
Avenue to San Gabriel Canyon Road, San Gabriel Avenue southbound
between Azusa Avenue and San Gabriel Canyon Road, and San Gabriel
Canyon Road, other than the portion of the segment described by this
subdivision that is within the city limits of Azusa, Covina, and West
Covina.

But as you can see, local relinquishments have created NEW gaps!

Quote
The relinquished former portions of Route 39 within the city
limits of Azusa, Buena Park, Covina, and West Covina are not state
highways and are not eligible for adoption under Section 81. For the
relinquished former portions of Route 39, the Cities of Azusa, Buena
Park, Covina, and West Covina shall maintain within their respective
jurisdictions signs directing motorists to the continuation of Route
39.

The giant gap in the San Gabriel Valley that's never coming back suggests that one of the remaining segments (and I'd nominate the northern segment through San Gabriel Canyon) be renumbered to something like Route 31 or Route 339.

Occidental Tourist

Down south, we have the discontinuous Route 90, which will only be connected if and when Caltrans identifies a route through about 20 miles of heavily urbanized and mostly residential area . . . so it will never be joined.

I've previously suggested that the eastern portion of Route 90 simply be renumbered as a continuation of Route 72.  But I've discovered an interesting wrinkle with that.  Because Route 72 was formerly Route 101, all of the post-mile markers increase in number from south to north.  Thus although Route 72 currently is mostly an east-west route across Whittier, the lower post-mile numbers are on the eastern end of the route (i.e., southern end of former Route 101) increasing as they go west.

In a traditional east-west highway routing, the post-mile numbers would go from west to east, as they currently do on the eastern portion of Route 90, i.e., the post-mile numbers are lower in La Habra than they are at the eastern terminus in Yorba Linda.

Marrying Route 72 to the eastern part of Route 90 would mean you'd have post-mile numbers increasing in both directions from where the routes were joined.  I don't know if this would be an insurmountable issue for Caltrans if the decision to fix the discontinuity of Route 90 was addressed this way.

emory

Quote from: Occidental Tourist on September 15, 2016, 05:12:34 PM
The giant gap in the San Gabriel Valley that's never coming back suggests that one of the remaining segments (and I'd nominate the northern segment through San Gabriel Canyon) be renumbered to something like Route 31 or Route 339.

If they were to renumber the northern segment, they shouldn't even bother to sign it since it's a road to nowhere. Just end CA 39 at Badillo Street north of I-10 and call it a day.

oscar

Quote from: emory on September 15, 2016, 04:44:27 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 15, 2016, 08:42:25 AM
And 39....well that's just 39.

The 39 gap is now closed and defined. It's up to Caltrans to sign the road.

Quote339.  Route 39 is from:
   (a) Route 1 near Huntington Beach to the southern city limit of
Buena Park.
   (b) Route 5 in Buena Park to Route 72 in La Habra via Beach
Boulevard.
   (c) Beach Boulevard to Harbor Boulevard in La Habra via Whittier
Boulevard.
   (d) Whittier Boulevard in La Habra to Route 2 via Harbor Boulevard
to the vicinity of Fullerton Road, then to Azusa Avenue, Azusa
Avenue to San Gabriel Canyon Road, San Gabriel Avenue southbound
between Azusa Avenue and San Gabriel Canyon Road, and San Gabriel
Canyon Road, other than the portion of the segment described by this
subdivision that is within the city limits of Azusa, Covina, and West
Covina.

Except the segment between La Habra and I-10 is still a gap, not legislatively but rather that the new road 39 was to follow was never built. The parallel existing road filling that gap is still, and signed only as, a county road. An End 39 sign in La Habra (which I photographed in 2014) confirms that the gap remains:

my Hot Springs and Highways pages, with links to my roads sites:
http://www.alaskaroads.com/home.html

The Ghostbuster

I always found the discontinuous state highway routes rather mysterious. Are there any other states that have discontinuous state highways like California? I can't think of any where I live in Wisconsin.

TheStranger

Quote from: The Ghostbuster on September 15, 2016, 06:41:41 PM
I always found the discontinuous state highway routes rather mysterious. Are there any other states that have discontinuous state highways like California? I can't think of any where I live in Wisconsin.

Oklahoma for instance has a SH 74 that is no longer continuous (the gap goes through most of Oklahoma City)

Indiana has several routes with gaps despite an existing road connection between segments, if I'm not mistaken.
Chris Sampang

Avalanchez71

Florida has route designations that are discontinuous.  Tennessee has Secondary State Routes that are discontinuous as well.

oscar

Alaska has two unconnected AK 10 segments, and four AK 7 segments. The original plans to connect the AK 10 segments were foiled by the 1964 Good Friday earthquake which tore up much of the old railbed, and strong public opposition to reviving those plans. I'm not sure the story behind the AK 7 segments, but there may once have been plans to build connecting roads and bridges through the southeast panhandle. Such will happen only in FritzOwl's dreams, but the state never bothered to change the route designations.

