Freeway name signage/usage practices in California

[sdmichael]

Not all of these names are based on cities the freeway goes to.  Some are based on features the freeway parallels:  e.g. San Gabriel River Freeway (I-605), Los Angeles River Freeway (I-710) (now the Long Beach Freeway), Ramona Freeway (parallel to Ramona Boulevard--now the I-10 San Bernardino Freeway).  There is also at least one example of a freeway taking its planning name after a person, but not really in a memorial signing context (e.g. unbuilt Allesandro Freeway).

Actually, the Allesandro Freeway was partly built. It is now known as the Glendale Freeway. The Allesandro portion was south of I-5 and paralleled roughly Allesandro St (the point where the 2 now ends was known as the Allesandro Cut on the Glendale-Burbank Pacific Electric line.

[DTComposer]

BTW, how different was the proposed Olympic Parkway to what ultimately became the Santa Monica Freeway?

From what I can tell on planning maps from the 1940s, it was one of two parallel routes westbound out of downtown L.A. The Olympic Parkway was in the Olympic/Pico corridor, and the Venice Parkway was in the Adams/Jefferson corridor. They merged around the intersection of La Cienega and Venice Boulevard, and the Venice Parkway continued in the Venice Boulevard corridor towards Santa Monica.

The Santa Monica Parkway in these plans was in the Santa Monica Boulevard corridor - this was later the infamous Beverly Hills Freeway corridor.

By the late 1950s on most planning the corridor had been moved to the current Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) corridor - between Washington and Adams (splitting the distance between the original Olympic and Venice Parkways), although there were still some variations.

It should be noted that these were not Caltrans plans - they were done by the Auto Club and some quasi-governmental agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Engineering Board. The first time the route shows up as proposed on a Caltrans map (1958) it is along the present alignment.

http://cahighways.org/maps-sc-fwy.html

http://cahighways.org/maps-sc-fwy-pt2.html

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239545~5511863?qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort,Pub_Date,Pub_List_No,Series_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=40&trs=86

[NE2]

The Olympic Freeway routing east of La Cienega Boulevard was adopted in 1954: http://archive.org/stream/californiahighwa195455calirich#page/n433/mode/2up
There's a bunch more history in here.


PS: http://archive.org/stream/californiahighwa195455calirich#page/n439/mode/2up

[J N Winkler]

The Olympic Freeway routing east of La Cienega Boulevard was adopted in 1954:

http://archive.org/stream/californiahighwa195455calirich#page/n433/mode/2up

This corridor was not fully built out until the mid-1960's.  I think the leg between the Harbor Freeway and the East Los Angeles Interchange might have been finished by 1961 or 1962 (the main East LA Interchange construction plans set has 1959 approval dates on its title sheet), but the large construction contract to build I-10 from La Cienega Blvd. to Hoover St. (basically, from present SR 187 almost to the Harbor Freeway interchange) has 1964 approval dates on its title sheet.  It was the Santa Monica Freeway by this point, though I am not sure exactly when the name change occurred.

PS:

http://archive.org/stream/californiahighwa195455calirich#page/n439/mode/2up

Last gasp?  C.H. Purcell (longtime Division of Highways chief engineer and later Director of Public Works) was a big booster of another Bay crossing, but had been gone for almost three years at this point--died in September 1951 at age 68 of heart problems.

[TheStranger]

Last gasp?  C.H. Purcell (longtime Division of Highways chief engineer and later Director of Public Works) was a big booster of another Bay crossing, but had been gone for almost three years at this point--died in September 1951 at age 68 of heart problems.

The Southern Crossing was proposed even in the early 1960s, at that juncture now a continuation of what would become 980:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4741575894/

[Henry]

Thanks Stranger for the CA-110 update.

Andy, I think we're talking about 2 different categories of freeway names. You're probably right about it being a political issue when a road is named after someone famous. We have the same issues in New York with the Queensboro Br. now being the Ed Koch Br. and the Triboro Br. is now the RFK Br. The signing has changed gradually over the past few years.

I was actually talking earlier about roads with place type names like the Ventura, San Diego and Hollywood Freeways and the pros and cons of displaying those kinds of names. And again we have the same issues in New York with the Long Island Expwy, NY Thruway, etc.

In Chicago, most expressway names came from very prominent politicians, local and national (Ryan, Stevenson, Edens, Kennedy), and about the only exception I can think of was the Calumet Expressway, now the Bishop Ford Freeway. (Calumet referring to Calumet City, IL, a southern Chicago suburb)

[SSOWorld]

Whereas in LA nearly all freeways seemed to be named for either (1) a control city (San Bernardino, Santa Ana, San Diego, Ventura, Riverside, Long Beach) or a street it replaced (Ventura Blvd, Foothill Blvd, Century Blvd (One could argue that one)

Most of the time I have seen 5 FWY, 118 FWY, 405 FWY, etc.

[TheStranger]

Whereas in LA nearly all freeways seemed to be named for either (1) a control city (San Bernardino, Santa Ana, San Diego, Ventura, Riverside, Long Beach) or a street it replaced (Ventura Blvd, Foothill Blvd, Century Blvd (One could argue that one)

Most of the time I have seen 5 FWY, 118 FWY, 405 FWY, etc.

The saga of Route 90 is interesting - while the whole route was to be named the "Richard Nixon Freeway" before Watergate happened, only the segment closest to Yorba Linda uses that name, while the short portion that was built around 405 and Slauson Avenue is the Marina Freeway.

Route 110/Arroyo Seco Parkway is named for the geological feature it passes through, though for five decades it was named for its terminus (Pasadena Freeway).  At least one unbuilt route - the Laurel Canyon extension of 170 between the Hollywood Split and LAX - would have taken the same moniker approach.

The Seaside Freeway portion of 47 and 710 supplants the old Seaside Avenue, though there is one stoplight remaining west of 710's south terminus.

22/Garden Grove Freeway fits in both the geographic and nearby-street categories.

[emory]

Hopefully one day CalTrans will convert the Navy Way intersection into an interchange so drivers can go between San Pedro and Long Beach without interruption.

[mrsman]

BTW Mrsman, I note that you are from Silver Spring, Md. I have driven the Beltway in your area, and I have seen the exit signs there that have both the route shield, and the road name printed in smaller size lettering than the destinations, so I guess you're used to that practice.

I grew up in Los Angeles, and prefer the old-style Los Angeles way that was in the many pictures in the OP's post.

The Maryland standard isn't terrible.  I'd prefer the street name to be in bigger print, but at least the street is named.  In my area, I'm very familiar with Connecticut Ave, but off-hand I couldn't tell you the highway number.  Whereas other people who may be relying on paper maps may only see the highway number and not know the local name.  That's why we need both the name and the number for our exits.

Fixed quote. --roadfro

[AndyMax25]

I've heard from a source at Caltrans D7 that the traditional freeway names are NOT planned to be included on new signage in order to limit the size of the signs.

While true in some cases, most freeway names appear at interchanges, where the signs are already large.

I've seen new signs along SB 110 leading to I-10 in downtown LA where there are HUGE green signs with a simple I-10 shield and the direction. Seems like a waste of space to me. The freeway names do have meaning and give our system some character.

As all things with D7, everything is hit and miss and VERY inconsistent. So l've seen new signs with and without the names. Depends on the route manager's preference.


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