California

[sparker]

Driving on I-10 towards the western end, Caltrans has changed the overhead signs for Lincoln Blvd to say "TO SR 1 SOUTH." Rarely do I see them change signs on freeways to acknowledge a local relinquishment of a state highway.

At least the route continuation is mentioned!  Let's hope they followed up at the end of the ramp at Lincoln Blvd. with a directional trailblazer as well (even if it also has a "TO" banner attached).

[silverback1065]

Driving on I-10 towards the western end, Caltrans has changed the overhead signs for Lincoln Blvd to say "TO SR 1 SOUTH." Rarely do I see them change signs on freeways to acknowledge a local relinquishment of a state highway.

At least the route continuation is mentioned!  Let's hope they followed up at the end of the ramp at Lincoln Blvd. with a directional trailblazer as well (even if it also has a "TO" banner attached).

ya if it were indiana, the signs would just disappear, then reappear on the portion that they maintain. 

[kkt]

Grump.  If Caltrans can con cities or towns into taking over maintenance, good for them.  But the routes should still be state routes, with their exits marked and reassurance markers.  Route signs are to aid easily-confused travelers.  Travelers don't care who's supposed to be filling the potholes.

[nexus73]

Grump.  If Caltrans can con cities or towns into taking over maintenance, good for them.  But the routes should still be state routes, with their exits marked and reassurance markers.  Route signs are to aid easily-confused travelers.  Travelers don't care who's supposed to be filling the potholes.

Bingo!  I had a very hard time getting through Ventura on 1 back in 2013.  Reassurance signs being MIA is not reassuring!

Rick

[sparker]

Grump.  If Caltrans can con cities or towns into taking over maintenance, good for them.  But the routes should still be state routes, with their exits marked and reassurance markers.  Route signs are to aid easily-confused travelers.  Travelers don't care who's supposed to be filling the potholes.

Bingo!  I had a very hard time getting through Ventura on 1 back in 2013.  Reassurance signs being MIA is not reassuring!

Rick

Yeah -- over the last couple of decades Caltrans has turned into "Lapses In Continuity R US"!  I'm old enough to remember when their signage was among the best in the nation.  It is to weep...............

[emory]

ya if it were indiana, the signs would just disappear, then reappear on the portion that they maintain.

That's routine for Caltrans. Them changing the overheads on I-10 is the exception to the rule. They made new signs for I-405 and I-710 that label Firestone Blvd/Manchester Ave as SR 42, which has been gone since 2000.

Grump.  If Caltrans can con cities or towns into taking over maintenance, good for them.  But the routes should still be state routes, with their exits marked and reassurance markers.  Route signs are to aid easily-confused travelers.  Travelers don't care who's supposed to be filling the potholes.

Bingo!  I had a very hard time getting through Ventura on 1 back in 2013.  Reassurance signs being MIA is not reassuring!

Rick

Good luck convincing the state. They sign their state highways first and foremost for databases.

[Quillz]

The funny thing about Ventura is they are inconsistent on their signage of CA-1... and wrong in both instances. For example, removed signage referencing CA-1 on Oxnard Boulevard is correct, yet signage pointing out that CA-1 is now on Rice Avenue does not exist. This might be because CA-1 has not "officially" moved yet. Then you've got subsequent guide signs on the 101 near the 33/126 junctions. One shows "101/1," the other just shows "101," with the "1" green-out'd. Technically, CA-1 does not exist here at all, so it shouldn't be referenced. Of course, I believe it should be (again, because routes should first and foremost be for navigation). So... Decide. Either sign CA-1, or don't.

[roadfro]

Note: 4 posts about passing of Jacob Dekema (the longstanding former director of Caltrans District 11) merged to a dedicated thread.

–Roadfro

[andy3175]

Article on 50 years of ramp meters in Southern California ...

http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20170413/50-years-ago-la-got-its-first-freeway-onramp-meter-heres-how-they-changed-traffic

EAGLE ROCK >> Caltrans transportation engineer Wahib Jreij fixed his gaze on a live jumbo screen of infamous Los Angeles traffic, then zeroed in on some grainy insets of the northbound Hollywood Freeway.