Maryland has a bunch of bypassed old highway alignments (several 800s come to mind), which remain state-maintained and as such remain numbered (but not always signed).
my Hot Springs and Highways pages, with links to my roads sites:
http://www.alaskaroads.com/home.html

emory

Quote from: oscar on September 15, 2016, 06:36:04 PM
Except the segment between La Habra and I-10 is still a gap, not legislatively but rather that the new road 39 was to follow was never built. The parallel existing road filling that gap is still, and signed only as, a county road. An End 39 sign in La Habra (which I photographed in 2014) confirms that the gap remains:



Hence why I said those roads should be signed. I've been through that intersection a few times recently. CR N8 only overlaps it with Azusa Ave.

Quote from: Avalanchez71 on September 15, 2016, 07:21:38 PM
Florida has route designations that are discontinuous.  Tennessee has Secondary State Routes that are discontinuous as well.

In Florida, most discontinuous state roads are relinquished to county control, where policy is to retain the state highway number. So if a piece of State Road 600 is relinquished to the county, they'll sign it as County Road 600 with blue pentagon shields, which makes easier for navigation.

JasonOfORoads

Quote from: Occidental Tourist on September 15, 2016, 05:21:28 PM
I've previously suggested that the eastern portion of Route 90 simply be renumbered as a continuation of Route 72.  But I've discovered an interesting wrinkle with that.  Because Route 72 was formerly Route 101, all of the post-mile markers increase in number from south to north.  Thus although Route 72 currently is mostly an east-west route across Whittier, the lower post-mile numbers are on the eastern end of the route (i.e., southern end of former Route 101) increasing as they go west.

In a traditional east-west highway routing, the post-mile numbers would go from west to east, as they currently do on the eastern portion of Route 90, i.e., the post-mile numbers are lower in La Habra than they are at the eastern terminus in Yorba Linda.

Marrying Route 72 to the eastern part of Route 90 would mean you'd have post-mile numbers increasing in both directions from where the routes were joined.  I don't know if this would be an insurmountable issue for Caltrans if the decision to fix the discontinuity of Route 90 was addressed this way.

72 crosses the LA/Orange county line just before the junction with 39, which helps since it only runs for 0.497 miles in the OC. The PMs run west-to-east from ORA 11.918 (county line) to ORA 11.421 (Jct 39). 90 starts at ORA 0.500 (Jct 39) and ends at ORA 12.828 (Jct 91).

If 72 were to supplant 90, CalTrans could do any number of things:

  • Make 72's current Orange County postmiles "L" mileage to eliminate duplication
  • Remeasure postmiles in the OC from the county line eastward, with R0.000 at the county line and R0.497 at Jct 39, leaving LA's PMs untouched
  • Remeasure postmiles along all of 72 from west to east, making them all "R" mileage between 605 and 39
Borderline addicted to roadgeeking since ~1989.

oscar

Quote from: emory on September 15, 2016, 07:53:04 PM
Hence why I said those roads should be signed. I've been through that intersection a few times recently. CR N8 only overlaps it with Azusa Ave.

Even if they don't meet state route standards (Caltrans' usual excuse for not re-signing an existing road)? In the case of N8, Caltrans wanted to build a new freeway, rather than try to upgrade the existing county route. (Not obvious to me, though, that it would be impractical to do modest upgrades of the existing road.)
my Hot Springs and Highways pages, with links to my roads sites:
http://www.alaskaroads.com/home.html

JasonOfORoads

Route 19 has two interesting discontinuities which cause it to technically have 3 different sections:
Borderline addicted to roadgeeking since ~1989.

JasonOfORoads

Quote from: The Ghostbuster on September 15, 2016, 06:41:41 PM
I always found the discontinuous state highway routes rather mysterious. Are there any other states that have discontinuous state highways like California? I can't think of any where I live in Wisconsin.

Oregon requires that cities and counties that take over maintenance of a signed section of highway continue to sign the through route. Thus, even though OR-10 has had many sections cut out of it, it is still signed contiguously as OR-10 on those former sections. I'm certain this is because (for the uninitiated) Oregon maintains a hidden highway system separate from its route system. However, since 2002 when Oregon started assigning routes to unmarked state highways, it created a few discontinuous routes. Most, like OR-141/Hall Blvd. in the Portland area, remain unsigned, so the gaps are on paper only.
Borderline addicted to roadgeeking since ~1989.

roadfro

Quote from: The Ghostbuster on September 15, 2016, 06:41:41 PM
I always found the discontinuous state highway routes rather mysterious. Are there any other states that have discontinuous state highways like California? I can't think of any where I live in Wisconsin.

Nevada has a few routes with discontinuous sections. These are usually in urban areas, sometimes the result of relinquishments to local jurisdiction.
Roadfro - AARoads Pacific Southwest moderator since 2010, Nevada roadgeek since 1983.

