🛣 Headlines and Articles about California Highways – March 2019

[cahwyguy]

It's getting near the end of the month, and you know what that means: A new headline post: https://cahighways.org/wordpress/?p=15109 .

As an aside, I'm working on the highway pages, so this headline post is the last bunch of headlines that will be in the current batch of updates. I hope to have the updates done in a couple more weeks, if not sooner. I'm just about done going through this post, then I'll go through all posts to this forum since my last page update in December, then legislative actions, then CTC minutes. If you have anything you want in the March/April updates, send it to me now.

That said: Ready, set, discuss.

[Max Rockatansky]

The interchange improvements at CA 198/CA 41 were a definite need.  All ramp access points are a frequent point of travel for me and all have surfacing in desperate need of repair.

The shifting of CA 99 in Fresno probably is a welcome change even if the HSR gets an ultimate axing.  The new ramps are way better than what was in place previously and the new freeway grade doesn't have as large of a shift as it did previously.

I'll have to make a new blog directory thread now that the site name has changed backed to Gribblenation.  It looks like Adam will be focusing on some of the older Gribblenation stuff for Vermont from what I saw on the Facebook page.

This isn't new news but I agree with the sentiment about CA 152 between Gilroy and Casa de Fruita needing at minimum an expressway upgrade.  CA 152 is a hugely important travel and commerce corridor, there has been way too many excuses not to get upgrades moving.

Pretty much every interchange on CA 99 between Fowler and Malaga needs to be upgraded.  Those are some pretty haggard ramps to some equally haggard warehouse oriented roadways.  The heavy trucks have taken a severe toll on the infrastructure.

The drainage system on CA 41 in Mariposa County took a beating during the wildfires the last couple years.  Really the entire corridor could use a widening or a couple passing zones north of Oakhurst given the somewhat large amounts of traffic heading to Yosemite.  The terrain is the biggest issue approaching Fish Camp as CA 41 gains about 2,700 feet climbing from Oakhurst to Fish Camp.

[Plutonic Panda]

Sad to hear about the 105 freeway. It would have been nice to see an additional lane even it was to be tolled. No we'll end up with a billion dollar project that will have a substandard end product.

I liked the article about the Bay Area transportation projects. Some pretty good and much needed projects in there.

[mrsman]

I see the article on the road diet on Venice Blvd in Mar Vista.  This is very unfortunate.  While I understand the desire to make the roadway safer for bikes, the existing Venice already had a nice bike lane, parking, left turn lane, and 3 lanes in each direction.  The city cheaply created a protected bike lane by moving the parked cars to where the right driving lane used to be, turning the old bike lane into a buffer zone, and turning the old parking lane into the new wider bike lane, at the expense of the driving public.  This of course, has led to more driving on side streets to avoid the backups.  Not to mention, that a significant number of parking spaces has also been removed to accommodate the treatment to allow for right turns yeilding to bikes.

If they had done a more expensive complete reconstruction of the street, they could remove the median and provide enough room to provide 3 lanes in each direction, parking on both sides of the street except near the major intersections, and protected bikeways with buffers.  At major intersections, some parking would need to be sacrificed to provide room for the left turn lane.  Of course, this would entail moving the street lighting and removing trees from the median.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0019426,-118.4372314,3a,75y,55.56h,75.03t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1slaABEcf_HZ4WIFyUh1eaqA!2e0!5s20171201T000000!7i16384!8i8192

 

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^^ I completely agree with this. They wouldn't even need to completely remove the median either. Hell, it might be possible to have a wide enough median where they could lay down a composite trail still.

It's very frustrating! I drive this stretch a ton and I can tell you it has made traffic much worse than it was before. It also makes no sense that it widens back to six lanes for a very short distance to narrow back down to two lanes. I've seen several road rage incidents after they did this. More wonderful government in action from LA.

[mrsman]

^^^^ I completely agree with this. They wouldn't even need to completely remove the median either. Hell, it might be possible to have a wide enough median where they could lay down a composite trail still.

It's very frustrating! I drive this stretch a ton and I can tell you it has made traffic much worse than it was before. It also makes no sense that it widens back to six lanes for a very short distance to narrow back down to two lanes. I've seen several road rage incidents after they did this. More wonderful government in action from LA.

I don't know what the exact widths of the lanes and roadways are along Venice as I could not find a report that details it.  NYC does a far better job at this at some of their slides.  See for example page 10 of this slide, discussing a road diet on West End Ave.  They clearly denote the current and proposed lane widths very clearly, so people can see what they have to work with.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/urban-road-diets-june2016.pdf

For the protected bike lanes, a buffer between the parked cars and the bike lane is necessary.  The buffer is generally about 3' wide, to account for people opening their doors of their cars and not hitting bicyclists in the process.  Keeping everything the same on Venice, but just switching the position of the parked cars and the bike lane would mean that you would need an additional 6' to account for the two buffers.  The median is clearly at least 10' wide since it is wide enough to make room for a left turn lane.  So getting rid of the median would certaily provide enough space for the buffers without taking out a lane of traffic.

