Took the entirety of CA 17 this morning. Far from my best attempt given my lighting was crap, windshield glare, and really I just couldn't get the damn thing to focus...but I chopped the album is best I could:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskBdwEv8
One thing I noticed that stood out northbound, where the hell is the CA 35 shields at the junction with 17? It will take me awhile to write up a blog post this week about the entire history of 17 with the truncations due to being replaced by I-580 and I-880. I don't remember the last time I've taken all of 17 over the Santa Cruz Range but it really wasn't anywhere near as bad as I remember.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 30, 2018, 12:14:33 AM
One thing I noticed that stood out northbound, where the hell is the CA 35 shields at the junction with 17?
They've never had the shields on the signage there. My best guess is they didn't want to "advertise" that section of CA-35 as a state highway, since it was one-lane in sections (and not very well paved - locals called it the "Goat Trail") and even now is not nearly to the standards of the section north of CA-9. Signage along CA-35 itself is slim to none between CA-17 and CA-9.
I agree with DVComposer having made that drive myself a few years ago. Given the numerous one-lane sections and the general substandard design of the roadway, it's not a surprise that Caltrans didn't include CA-35 shields on the exit signs from CA-17.
I'm pretty sure Caltrans would love to be able to relinquish the section of 35 between 17 and Bear Creek Road but I don't think either Santa Clara or Santa Cruz counties want to takeover the maintenance of that route.
So speaking of 35, I was looking at the QuickMap and it looks like the one-lane section is now open. If its open I'd like to give that particular section a shot, the only one-lane sections of state highway I haven't driven are 35 and 36. Does anyone know the current status of the roadway between 17 and 9.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 30, 2018, 10:23:15 PM
So speaking of 35, I was looking at the QuickMap and it looks like the one-lane section is now open. If its open I'd like to give that particular section a shot, the only one-lane sections of state highway I haven't driven are 35 and 36. Does anyone know the current status of the roadway between 17 and 9.
According to Caltrans, the storm damage last year on 35 has been repaired so you should be good to go.
Quote from: myosh_tino on January 30, 2018, 10:41:21 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 30, 2018, 10:23:15 PM
So speaking of 35, I was looking at the QuickMap and it looks like the one-lane section is now open. If its open I'd like to give that particular section a shot, the only one-lane sections of state highway I haven't driven are 35 and 36. Does anyone know the current status of the roadway between 17 and 9.
According to Caltrans, the storm damage last year on 35 has been repaired so you should be good to go.
Sweet, I'll have to check it off the list next time I'm out towards the coast.
Finished up the blog post on CA 17. I only really went in depth on surface alignments from Santa Cruz to San Jose:
http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/01/california-state-route-17.html
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 31, 2018, 04:40:54 PM
Finished up the blog post on CA 17. I only really went in depth on surface alignments from Santa Cruz to San Jose:
http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/01/california-state-route-17.html
That's fitting, since the surface alignments in San Jose remain intact as traversable streets. Once north of town, there are numerous "gaps" in north-central Milpitas, where the old Main Street has been severed and replaced by Jacklin Road and North Milpitas Blvd. on different but nearby alignments. The very north end of Milpitas Blvd., just before the Alameda county line, does follow the original LRN 5/CA 17 route. Just north of the CA 262 intersection, the original road is again severed -- this time due to the construction of the BART extension. Fremont Blvd., the original route through Fremont, remains intact, as does most of the remainder north through San Leandro (another very short gap in downtown) and up East 14th Street into Oakland itself. I've done the full "old route" -- as much as possible -- a couple of times; except for central Fremont, the alignment has been pretty much subsumed by suburbia (and East Oakland); it's not a particularly inviting drive these days.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 31, 2018, 04:40:54 PM
Finished up the blog post on CA 17. I only really went in depth on surface alignments from Santa Cruz to San Jose:
http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/01/california-state-route-17.html
Nice write up Max but if you don't mind, I'd like to provide some comments/corrections/clarifications on your post...
* The Santa's Village theme park no longer exists as it closed back in 1979. The way I read it in your blog post seems to imply it still is open.