TheStranger

Quote from: oscar on September 15, 2016, 08:04:54 PM
Quote from: emory on September 15, 2016, 07:53:04 PM
Hence why I said those roads should be signed. I've been through that intersection a few times recently. CR N8 only overlaps it with Azusa Ave.

Even if they don't meet state route standards (Caltrans' usual excuse for not re-signing an existing road)? In the case of N8, Caltrans wanted to build a new freeway, rather than try to upgrade the existing county route. (Not obvious to me, though, that it would be impractical to do modest upgrades of the existing road.)

Even before the freeway era, I've seen at least one 1940s map showing the gap between Azusa and La Habra on Route 39...I want to say it was on Mark Fuqueron's webpage that isn't working now though.

(This leads back to my entire philosophy that route numbering in California really should be navigationally-based rather than legislatively-derived: how is it that the county road linking Route 39 from the north edge of Orange County to Azusa isn't worthy of being given route signage, yet Route 173 had for a long time an unpaved segment?!)
Chris Sampang

sparker

Interestingly enough, the non-state-highway gap in 39 was actually signed from about 1958 to the mid-70's -- with older porcelain-white button-copy 1955-type shields -- in fact signage indicating route continuity was at least as complete, if not more so, than other urban state highways in District 7.  Los Angeles County maintained the signage, with at least the tacit complicity of the Division of Highways, who likely supplied the shields themselves. 

North to south, the route was signed from the I-10/Azusa Ave. interchange, using South Garvey Avenue (the south I-10 frontage road) west from Azusa immediately south of the interchange.  It was signed west right along the frontage road to Hacienda Blvd., where it turned southwest.  It continued on Hacienda Blvd. south through West Covina, La Puente, and Hacienda Heights before going over the top of the Puente Hills.  The Hacienda Blvd./quasi-SSR 39 alignment continued to Whittier Blvd., where it turned west to Beach Blvd.  The full signage of this section lasted until the 1964 renumbering, when state highway shields were changed to white-on-green. 

After 1964, the county apparently lost interest in signage of this route; the black-on-white shields disappeared along the South Garvey frontage road, and were seen only sporadically along Hacienda.  Curiously, when the CA 60/Pomona Freeway was completed through Hacienda Heights in late 1967, the Hacienda Blvd. exit signage showed that street as CA 39.  When CA 72 was signed on Whittier Blvd and Harbor Blvd. in La Habra in 1968, the junction with Hacienda Blvd. clearly indicated that route as CA 39, complete with new green shields.  However, Hacienda Blvd. itself remained sporadically signed, even immediately north and south of the CA 60 freeway.  After 1964, there was no signage on southbound CA 39 to indicate that it continued south of I-10; northbound, the signage simply "petered out" north of Francisquito Avenue in West Covina.  The expansion of the Westfield West Covina mall in the 1970's, which included a reconfiguration of Hacienda Blvd. that moved the main flow of traffic to Vincent Ave. west of the mall and the downgrading of Hacienda Ave. from Vincent north to South Garvey to more or less an access road to the east side of the mall essentially put a nail in the CA 39 signage "coffin".  By 1982, a "TO" banner was placed on the CA 60 BGS reference to CA 39; a few years later, the shield was greened out completely. 

In the early 2000's there was one "straggler" green CA 39 shield on NB Hacienda north of Anza; it was gone by 2010, the last time I used that street.  With the north end of Hacienda Blvd. essentially a mall access road, and South Garvey having been truncated when the I-10/Azusa Ave. interchange was reworked in the '80's, there is no current physical continuity along the original L.A. County-signed route.  Hacienda Blvd. through the Puente Hills remains a twisting, curvy 2-lane road -- albeit well-delineated with Caltrans-type outer lane striping. 

Both the Harbor Blvd./Azusa Ave. corridor from east La Habra north to Covina -- the route described in the CA 39 legislative description -- and Colima Ave (county N8) crossing the hills to the west are multilane boulevards, but they certainly don't look like Caltrans-spec facilities (short left-turn pockets, curbs rather than shoulders), rather typical arterials through the housing tracts that line the Puente Hills.  My assesment is, and has been for some time now, that despite the state legislative description, none of the relevant jurisdictions have any interest in signing and maintaining any surface connection between northern Orange County and the east San Gabriel Valley.  IMHO, they may as well relinquish any vestiges of CA 39 north of Whittier Blvd.  Locals already know how to get up to the San Gabriel Canyon; tourists with GPS will find their way up there as well (and others just need to ask!).  Keep the canyon section signed, sign it as something else north of I-210, but forget anything south of there to La Habra.  Further south, Beach Blvd's identity as "Highway 39" is as longstanding as the modern existence of the region; it's appropriate, for navigational purposes, that such signage remains undisturbed.  But it's patently obvious that Caltrans wants and intends to shed as much surface-street mileage as it can; adding more just isn't in the cards.             



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