But everyone is meant to suffer on this.

[Alex]

For the California 20 page, the Dorsey Drive Interchange at Grass Valley was constructed with a ground breaking on April 29, 2013 and completion November 10, 2014. Have my sources for the dates listed at https://www.aaroads.com/guides/ca-049-south/

The business route section does not have a lot of info

    Rough & Ready, Grass Valley: Main Street, Spenceville Road.
    Williams: Ext Route 20.

Andy texted us about some posted markers for SR 20/49 Business when we were through Grass Valley last year, and we found two assemblies in Nevada City. He mentioned signs posted in Grass Valley, but when we drove Auburn Street south to SR 49, they were no longer posted:


Was hoping to find out more about what alignment both SR 20 and SR 49 Business took, but information online was limited. I just wrote a general summary on a new SR 20 Business page.

I updated/converted a handful of additional California State Route pages on the site as well, including 12, 20, 49, 164, 165 and 174.

Also finished up the conversion for all Interstate guide pages sitewide. The new url's are slightly different. With the exception of decommissioned I-880, which is https://www.interstate-guide.com/i-880-sacramento/ all 2 digit routes in California are simply /i-xxx and 3-digit routes are /i-xxx-ca/

Also noted that the link for US 395 under SR 163 is still the old html page on https://www.cahighways.org/161-168.html
The new one is https://www.aaroads.com/guides/us-395-ca/

[Max Rockatansky]

Flipping through the CA 49 guide I noticed that there was end signage once in Oakhurst.  Sadly that signage has long disappeared from the CA 41 junction BGS.  Driving trough Nevada City and Grass Valley several times on the original alignment of CA 49/CA 20 I've never seen any signage indicating a Business Route that I recall.  I suspect it just disappeared to time as much of the State Highway business routes tend to do.  There are several Historic 49 sign assemblies in places like Mokelumne Hill and San Andreas.  To my knowledge those are the only Historic State Route signs anywhere in California. 

[ClassicHasClass]

To my knowledge those are the only Historic State Route signs anywhere in California.

There is a Historic State Route 163 sign at the beginning of the route in downtown San Diego, which is obnoxious, because the highway actually is CA 163 and the historic designation should be US 395.

http://www.floodgap.com/roadgap/395/old/u3/#img_2

[Max Rockatansky]

To my knowledge those are the only Historic State Route signs anywhere in California.

There is a Historic State Route 163 sign at the beginning of the route in downtown San Diego, which is obnoxious, because the highway actually is CA 163 and the historic designation should be US 395.

http://www.floodgap.com/roadgap/395/old/u3/#img_2

That's strange, like you said it ought to be US 395.   Here is what I have for CA 49:

Mokelumne Hill

IMG_8574 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

San Andreas

IMG_8549 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

IMG_8565 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

[cahwyguy]

Luckily, I'm still working on the pages (I'm in the legislative updates now), so I'll go through the comments on this thread and attempt to capture the requisite changes to the pages. Then it is on to the CTC minutes....

[cahwyguy]

I updated/converted a handful of additional California State Route pages on the site as well, including 12, 20, 49, 164, 165 and 174.

Also finished up the conversion for all Interstate guide pages sitewide. The new url's are slightly different. With the exception of decommissioned I-880, which is https://www.interstate-guide.com/i-880-sacramento/ all 2 digit routes in California are simply /i-xxx and 3-digit routes are /i-xxx-ca/

Also noted that the link for US 395 under SR 163 is still the old html page on https://www.cahighways.org/161-168.html
The new one is https://www.aaroads.com/guides/us-395-ca/

These will all be fixed in the updates (in general, the business route links go to the interstate guide business route pages). You do have one error above:

"all 2 digit routes in California are simply /i-xxx" : No, they are i-xxx-ca as well. I checked.

[Alex]

These will all be fixed in the updates (in general, the business route links go to the interstate guide business route pages). You do have one error above:

"all 2 digit routes in California are simply /i-xxx" : No, they are i-xxx-ca as well. I checked.

I was referring to the URL changes at interstate-guide.com, which are now compiled with WordPress. The Interstate indexes on AARoads were changed last Fall, which I am pretty sure you already corrected.

[cahwyguy]

I've only been linking to the California pages, in general, except for the odd business route link. Should I go through and add the Interstate Guide pages? Are they substantially different?

[djsekani]

Here's hoping we at least get Alternative 3 for the I-105 Express Lanes upgrade. Two lanes are desperately needed at least between 405 and 110.