* The flashing yellow lights where the truck speed limit ends is not a fire station. It's the entrance for the Cats Restaurant. Originally, drivers could make a left from the restaurant onto northbound 17 but after having a higher-than-average accident rate, Caltrans banned that movement which forces those leaving the restaurant to head south on 17 and use the Bear Creek Rd interchange to turn around. It should be noted that left turns from northbound 17 into the restaurant are still permitted.
* Where you're discussing the alignment of CA-17 on the 1935 Santa Clara County map, I believe it's Race Street, not Rice Street.
Quote from: myosh_tino on January 31, 2018, 06:02:14 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 31, 2018, 04:40:54 PM
Finished up the blog post on CA 17. I only really went in depth on surface alignments from Santa Cruz to San Jose:
http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/01/california-state-route-17.html
Nice write up Max but if you don't mind, I'd like to provide some comments/corrections/clarifications on your post...
* The Santa's Village theme park no longer exists as it closed back in 1979. The way I read it in your blog post seems to imply it still is open.
* The flashing yellow lights where the truck speed limit ends is not a fire station. It's the entrance for the Cats Restaurant. Originally, drivers could make a left from the restaurant onto northbound 17 but after having a higher-than-average accident rate, Caltrans banned that movement which forces those leaving the restaurant to head south on 17 and use the Bear Creek Rd interchange to turn around. It should be noted that left turns from northbound 17 into the restaurant are still permitted.
* Where you're discussing the alignment of CA-17 on the 1935 Santa Clara County map, I believe it's Race Street, not Rice Street.
I just went back and added the information you listed for Santas Village in addition to Cats. I meant Race Street but that was a typo that came out as Rice for some reason.
When you get back to this area, you should take Old Santa Cruz Highway - it's a beautiful (if slow) drive, and especially south of Summit Road, very much retains the feeling of what passed for a state highway back in the day.
This, along with Glenwood Drive, is the majority of the original CA-13/CA-17 route "over the hill" until the present route was completed around 1940.
Quote from: DTComposer on January 31, 2018, 06:28:29 PM
When you get back to this area, you should take Old Santa Cruz Highway - it's a beautiful (if slow) drive, and especially south of Summit Road, very much retains the feeling of what passed for a state highway back in the day.
This, along with Glenwood Drive, is the majority of the original CA-13/CA-17 route "over the hill" until the present route was completed around 1940.
Now that I know 35 is open on the one lane segment that it's something I'll likely try I in the near future. I did 35 north of 9 earlier this year and an old alignment of 17 would definitely accentuate the trip. I'd like to try to clinch 92 which I'm sure I can work in somehow also.
Quote from: sparker on January 31, 2018, 05:09:20 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 31, 2018, 04:40:54 PM
Finished up the blog post on CA 17. I only really went in depth on surface alignments from Santa Cruz to San Jose:
http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/01/california-state-route-17.html
That's fitting, since the surface alignments in San Jose remain intact as traversable streets. Once north of town, there are numerous "gaps" in north-central Milpitas, where the old Main Street has been severed and replaced by Jacklin Road and North Milpitas Blvd. on different but nearby alignments. The very north end of Milpitas Blvd., just before the Alameda county line, does follow the original LRN 5/CA 17 route. Just north of the CA 262 intersection, the original road is again severed -- this time due to the construction of the BART extension. Fremont Blvd., the original route through Fremont, remains intact, as does most of the remainder north through San Leandro (another very short gap in downtown) and up East 14th Street into Oakland itself. I've done the full "old route" -- as much as possible -- a couple of times; except for central Fremont, the alignment has been pretty much subsumed by suburbia (and East Oakland); it's not a particularly inviting drive these days.
I noticed that north of San Jose when I was looking at the maps. I kind of had to do the same thing with US 99 in Fresno a couple months back. Shame that the original alignment is all cut up, it wouldn't just be a CA 17 corridor but US 101E.
I used to attend UC Santa Cruz so I have traveled and driven on CA 17 a lot, but I never recall any route shield indicating a junction of CA 35. Which is surprising because it's signed relatively well in San Francisco, there is an END plate (although worn out) where Sloat Blvd meets 19th Ave, also it was recently repaved a couple months back.