Cars flowed freely at the end of morning rush hour past traffic merging in from Sunset Boulevard – held back to one car at a time for half a century by California's first freeway onramp light meter.

"Los Angeles, without ramp meters, would have more accidents, more pollution and definitely more congestion,"  declared Jreij, the Caltrans District 7 transportation engineer in charge of ramp metering. "They work."

It was 50 years ago this week that the state Division of Highways, a forerunner of Caltrans, installed the first fixed freeway ramp meters in Hollywood. Los Angeles, now home to 1,000, can now lay claim to the Ramp Meter Capital of the nation.

At 4:15 p.m. on April 11, 1967, two strange stop lights flickered on at the northbound onramp at Sunset Boulevard and the 101 Freeway.

Drivers of the latest Chevy Camaro SS muscle cars who had once gunned it up the ramp now had to wait for a green in order to merge into the third traffic lane.

At the same time, transportation engineers closed the nearby onramp at nearby Hollywood Boulevard – preventing more than 900 cars from entering the freeway before 6 p.m.

The idea, born a few years earlier on an expressway outside Chicago, was to limit packs of cars from suddenly entering and slowing down the freeway. ...

Of the nearly 3,000 metering sites in California, some 1,024 ramp meters are spread across Los Angeles and Ventura counties, transportation officials say, making Caltrans District 7 the largest ramp metering region in the nation. Of those, roughly 30 meters control connecting freeways.

And at its heart is the Los Angeles County Regional Transportation Management Center, home to Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol offices in Eagle Rock. ...

There are no statistics that measure ramp measure effectiveness in Los Angeles, Caltrans officials say. But they cite an independent study in Minnesota that demonstrated they keep traffic moving.

Nearly two decades ago, residents of the Twin Cities questioned whether 430 freeway ramp meters worked. So for six weeks, the Minnesota Department of Transportation turned them off.

The result: freeway volume fell 9 percent; speeds dropped 7 percent; travel times increased 22 percent; crashes increased 26 percent, including a 200 percent increase in side-swipe hits.

Caltrans District 7 now plans to install more ramp meters, funds permitting, on the northbound 170 Freeway near Mission Hills, along the 101 Freeway in Camarillo, and on Highway 14 into the Antelope Valley.

[silverback1065]

why doesn't california 261 have a direct connection with i-5?  and why does it stop just short of i-405?  where does it officially begin?

[sparker]

why doesn't california 261 have a direct connection with i-5?  and why does it stop just short of i-405?  where does it officially begin?

The lack of connection is quite deliberate; 261 was & is intended to be a server from Irvine jobs to Corona/Inland Empire residences (via its CA 241 connection) and not a "shortcut" from 5 to 91 and vice-versa; that job is done by CA 133 a few miles to the southeast.  261 officially ends at the Metrolink RR overpass south of I-5; the "freeway" south of there is just an extension of Jamboree Road.  It doesn't extend to 405 for (a) the same reason it doesn't interchange with I-5 and (b) the cost of land acquisition in that neck of the woods would have been astronomical when 261 was deployed in the late '90's. 

[andy3175]

News that a portion of SR 134 may be named in honor of former President Barack Obama...

http://www.sgvtribune.com/general-news/20170516/this-stretch-of-la-county-freeway-could-soon-be-renamed-barack-obama-freeway

A resolution authored by state Sen. Anthony Portantino to name a segment of the 134 Freeway between Eagle Rock and Pasadena after President Barack Obama advanced one step closer to becoming official this week.

The state Senate approved the resolution on Monday by a vote of 35-1. Previously, it had been adopted by the Senate Transportation Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee. ...

The resolution would require Caltrans to erect a sign between the 2 Freeway and the 210 Freeway declaring that segment the "President Barack H. Obama Freeway."

The portion of the 134 Freeway lies just north of Occidental College in Eagle Rock, the small, private, liberal arts college Barack "Barry"  Obama attended from 1979 to 1981. Obama lived in the dorms as a freshman and then in an apartment at 253 E. Glenarm St., in Pasadena as a sophomore.

