Former US 101 in San Lucas and San Ardo

[Max Rockatansky]

Before US Route 101 was upgraded to a freeway between San Lucas and San Ardo it was aligned on Cattleman Road.  Notably Cattleman Drive itself is very old and was largely inherited as a Southern Pacific frontage facility as part of Legislative Route 2.  The original Salinas River crossing in San Ardo followed Jolon Street and was constructed in 1907.  The 1907 San Ardo Bridge was replaced in 1929 by the current Cattleman Road Bridge over the Salinas River.  Not much changed with US 101 between San Lucas and San Ardo until the freeway upgrade of the 1970s.

https://www.gribblenation.org/2021/01/former-us-route-101-from-san-lucas-to.html

[jdbx]

Very Interesting, thank you for this.

My wife and I went on a getaway to Santa Barbara over Labor Day weekend via US-101, and our navigation routed us along Cattleman Road to get around a severe construction-induced traffic jam while on our way home.  I was thinking to myself that this must have been the original 101 alignment.  FWIW, the condition of the road was pretty rough, but it still probably saved a good 20 minutes of travel time vs sitting in traffic.  I didn't see more than a couple other vehicles on the length of the route, which surprised me since it was our in-car navigation which directed us to it.

[Max Rockatansky]

Funny, when I took these pictures it was during the same construction project. Given I came from 198 the transition to was easy but I was likewise surprised that traffic hadn't discovered the bypass via Cattlemen Road.