I heard a couple accounts of how dangerous CA 17 really was back in the day. I know someone who attended UC Santa Cruz in the late 90s when there no concrete barrier at all where there should be. One night he had a little too much fun and then had to drive on the highway, when he somehow ended up driving in the wrong side of the road! I'm not sure how he made it out of that, I don't remember him saying he got into an accident. I also heard someone mention flimsy metal barriers that would do nothing to stop someone from entering the wrong direction of travel. The former I'm kind of skeptic about, the latter seems more believable.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 01, 2018, 12:16:36 AM
Quote from: sparker on January 31, 2018, 05:09:20 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 31, 2018, 04:40:54 PM
Finished up the blog post on CA 17. I only really went in depth on surface alignments from Santa Cruz to San Jose:
http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/01/california-state-route-17.html
That's fitting, since the surface alignments in San Jose remain intact as traversable streets. Once north of town, there are numerous "gaps" in north-central Milpitas, where the old Main Street has been severed and replaced by Jacklin Road and North Milpitas Blvd. on different but nearby alignments. The very north end of Milpitas Blvd., just before the Alameda county line, does follow the original LRN 5/CA 17 route. Just north of the CA 262 intersection, the original road is again severed -- this time due to the construction of the BART extension. Fremont Blvd., the original route through Fremont, remains intact, as does most of the remainder north through San Leandro (another very short gap in downtown) and up East 14th Street into Oakland itself. I've done the full "old route" -- as much as possible -- a couple of times; except for central Fremont, the alignment has been pretty much subsumed by suburbia (and East Oakland); it's not a particularly inviting drive these days.
I noticed that north of San Jose when I was looking at the maps. I kind of had to do the same thing with US 99 in Fresno a couple months back. Shame that the original alignment is all cut up, it wouldn't just be a CA 17 corridor but US 101E.
It does seem like the only portion that has the semi-rural feel of the Route 17 era would be at the intersection of Old Warm Springs/Lopez Court (the old Route 17/US 101E alignment) and Grimmer Boulevard:
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.504197,-121.9431404,3a,75y,298.18h,98.59t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTUFU-BpJrMOhlFae3-osFw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DTUFU-BpJrMOhlFae3-osFw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D212.55603%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192
Was this also at one point US 48?
Quote from: TheStranger on February 01, 2018, 02:46:32 PM
It does seem like the only portion that has the semi-rural feel of the Route 17 era would be at the intersection of Old Warm Springs/Lopez Court (the old Route 17/US 101E alignment) and Grimmer Boulevard:
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.504197,-121.9431404,3a,75y,298.18h,98.59t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTUFU-BpJrMOhlFae3-osFw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DTUFU-BpJrMOhlFae3-osFw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D212.55603%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192
Was this also at one point US 48?
That
is one of the lesser-developed areas along the old highway; but as you can see from the fences and the signs, that condition is likely not long for this world (if you turned the camera 90 degrees to the left, you'd see the main Tesla assembly plant). I'm up that way every couple of weeks; one of my vendors (custom industrial rubber foam) can be seen between the WB Grimmer signal assembly and the telephone pole over at the corner of Fremont and Pestana. East (behind the camera) at the corner of Grimmer and Warm Springs/Osgood is the Warm Springs BART station; the current end of the line (it's being constructed down through Milpitas to East San Jose at this time). Between Tesla and the BART extension activity, it's a wonder that this semi-rural area remains as such in 2018!
As far as the US 48 designation is concerned, IIRC that number ended at the original 48/101E junction near the current 238/580 interchange between Hayward and Castro Valley. However, I could be wrong; CaHwyGuy is a bit more chapter & verse on this sort of thing than myself, so he or anyone with differing information is more than welcome to chime in here!
Anything I've got would be on my website.
Quote from: sparker on February 01, 2018, 03:59:22 PM
Quote from: TheStranger on February 01, 2018, 02:46:32 PM
It does seem like the only portion that has the semi-rural feel of the Route 17 era would be at the intersection of Old Warm Springs/Lopez Court (the old Route 17/US 101E alignment) and Grimmer Boulevard:
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.504197,-121.9431404,3a,75y,298.18h,98.59t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTUFU-BpJrMOhlFae3-osFw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DTUFU-BpJrMOhlFae3-osFw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D212.55603%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192
Was this also at one point US 48?
