Odditty of CA-160 Freeway Sacramento.

[bing101]

Well CA-160 Freeway in Sacramento for odd reasons do not post the route shield on the Control city section where Reno and Roseville is recorded. This is heading to the CA-51 Freeway.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=808056519223897&set=a.808056479223901.1073741917.100000586708549&type=1&theater

[sdmichael]

Those signs would have had a US 99E and US 40 had their been shields.

[ZLoth]

I've always considered CA-160 near CalExpo to be an oddity until you look at the old historic maps, and see that it was once one of the main ways into Sacramento.

[TheStranger]

I've always considered CA-160 near CalExpo to be an oddity until you look at the old historic maps, and see that it was once one of the main ways into Sacramento.

Both 160 and the former 275 were the original freeway routings into town when US 40 existed.  (The segment of Business 80, originally I-80, between Jefferson Boulevard and Arden Way was never US 40, though that southern portion of Route 51 was US 99E into the mid-1960s)

[Concrete Bob]

The verbiage on the BGSs (excluding the exit numbers) is the same as when the original overhead signs were installed in 1967.  The outbound (towards CA 51) lanes of that section of 160 were built and open to traffic in the summer of 1967.  Previously, the outbound traffic shared space with the inbound (towards Downtown Sacramento) on a four lane alignment with a four foot wide raised concrete median.

When the outbound bridge was opened in 1967, the sign did not have a CA-160 shield either.  The sign simply read "Roseville Reno" as it does now.  I can only guess that the reason Caltrans did not include a 160 shield is because there were plans for the never-built, parallel new I-80 that was supposed to run about a half-mile west of the existing CA 51.  I think the original verbiage was just a "stopgap" effort at providing directional signage until the parallel I-80 was bulit.   

The parallel I-80 was adopted by Caltrans in summer 1965.  There were plans to have connecting ramps between 160 and the new I-80.  I think the connecting ramps were limited to I-80 West to CA 160 South (West) and 160 North (East) to I-80 East.   

Had the parallel I-80 been built, I am willing to bet that the "Roseville Reno" sign would have been replaced with a sign with either a 160 shield, or some sort of "I-80-Roseville Reno-Exit 1-1/2 MILE" after the parallel I-80 was built.       

I have no idea why Caltrans did not add a 160 shield when they replaced the overhead signs. There have been on and off plans to de-commission that part of 160 from the state highway system.  The surface street portion of 160 through the City of Sacramento was decommissioned a few years back. 

   

[bing101]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=804960546200161&set=a.804960409533508.1073741913.100000586708549&type=1&theater


According to this map Elvas Freeway was I-80 @ 99E/