[andy3175]

SR 76 now four lanes between I-5 and I-15 with completion of segment through Bonsall that opened on May 16, 2017:

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/sd-no-highway-construction-20170515-story.html

It's taken more than two decades of intermittent highway construction, but motorists now can drive from Interstate 5 in Oceanside all the way to Interstate 15 in Fallbrook along a four-lane split highway with a lifesaving barrier in the middle.

The roughly $400 million state Route 76 improvement project has transformed the highway from a once curvy two-lane road – clogged by rush-hour traffic and occasionally scarred by head-on collisions – to a wider, straighter thoroughfare. ...

Crews recently wrapped up the final five-mile stretch – from South Mission Road in Fallbrook to Interstate 15 – months ahead of schedule at a cost of $201 million. That phase began in 2013 with the complete reconfiguration of the I-15 interchange. All work that remains is extensive landscaping of the highway using drought-tolerant plants.

The entire state Route 76 corridor project was divided into three segments: west, middle and east. The western segment through Oceanside was completed in 1999. The second phase, stretching from Melrose Drive to South Mission Road, was finished in 2012 at a cost of $171 million. ...

The highway was first built in the 1930s and over the decades has been the site of several fatal crashes. Bettencourt said it wasn't necessarily because the road was unsafe, but because people would drive too fast, or while they were intoxicated, or would try to unsafely pass slower vehicles by crossing over double-yellow lines.

State Route 76 is a vital artery linking coastal North County to inland communities, including Southwest Riverside County. As the population has grown – and Indian casinos have proliferated east of Interstate 15 – traffic on the two-lane road has skyrocketed.

Traffic along the most recently completed five-mile stretch today averages more than 20,000 daily vehicle trips, a number that is expected to more than double by 2030, state transportation officials have said. ...

Throughout the project, Caltrans has been working closely with the county, which has been buying land and slowly developing a park along the banks of nearby San Luis Rey River.

The regional park one day will be 1,700 acres and 9 miles long, beginning in Oceanside and ending near I-15, The dream is to offer active and passive recreational opportunities along 20 miles of trails, while preserving the river corridor.

The reconfiguration of the highway required the acquisition of adjoining parcels of land along the route, nearly 1,600 acres in all, before construction began. Some of the land will either become part of the regional park or will buffer it.

Highway 76 actually continues as a four-lane highway for another mile and a half east of the interchange. A separate construction project, paid for by the owner's of a rock quarry several years ago, paid for that work.

[sparker]

SR 76 now four lanes between I-5 and I-15 with completion of segment through Bonsall that opened on May 16, 2017:

Good news!  Now I can take it off the list of SoCal 2-lane congested highways cited in a different thread.  This'll probably save a lot of lives in the long run -- 76 was one of the most dangerous roads in the region.

[silverback1065]

what is the point of ca 103?  why doesnt it go further north and connect with 405 or 710?

[andy3175]

what is the point of ca 103?  why doesnt it go further north and connect with 405 or 710?

SR 103 exists between SR 47 and SR 1; the portion of freeway north of there is now maintained by the City of Long Beach. SR 103 was transferred to Long Beach on August 25, 2000 in exchange for the extension of I-710 between SR 1 and Ocean Boulevard. Now that the city controls the former SR 103 freeway north of SR 1, the plans call for removal of the freeway in accordance with the 2015 Green Terminal Island Freeway Transition Plan (see http://www.lbds.info/green_ti/). I don't know if the plan is funded, but the decommissioned segment of SR 103 will be significantly reduced in size.

For more on the transfer of routes 103 and 710, reference page 32 of this document: http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist07/news/reports/docs/2000%20Achievements.pdf

California Transportation Commission Transfers Route 710 Section to the California
Department of Transportation: On August 25, 2000 a one-and-a-half mile segment of the Long Beach Freeway (710), between Pacific Coast Highway and Ocean Boulevard was adopted into the State Highway System from the City and Port of Long Beach. At the same time, the state relinquished a one mile portion of the Terminal Island Freeway (Route 103U) to the City of Long Beach. Future improvements to the pavement, median barrier and landscape are planned for the newly adopted portion of Route 710. Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal sponsored a press conference regarding the Department's takeover of Route 710 in May 2000 in Long Beach.