That is one of the lesser-developed areas along the old highway; but as you can see from the fences and the signs, that condition is likely not long for this world (if you turned the camera 90 degrees to the left, you'd see the main Tesla assembly plant). I'm up that way every couple of weeks; one of my vendors (custom industrial rubber foam) can be seen between the WB Grimmer signal assembly and the telephone pole over at the corner of Fremont and Pestana. East (behind the camera) at the corner of Grimmer and Warm Springs/Osgood is the Warm Springs BART station; the current end of the line (it's being constructed down through Milpitas to East San Jose at this time). Between Tesla and the BART extension activity, it's a wonder that this semi-rural area remains as such in 2018!
As far as the US 48 designation is concerned, IIRC that number ended at the original 48/101E junction near the current 238/580 interchange between Hayward and Castro Valley. However, I could be wrong; CaHwyGuy is a bit more chapter & verse on this sort of thing than myself, so he or anyone with differing information is more than welcome to chime in here!
US 48 briefly ended in San Jose, USends has an older map showing the alignment:
https://www.usends.com/48-i.html
Quote from: Techknow on February 01, 2018, 02:09:38 AM
I used to attend UC Santa Cruz so I have traveled and driven on CA 17 a lot, but I never recall any route shield indicating a junction of CA 35. Which is surprising because it's signed relatively well in San Francisco, there is an END plate (although worn out) where Sloat Blvd meets 19th Ave, also it was recently repaved a couple months back.
I heard a couple accounts of how dangerous CA 17 really was back in the day. I know someone who attended UC Santa Cruz in the late 90s when there no concrete barrier at all where there should be. One night he had a little too much fun and then had to drive on the highway, when he somehow ended up driving in the wrong side of the road! I'm not sure how he made it out of that, I don't remember him saying he got into an accident. I also heard someone mention flimsy metal barriers that would do nothing to stop someone from entering the wrong direction of travel. The former I'm kind of skeptic about, the latter seems more believable.
I've heard the same about the old metal barriers. Really they are just a false sense of security, they won't stop something hitting them at a high enough speed. There was actually a couple jacked up metal barriers on the side of the expressway on 17 as I was crossing the Santa Cruz Range. The barriers were completely crumpled, I would speculate the damage to the vehicle hitting them was....severe.
From both personal and secondhand experience, the level of speeding -- of a magnitude greater than the 50mph limit -- on CA 17 "over the hill" is astonishing; one of my best friends lives up in Redwood Estates and commutes down the hill to central San Jose daily; he's a pretty fast driver and knows the road -- says he averages about 57-58 on that stretch -- but he gets passed, often by trucks, almost constantly unless the road is at a congestion-related virtual standstill (from about 6:30-9 a.m. and 3-6:30 p.m. on average). Eventually push comes to shove, and someone either drives off the road at high speed or bounces off the median barrier. In the vicinity of Big Moody Curve (the bend posted at 40 mph [suggested] about 3/4 mile north of the Redwood Estates exit) the average replacement time for side thrie-beams or center K-rail is 7 months; they get bashed that often (my friend was curious and, at my urging, contacted Caltrans D4 about this). The issue is simple -- it's the only quasi-efficient way over the hill, and enough San Jose-area workers prefer to live in the hills or on the coast in or southeast of Santa Cruz to make the commute a continuing mess. Short of tunneling (there was an old SP rail tunnel from just above Lexington Reservoir over toward Boulder Creek, but that line was wiped out in a 1940 mudslide) -- which probably is a non-starter in the region -- CA 17 will likely continue to be one of the most problematic and often deadly roads in Northern California.
This road was my first major "test" when I got my license - I had to drive over with my parents before they'd let me do it on my own. It's second nature to me now, but I agree that the average speed has definitely crept up over the years, even thought there's been little to no improvements in the 20+ years I've been driving (exceptions being the adding of some center dividers in the Glenwood area, the restriction on left turns out of The Cats, and certainly the Bear Creek Road/Black Road interchange).
I don't know that the cost vs. benefit of any incremental upgrades would help the issue, and some of the more obvious ones (say, a bridge over Moody Gulch to eliminate the curve) would only serve to increase speeds and therefore increase the risk on the other sections.