The CA-71 widening is also a rare story. The widening is definitely needed, since it creates an unnecessary bottleneck, but the residents are actually providing no resistance. Phillips Ranch is not exactly a poor area, but there's almost no public transit available, so all of the residents there are dependent on driving and dealing with a dangerously congested highway to get in and out of their own neighborhood.

It was also pretty interesting to see the design for the Fourth Street Viaduct. That's always struck me as one of the oddest streets I've ever driven on.

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^ Agreed. It's the next best solution since the best one was removed.

PS, is it just me or does anyone find it weird that every month the newspaper in Pasadena has to use terms like "with the 710 extension dead"  to either reassure themselves it is gone for the foreseeable future or they're scared if they don't keep pushing the fact it was killed it might come back? Every month this list comes out, I see like 2-3 articles with this sort of language in the headlines.

[cahwyguy]

^^^ Agreed. It's the next best solution since the best one was removed.

PS, is it just me or does anyone find it weird that every month the newspaper in Pasadena has to use terms like "with the 710 extension dead"  to either reassure themselves it is gone for the foreseeable future or they're scared if they don't keep pushing the fact it was killed it might come back? Every month this list comes out, I see like 2-3 articles with this sort of language in the headlines.

I just grab the headlines when they come across. It is part of the history. I don't believe the folks will truly believe it is dead until the legislative definition is changed to have Route 710 end at Route 10, instead of Route 210. When I post the updates, you'll see there's a bill to do just that working its way through the legislature.

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^ Agreed. It's the next best solution since the best one was removed.

PS, is it just me or does anyone find it weird that every month the newspaper in Pasadena has to use terms like "with the 710 extension dead"  to either reassure themselves it is gone for the foreseeable future or they're scared if they don't keep pushing the fact it was killed it might come back? Every month this list comes out, I see like 2-3 articles with this sort of language in the headlines.

I just grab the headlines when they come across. It is part of the history. I don't believe the folks will truly believe it is dead until the legislative definition is changed to have Route 710 end at Route 10, instead of Route 210. When I post the updates, you'll see there's a bill to do just that working its way through the legislature.

No no, I understand it isn't you. I enjoy your updates immensely. I get anxious for them around the end of the month. I appreciate what you do. I wish I could help in some as I've seen some articles here and there that sometimes are missing from the list.

I just meant the local publications who make the headlines.

[cahwyguy]

No no, I understand it isn't you. I enjoy your updates immensely. I get anxious for them around the end of the month. I appreciate what you do. I wish I could help in some as I've seen some articles here and there that sometimes are missing from the list.

If you see something missing, by all means send it to me, post the link here, post the link on one of my past headlines post, post it on my FB group ... somehow get it to me. I'll review it for the pages. I just finished the CTC minutes, so now all I have are the straggler headlines from this week and the discussions on this forum over the last week. Then I can run the perl script.

[Plutonic Panda]

No no, I understand it isn't you. I enjoy your updates immensely. I get anxious for them around the end of the month. I appreciate what you do. I wish I could help in some as I've seen some articles here and there that sometimes are missing from the list.

If you see something missing, by all means send it to me, post the link here, post the link on one of my past headlines post, post it on my FB group ... somehow get it to me. I'll review it for the pages. I just finished the CTC minutes, so now all I have are the straggler headlines from this week and the discussions on this forum over the last week. Then I can run the perl script.

Will do.

[mrsman]

^^^ Agreed. It's the next best solution since the best one was removed.

PS, is it just me or does anyone find it weird that every month the newspaper in Pasadena has to use terms like "with the 710 extension dead"  to either reassure themselves it is gone for the foreseeable future or they're scared if they don't keep pushing the fact it was killed it might come back? Every month this list comes out, I see like 2-3 articles with this sort of language in the headlines.

I just grab the headlines when they come across. It is part of the history. I don't believe the folks will truly believe it is dead until the legislative definition is changed to have Route 710 end at Route 10, instead of Route 210. When I post the updates, you'll see there's a bill to do just that working its way through the legislature.

In some ways, the 710 extension won't be dead without the removal of the stubs.  i.e. removing the section between 10 and Valley Blvd.  So long as the stub is there, there will always be the desire to head north and somebody may revive it

The stubway on the Pasadena end is also problematic.  Perhaps if that were removed, some improvements can be made to the 210/134 interchange.

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^ Agreed. It's the next best solution since the best one was removed.

PS, is it just me or does anyone find it weird that every month the newspaper in Pasadena has to use terms like "with the 710 extension dead"  to either reassure themselves it is gone for the foreseeable future or they're scared if they don't keep pushing the fact it was killed it might come back? Every month this list comes out, I see like 2-3 articles with this sort of language in the headlines.