For more on the Green Terminal Island Freeway Transition Plan for the decommissioned segment of SR 103:

http://www.presstelegram.com/environment-and-nature/20151024/plans-to-decommission-terminal-island-freeway-in-west-long-beach-unveiled

The future can't come soon enough for West Long Beach residents like Evelyn Knight.

Like other residents of Long Beach's furthest western boundary, she has spent decades living in the shadow of one of the area's most contested and vilified roadways: the Terminal Island Freeway, State Route 103.

The 1.6-mile stretch is both a vital route for trucks carrying goods from the Port of Long Beach, and is blamed for a host of health issues in area residents, everything from asthma to cancer.

On Saturday, the city hosted an event showcasing conceptual plans to decommission SR 103 that have been in development for two years. It was the first time the plans, developed from a series of community meetings, have been shown publicly.

The city plans to decommission one side of the freeway, leaving a reduced set of lanes to serve as a local access road. There will be green park space, a small section of wetland, pedestrian bridges and walking trails, among other features. ...

The Long Beach-owned section of the freeway from Pacific Coast Highway to Willow Street is set to be decommissioned. Though that day is still years away, residents got a first-time look at what that future could look like.

Seventh District Councilman Roberto Uranga, who represents the neighborhoods affected by the freeway, city urban planners and representatives from Meléndrez, a Los Angeles-based landscape architecture and urban design firm consulting for the city, organized the event to unveil the plans, which will be presented to the Long Beach Planning Commission Nov. 19 and to the City Council Dec. 1. ...

The Green Terminal Island Freeway Transition Plan, as it is known in project parlance, began in October 2013, when Caltrans awarded Long Beach a $225,000 environmental justice grant. The project is considered one of Southern California's largest freeway-removal projects.

The freeway plan is also part of a broader initiative called Livable West Long Beach, which would build on existing plans and seek funding for a series of community-driven improvement projects. The broader West Long Beach plan will focus on neighborhoods near the 710 Freeway and Los Angeles River from the 405 Freeway south to Anaheim Street.

Funded by the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners with a $300,000 grant, which governs the Long Beach port, the livability plan pulls projects and policies from seven existing plans and creates a master document that prioritizes those projects based on community feedback.

As far as I know, there are no plans to remove or decommission SR 103 between SR 47 and SR 1.

[silverback1065]

Was it supposed to go further north originally?

Nexus 6P

[sparker]

Was it supposed to go further north originally?

Nexus 6P

Originally the Terminal Island (partial CA 103) freeway was intended to go to the I-405/I-710 interchange; the SB 710>NB 405 and SB 405>NB 710 ramps were configured the way they are to accommodate the ramps from 710 to the Terminal Island freeway.  The freeway was originally the property of the Port of Long Beach, not the Division of Highways and later Caltrans; the portion south of CA 1 was transferred to Caltrans in the '80's while the northern portion remained under local control but was signed originally as CA 47 and later as CA 103. 

[hm insulators]

SR 76 now four lanes between I-5 and I-15 with completion of segment through Bonsall that opened on May 16, 2017:

Good news!  Now I can take it off the list of SoCal 2-lane congested highways cited in a different thread.  This'll probably save a lot of lives in the long run -- 76 was one of the most dangerous roads in the region.

I remember 76 as a two-lane rural highway. In 1973, my family and I took a day trip to Palomar Observatory from La Canada Flintridge, and we used I-5 to Oceanside, then 76 to get to the mountain.

[andy3175]

Quick news hit on a proposed yet never built bridge along California SR 89 over Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe:

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/transportation/back-seat-driver/article153171109.html#storylink=indep

Lake Tahoe's Emerald Bay is perhaps the most spectacular nook in one of the world's beautiful alpine basins. But it can be an elusive nook. This winter, avalanches closed the highway above the bay for weeks, severing the loop road around the lake.

