CA 114 shields, get 'em while they're hot

[citrus]

For those of you living in the Bay Area that have the equipment to snap some pics....there are trailblazers for normally-unsigned CA 114 at the Willow Ave interchange on US-101 in both directions in Menlo Park. They look to be related to some construction project involving CA 84. I'm guessing they won't be up very long.

[agentsteel53]

For those of you living in the Bay Area that have the equipment to snap some pics....there are trailblazers for normally-unsigned CA 114 at the Willow Ave interchange on US-101 in both directions in Menlo Park. They look to be related to some construction project involving CA 84. I'm guessing they won't be up very long.

I spotted those, but alas I was in the left lane in fairly busy traffic so I do not believe any of my photos are sharp.  I was too lazy to double back.

for some reason, I have this vague recollection that the shields are the two-digit width. 

in related news, the last US-101 outline shield, just south of there, is alive and well.

[Quillz]

If it's a legally defined route, why not just leave the shields up? I dislike unsigned routes. I feel if it exists, sign it, no matter how short it might be.

[Scott5114]

Well, in some cases, routes are state highways because it is desirable to have them be state-maintained regardless of whether they would make sense as a navigational entity. If a city street needs to be state maintained because a DOT residency is on it and it gets lots of abuse from DOT heavy equipment heading to the freeway, it doesn't really need to have signs on it because the route is never going to be used for navigational purposes.

[kurumi]

Thanks citrus for the heads-up. There are three signs on 101, all announcing a detour for CA 114 south. I didn't see any 114 markers on CA 114 itself.

Two of them have a post or stake obscuring part of the face. This is the best looking of the three:

[agentsteel53]

I was right in noting that they were narrow shields.  glad I wasn't imagining things.  the narrow look works well for shields with two "1"s in it (US-101 take note!)

[agentsteel53]

If it's a legally defined route, why not just leave the shields up? I dislike unsigned routes. I feel if it exists, sign it, no matter how short it might be.

I disagree with this.  unsigned routes do have their advantage.  in this case, 114 is basically a half-mile-long cutoff between the Dumbarton Bridge (CA-84) and El Camino Real (CA-82, old US-101).  it is an important route to keep in the state system, as a lot of traffic uses it, but it is completely sufficient to sign it "to CA-84, Dumbarton Bridge" in one direction, and "to CA-82, El Camino Real" in the other.

I'm not sure where the exact threshold is for a signed route, but I feel like I-505 is definitely long enough to be signed (even though it is, in topology, exactly the same as CA-114, just a lot longer).  Stuff like I-175 and I-375 in St. Petersburg, though, seem patently useless.  They should both be "TO I-75" for signage purposes.  For maintenance and funding purposes, sure, call them whatever is needed, but there is no need for 175 and 375 shields to exist anywhere.

[TheStranger]

If it's a legally defined route, why not just leave the shields up? I dislike unsigned routes. I feel if it exists, sign it, no matter how short it might be.

I disagree with this.  unsigned routes do have their advantage.  in this case, 114 is basically a half-mile-long cutoff between the Dumbarton Bridge (CA-84) and El Camino Real (CA-82, old US-101).  it is an important route to keep in the state system, as a lot of traffic uses it, but it is completely sufficient to sign it "to CA-84, Dumbarton Bridge" in one direction, and "to CA-82, El Camino Real" in the other.

Prior to the Bayfront Expressway extension, that route was part of signed Route 84 - and as recently as a few months ago, there was one stray Route 84 sign left (with no TO)!

I think in this case, putting the 114 shields up accomplishes one thing: makes it clear to travelers that this ISN'T Route 84 anymore (and hasn't been since about 2008).

[agentsteel53]

this is news to me.  the last I had checked (when I live in the area around 2006), 84 was the middle branch (Willow Road) of three possible connectors from 101 to the bridge - the other two being 114 and 109.  109 is shown on Google Maps on University Ave, and 114 is now on Willow Road.  the road that I had remembered as being 114 is nowhere to be found - did they tear it out to make room for the expressway?

then again, 84 is a terrifyingly poorly signed route.  don't ever try following it to Sacramento.  you'll get badly, badly lost.  (that's one rule I'd enforce on DOTs - pick a route to be either signed or unsigned; don't alternate between the two!!)

[TheStranger]

this is news to me.  the last I had checked (when I live in the area around 2006), 84 was the middle branch (Willow Road) of three possible connectors from 101 to the bridge - the other two being 114 and 109.  109 is shown on Google Maps on University Ave, and 114 is now on Willow Road.  the road that I had remembered as being 114 is nowhere to be found - did they tear it out to make room for the expressway?

84 hasn't been the middle branch since 2007-2008 - I started seeing signage for 84 at the Marsh Road exit on 101 around that time.  However, as late as a few months ago, on southbound 101 there was still at least one stray 84 shield pointing to Willow.

109 I don't think has EVER been signed in any form, though it has existed since the 1980s.  I recall reading somewhere there's an issue between CalTrans and the city of East Palo Alto as far as adopting the last mile of University Avenue as state highway (before signage can begin), probably the city wanting to encourage everyone to use Willow instead of University.

114 was legislatively on Willow for years (a vestige of an unbuilt 114 freeway out to 280 that was proposed in the 1960s) but has never been signed until this year IIRC, as it had been signed 84 most of that time (while Bayfront extension was still proposed).

then again, 84 is a terrifyingly poorly signed route.  don't ever try following it to Sacramento.  you'll get badly, badly lost.  (that's one rule I'd enforce on DOTs - pick a route to be either signed or unsigned; don't alternate between the two!!)

I don't think the 84 "extension" from Livermore north should exist as part of 84, and as Vasco Road is not a state highway at present (though a logical route) and the portion of "84" in West Sacramento has been out of the state system for about 6 years...that should be an entirely different north-south route.  31's available, it'd work a lot better there (or a three digit route if its unimportance/fully rural nature needs to be highlighted) than this hackneyed two-segment 84.

Even the Route 170 stub in Hollywood along Highland Avenue offers a logical, direct implied concurrency with US 101.  Bridging the Route 84 gap requires not only going down Vasco Road, but up three other state routes (Route 4, Route 160, Route 12) BEFORE you get to the north-south segment!  The Route 16 gap in metro Sacramento is a breeze in comparison.

I'm not sure why this was ever considered to be one unified route number given how vastly different the corridors are - at one point, the legislative definition of Route 84 even included the Antioch bridge, even though that has always been signed as Route 160 post-1964!  (This was corrected in the early 1980s thankfully.)

[kurumi]

Re CA 109:

A FLICKER OF HOPE FOR DUMBARTON DRIVERS / San Jose Mercury News (CA) - Monday, October 6, 1997

"... Caltrans is in the process of taking control of University Avenue from 101 to 84, labeling this State Route 109. Why? Because there is more regional traffic using this route than local traffic. While the state will assume the costs of maintaining this route , it does not have money to upgrade the road to freeway."

However, signing of CA 109 never happened.