CA Central Valley "Road/Avenue #" network

[Quillz]

I've always been aware of how the CA Central Valley effectively has its own numbered roads/avenues. It seems the "roads" restart around Fresno, is this accurate? I've come across two separate Road 52, for example. How far back does this system go?

[Max Rockatansky]

Tulare County seems to be fairly recent as you can find plenty of vestiges of the older naming convention (especially in the Sierra Nevada Mountains).  Madera County seems to have switched to a numbering system during the 1970s or 1980s.  Kings County as far as I can tell has used numbered north/south roads the longest.

With Tulare and Madera they seem to be going for a grid pattern.  It works fine until it hits the Sierra and the pattern scatters immediate.  I like how Tulare County handled mountain roads between as it assigns them an internal route number and field signs Postmiles.

[heynow415]

Tulare County seems to be fairly recent as you can find plenty of vestiges of the older naming convention (especially in the Sierra Nevada Mountains).  Madera County seems to have switched to a numbering system during the 1970s or 1980s.  Kings County as far as I can tell has used numbered north/south roads the longest.

With Tulare and Madera they seem to be going for a grid pattern.  It works fine until it hits the Sierra and the pattern scatters immediate.  I like how Tulare County handled mountain roads between as it assigns them an internal route number and field signs Postmiles.

Yolo County also has a numbered road grid.  From north to south are 1-50 and east to west are 70-100+.  The numbers disappear when roads go into Woodland, Winters or Davis, but some numbered roads carry a regular name out into the county, such as Russell Blvd.  Things are pretty straightforward in the flats but once it gets hilly west of I-505 towards Lake Berryessa and Cache Creek it kind of falls apart.

[Quillz]

Tulare County seems to be fairly recent as you can find plenty of vestiges of the older naming convention (especially in the Sierra Nevada Mountains).  Madera County seems to have switched to a numbering system during the 1970s or 1980s.  Kings County as far as I can tell has used numbered north/south roads the longest.

With Tulare and Madera they seem to be going for a grid pattern.  It works fine until it hits the Sierra and the pattern scatters immediate.  I like how Tulare County handled mountain roads between as it assigns them an internal route number and field signs Postmiles.

Oh, I'm a bit confused then. It seems like the numbers were starting in the south of the valley and increasing north until Fresno, when they seemed to have started up again. So does each county run its own numbered grid?

[Max Rockatansky]

Tulare County seems to be fairly recent as you can find plenty of vestiges of the older naming convention (especially in the Sierra Nevada Mountains).  Madera County seems to have switched to a numbering system during the 1970s or 1980s.  Kings County as far as I can tell has used numbered north/south roads the longest.

With Tulare and Madera they seem to be going for a grid pattern.  It works fine until it hits the Sierra and the pattern scatters immediate.  I like how Tulare County handled mountain roads between as it assigns them an internal route number and field signs Postmiles.

Oh, I'm a bit confused then. It seems like the numbers were starting in the south of the valley and increasing north until Fresno, when they seemed to have started up again. So does each county run its own numbered grid?

With Madera County and Tulare County the "Roads" ascend eastward whereas the "Avenues" ascend northward.  The numbered north/south Avenues of Kings County ascend westward.  Fresno and Fresno County don't factor into the grids for the surrounding counties. 

[jg4567]

I live in Madera County.  Roads run north/south and are numbered from west to east and avenues run west/west with their numbers from south to north.  Each whole number is one mile apart.  It makes street grid addresses easy to follow.  For example, an address of 12100 Road 36 tells me that the location is just north of Ave 12. 

I believe the mountain roads were converted to road numbers relatively recently.  Growing up in the 80s, I remembered street blades identifying a road number and street name, such as "Road 400 North Ford Rd".  Those were re-signed as exclusively road numbers by the turn of the century.

As the City of Madera grows, they replace the numbered roads with names.  Aves 13 and 16 are called Pecan and Kennedy Aves respectively in the areas within city limits.  Those changes were made 15-20 years ago.

[Max Rockatansky]

I live in Madera County.  Roads run north/south and are numbered from west to east and avenues run west/west with their numbers from south to north.  Each whole number is one mile apart.  It makes street grid addresses easy to follow.  For example, an address of 12100 Road 36 tells me that the location is just north of Ave 12. 

I believe the mountain roads were converted to road numbers relatively recently.  Growing up in the 80s, I remembered street blades identifying a road number and street name, such as "Road 400 North Ford Rd".  Those were re-signed as exclusively road numbers by the turn of the century.

As the City of Madera grows, they replace the numbered roads with names.  Aves 13 and 16 are called Pecan and Kennedy Aves respectively in the areas within city limits.  Those changes were made 15-20 years ago.

Amusingly a lot of my wife's family in Firebaugh still refers to Avenue 7 as "Firebaugh Boulevard."  Some of the USGS maps I've found online capture what the road names were before the numbering convention was established.  When I write about a road in Madera County I usually try to find the pre-number name and include it in the narrative.