What is the highway didn't have to make that tightrope walk across the steep mountainside behind the bay? What if it simply ran straight and low along the lakeshore instead, like it does elsewhere in the basin? Of course, that would mean a bridge across the mouth of Emerald Bay. ...

The fight over the Emerald Bay Bridge, little remembered today, represents a pivotal moment in Tahoe history. It took place as California's relationship to its natural environment was undergoing a seismic shift.

It began during a heavy winter like the one California just experienced. In late 1955, a massive rock and earth slide engulfed Highway 89 and tumbled all the way down to Emerald Bay, forcing an 11-month road closure.

The route there is listed as a state highway, but that's misleading. It's a winding, two-lane mountain road built in the 1920s with stone wall buttresses. Most winters it would be closed for months, buried in snow. That winter of 1955-56, Tahoe business leaders had enough. They wanted to expand the Tahoe year-round economy. Some talked of a San Francisco-sized population in the basin. ...

The state Division of Highways, the precursor to today's Caltrans, hired geologists, studied alignments, drew up engineering plans, and built a scale model of an arched bridge, low to the water, to show at community meetings. Officials even commissioned a serene watercolor artwork of the bay fronted by a bridge that looked almost dainty on the landscape. ...

Proponents had precedent to point to. The Golden Gate Bridge.

[kkt]

Of course the Golden Gate Bridge itself is beautiful, but eastern Marin County changed enormously because of the bridge, and not for the better.  I'm glad Lake Tahoe didn't build the Emerald Bay bridge.

[sparker]

Of course the Golden Gate Bridge itself is beautiful, but eastern Marin County changed enormously because of the bridge, and not for the better.  I'm glad Lake Tahoe didn't build the Emerald Bay bridge.

Now that there's a bi-state Lake Tahoe governing body that deals with essentially every modification to the area proposed in both public and private sectors (and is the bane of property owners who wish to make additions to their houses, add pools, and the like), any notion of an Emerald Bay bridge -- or any sizeable bridge affecting any part of the lake, including the waterways that flow in or out -- would be a non-starter.  The only reason a US 50 bypass of Stateline has been even considered is the fact that the casino businesses there have a seat on the board -- and they've wanted to relieve the traffic issues along present US 50 for some time now; but as is usually the case, both funding and local politics have "back-burnered" such a project for what is now decades.  Tahoe and environs will likely not see significant road-related changes in the foreseeable future.

[NE2]

Does anyone have any evidence that the following business routes of US 101 exist or previously existed? I found either signage or AASHTO approval of the others.
Garberville-Redway
Templeton
Atascadero
San Luis Obispo
Also, is there one now in Willits?

edit: found SLO here: https://www.aaroads.com/california/california_state_hwy_system_signing_log_1991.pdf

[Max Rockatansky]

Does anyone have any evidence that the following business routes of US 101 exist or previously existed? I found either signage or AASHTO approval of the others.
Garberville-Redway
Templeton
Atascadero
San Luis Obispo
Also, is there one now in Willits?

edit: found SLO here: https://www.aaroads.com/california/california_state_hwy_system_signing_log_1991.pdf

I didn't see one in Atascadero passing through today on CA 41.

[andy3175]

Does anyone have any evidence that the following business routes of US 101 exist or previously existed? I found either signage or AASHTO approval of the others.
Garberville-Redway
Templeton
Atascadero
San Luis Obispo
Also, is there one now in Willits?

edit: found SLO here: https://www.aaroads.com/california/california_state_hwy_system_signing_log_1991.pdf

I didn't see one in Atascadero passing through today on CA 41.

I haven't seen any signage for a business route in Atascadero, Templeton, or Garberville/Redway. I'm not even sure of the exact old alignment routing through Atascadro.

The approved business route in San Luis Obispo is not currently signed near as I can tell.

I don't know about whether there is a signed business route for former US 101 through Willits. I know the southern half of the old route is still in the state highway system as part of SR 20.