Having just driven 395 on the two-lane section, safety considerations will require eventual modifications to separate the two directions of traffic and allow for safe passage. With packs of cars jockeying for position at speeds well in excess of the limit to complete the 395 desert segment fastest, it is a matter of time before additional safety improvements are warranted and arranged. This can be done by expanding the existing safety improvements (flaps separating two directions of traffic, improved signage, and wider shoulders) made on 395 south of 58 to include areas on 395 north of 58, followed by passing lane expansion and eventual median separation between the two directions of traffic. I've experienced this high level of traffic volume on weekdays as well as weekends between 15 and 14. Hopefully these safety improvements will come soon.
SM-G975U
Since the traffic mix is considerably different on US 395 north of CA 58 than the section to the south, it's likely D8's -- as well as the overall view emanating from Caltrans HQ -- plans would prioritize the southern segment well before any significant work would be done to the north. 395 between Victorville/I-15 and CA 58 is effectively part of a
de facto commercial L.A. bypass -- as well as an effective alternate route from the multitudes of distribution warehouses in the Inland Empire -- essentially from Pomona all the way out to Redlands -- to northern CA, avoiding having to go through any part of L.A. County (even I-210's western reaches are more congested than in years past). CA 138 is considered (a) dangerous over its 2-lane stretch through the Phelan area, and (b) more of a slog now than before, since D7's 4-laning projects included signals along the way in the Pearblossom and Littlerock areas. Once the CA 58 Mojave bypass was completed 18 years ago, the die was cast, and 15 (including the 215 feed-in)/395/58 became the conduit of choice. So these days it's doing double-duty diverting through traffic from I-10 as well as San Diego from the L.A. basin, as well as one of the northern outlets of choice for traffic originating in the Empire.
With that traffic base using the facility largely 24/7, safety issues, heretofore addressed by the "band-aid" approach of periodic passing lanes and sporadic median structures, share DOT concern along with the capacity issues that become more pressing as time goes by. The chances for anything but slightly larger-scale versions of the measures being currently deployed along US 395 giving way to an all-out divided facility, expressway or freeway, are less than robust until it is decided to actually increase the capacity of the highway. One of the issues mitigating against the latter consideration is just where this increased traffic is to go on the south end of the corridor through Adelanto, west Victorville, and Hesperia. It was widely thought that with expedited construction of the HDC, the segment between US 395 and I-15 north of Victorville would serve, at least initially, as the volume outlet for traffic heading north or coming south on the outlying 395 segment, simply shunting traffic laterally for about four miles to I-15.
This "shunt" was considered vitally important, since there's been a longstanding controversy about just where to place a future 395 freeway alignment through the developed area from the current 15/395 split north through Adelanto. Originally the idea, agreed upon by the cities of Hesperia and Victorville was to simply follow the existing arterial corridor; to that effect adjacent property was reserved, shifting from one side of the present highway to the other to allow commercial development of the area. When Adelanto incorporated in the late '90's it did much the same by simply just keeping a "buffer zone" around 395 and placing development, including their own civic center, on adjacent or closely parallel streets. However, the regional MPO had other ideas, preferring a parallel N-S alignment about a mile west of the present route and snaking past several large housing tracts. The property previously reserved by the cities would be utilized for infill -- including some lower-income housing, in scarce supply even out in the high desert, where property valuation was largely less than "over the hill" in the Inland Empire. The MPO's rationale was twofold -- enhance the infill potential as described above, and effect separation of through 395 traffic from its present highly commercialized alignment. But the cities, whose governments were and are dominated by interests favoring existing zoning and land-use practices, demurred from the MPO plan. The section of the HDC between 395 and I-15 would have rendered the controversy less of an obstacle by being able to deliver 395 traffic to 15 and vice-versa despite the impasse between the cities and the MPO. When the HDC's road component was shelved, this meant that a capacity increase on 395 between Adelanto and CA 58 would have "nowhere to go", dumping traffic onto the existing 395 arterial street or the alternative along Air Base Parkway and the Old Trails Highway (historic US 66) favored by locals in the know and more or less along the HDC alignment. Now -- whether the HDC segment east of 395, including the Apple Valley CA 18 realignment, could be considered a local SIU, and not included within the agreement that effectively sunk the road portion of the corridor, is still being debated -- the toll road concept was to have had its east end at US 395; the remainder east of there would have been constructed as a freeway, with an expressway extension commencing east of I-15.
The bottom line is that without a viable freeway outlet to I-15, Caltrans/D8 was and is reluctant to plan & build a 4-lane divided facility along the outlying portion of US 395, safety issues notwithstanding.
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Topic: California (Read 273395 times)