I just grab the headlines when they come across. It is part of the history. I don't believe the folks will truly believe it is dead until the legislative definition is changed to have Route 710 end at Route 10, instead of Route 210. When I post the updates, you'll see there's a bill to do just that working its way through the legislature.

In some ways, the 710 extension won't be dead without the removal of the stubs.  i.e. removing the section between 10 and Valley Blvd.  So long as the stub is there, there will always be the desire to head north and somebody may revive it

The stubway on the Pasadena end is also problematic.  Perhaps if that were removed, some improvements can be made to the 210/134 interchange.

That is what makes me question the headlines of the 710 being dead. Obviously by now most here know that I am a huge supporter of the tunnel. With that said, I would NOT be surprised to see the stubs go but I hope I am wrong. This just frustrates me so much, but such is life. Traffic won't get any better so maybe these people who oppose it will wake up or shut up one day and it will get built.

[mrsman]

^^^ Agreed. It’s the next best solution since the best one was removed.

PS, is it just me or does anyone find it weird that every month the newspaper in Pasadena has to use terms like “with the 710 extension dead” to either reassure themselves it is gone for the foreseeable future or they’re scared if they don’t keep pushing the fact it was killed it might come back? Every month this list comes out, I see like 2-3 articles with this sort of language in the headlines.

I just grab the headlines when they come across. It is part of the history. I don't believe the folks will truly believe it is dead until the legislative definition is changed to have Route 710 end at Route 10, instead of Route 210. When I post the updates, you'll see there's a bill to do just that working its way through the legislature.

In some ways, the 710 extension won't be dead without the removal of the stubs.  i.e. removing the section between 10 and Valley Blvd.  So long as the stub is there, there will always be the desire to head north and somebody may revive it

The stubway on the Pasadena end is also problematic.  Perhaps if that were removed, some improvements can be made to the 210/134 interchange.

That is what makes me question the headlines of the 710 being dead. Obviously by now most here know that I am a huge supporter of the tunnel. With that said, I would NOT be surprised to see the stubs go but I hope I am wrong. This just frustrates me so much, but such is life. Traffic won’t get any better so maybe these people who oppose it will wake up or shut up one day and it will get built.

I agree.   The 710 should be completed.  It is a true missing link.  Not just to bring the 710 to reach the northern E-W freeway in the LA area, but also to connect the Foothill Fwy to the rest of the freeway system.  It is relatively isolated.

Think about this:  If you are in Hollywood or Downtown LA*, you cannot access the portion of the 210 between the 118 in Pacoima to the 605 in Irwindale without using a surface street connection or significant backtracking.  So if you wanted to go from 101 in Hollywood to the 210 in Arcadia**, you cannot go directly by freeway.  You would need to use one of four surface routings:

a) Universal City: Surface streets like Lankershim, Vineland, and Cauhenga to make the 101-134 missing connection and then take 134 to 210
b) Echo Park: Using Alvarado Street or Glendale Blvd to make the 101-2 missing connection and then take the 2 to either 134 or 210
c) Pasadena: Take 101 to 110 and then surface routings on Arroyo Parkway through Downtown Pasadena to reach the 210 [this is usually the best alternative]
d) Alhambra:  Take 101 to 10 East and use any of the surface substitutes for the 710 gap (Fremont, Atlantic) or even continue further out on 10 and use another arterial that is closer to your destination (San Gabriel Blvd, Rosemead Blvd, Baldwin Ave, Santa Anita Ave, Peck Rd)

The completion of the 710 would connect the northern SGV and the La Crescenta Valley to the rest of the Southland.

* For Downtown LA, skluth reminded me that you can reach the 2 freeway directly via 110 and I-5.  While this is helpful for the 210 between 118 in Pacoima and northern Glendale (2 interchange), it would still involve some backtracking to reach any of the 210 between northern Glendale and Irwindale (605).

** This is just an example, but one that I personally encountered as I lived in the Hollywood area and a relative lived in Arcadia.  I was surprised that for such a big distance, I did not have a direct freeway routing.  Usually, once I get on the 101, the entire freeway system is an interchange away, but not for the 210.  I remember that returning home after a dinner when traffic moved fine on all of the freeways, I exited the 210 at Marengo to follow the locals recommended surface routing to connect to the 110.  It is annoying to have to use a surface street connection to connect between two freeways.

EDITED FOR CLARITY ON 4/12 1:15 PM EDT

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^Completely agree and I live in the heart of Hollywood. It is not a good deal.

[Alex]

I've only been linking to the California pages, in general, except for the odd business route link. Should I go through and add the Interstate Guide pages? Are they substantially different?

Probably not necessary, since I updated the write-ups on the entry pages for all of the California Interstates on AARoads back in the Fall.

I did however overhaul most the California Interstate Guide pages showing our most recent photos of each end point. Still need to update I-8...