Quote from: sparker on February 02, 2018, 04:55:11 PM
Short of tunneling (there was an old SP rail tunnel from just above Lexington Reservoir over toward Boulder Creek, but that line was wiped out in a 1940 mudslide) -- which probably is a non-starter in the region
I would fully support finding a way to re-establish rail over the hill, and it has been brought up from time to time. There are, I think, five tunnels in all, the northernmost one being the longest, and reportedly the most damaged (it was the oldest and runs across the San Andreas Fault). A section of the original route is now under Lexington Reservoir, and there'd have to be a new route through downtown Los Gatos, but it might be feasible to do a light-rail line to connect at Vasona Junction. Would have no idea if the cost would justify it, though. The other problem would be the current light-rail system in the valley - Santa Cruz workers could get to downtown San Jose easily enough, but many of the major Silicon Valley job centers are not on the light-rail routes.
I spent a very pleasant day in the mid-80s walking the railroad route, on the Santa Cruz County side of the hill from the UCSC campus to Glenwood if I remember right. Some of the lowest part had been converted into a paved and fenced bike path. A lower tunnel was a business records storage warehouse so we couldn't go in. Above the bike path, there was a long stretch where the rails were removed and it was for horses, joggers, and pedestrians. Above that was a section where the rails were still there. (Wasn't it an odd choice to leave rails in an upper portion of the track? Now there's no easy way to get them out.) At least one tunnel was open and we walked through. Eventually we got to a tunnel that was closed off, and scrambled up the embankment to a road that passed over the top of the tunnel, and even had occasional bus service. All the right of way was single-track, for two tracks all the tunnels and a lot of real estate would need to be acquired.
Even then there were discussions about reopening rail service, because CA 17 was so bad. However, the route is a good deal less direct, low grades being a higher priority than a direct route. The right of way was built for coal trains, not even diesel, so low speeds were a given and low grades a necessity. There are curves that would restrict the speed. And, as you say, the job centers in Silicon Valley are not easy to serve on a line. Someone commuting over restored railroad tracks would have a pretty bad time of it: bus or park and ride to a railroad stop, slow train over the hill, transfer to light rail, transfer again to a county or employer bus. Sorry to say it, but running frequent express bus service would probably be a better use of funds to reduce commuter traffic over 17.
Quote from: kkt on February 07, 2018, 11:35:19 PM
I spent a very pleasant day in the mid-80s walking the railroad route, on the Santa Cruz County side of the hill from the UCSC campus to Glenwood if I remember right. Some of the lowest part had been converted into a paved and fenced bike path. A lower tunnel was a business records storage warehouse so we couldn't go in. Above the bike path, there was a long stretch where the rails were removed and it was for horses, joggers, and pedestrians. Above that was a section where the rails were still there. (Wasn't it an odd choice to leave rails in an upper portion of the track? Now there's no easy way to get them out.) At least one tunnel was open and we walked through. Eventually we got to a tunnel that was closed off, and scrambled up the embankment to a road that passed over the top of the tunnel, and even had occasional bus service. All the right of way was single-track, for two tracks all the tunnels and a lot of real estate would need to be acquired.
Even then there were discussions about reopening rail service, because CA 17 was so bad. However, the route is a good deal less direct, low grades being a higher priority than a direct route. The right of way was built for coal trains, not even diesel, so low speeds were a given and low grades a necessity. There are curves that would restrict the speed. And, as you say, the job centers in Silicon Valley are not easy to serve on a line. Someone commuting over restored railroad tracks would have a pretty bad time of it: bus or park and ride to a railroad stop, slow train over the hill, transfer to light rail, transfer again to a county or employer bus. Sorry to say it, but running frequent express bus service would probably be a better use of funds to reduce commuter traffic over 17.
I take it by "coal trains" you're referring to steam locomotives. Southern Pacific steam locomotives -- at least the ones on the railroad's "Pacific Lines" (meaning anything west of El Paso, TX) utilized Bunker 2 fuel oil rather than coal -- simply because of the regional availability of that particular fuel. But oil-fired locomotion had another advantage --
no sparks to set off fires along the tracks -- a major issue for the SP lines over Donner Pass and the Siskiyou and Cascade ranges in northern California and Oregon; the tracks wound through heavily forested areas -- and the last thing needed there was to set off fires from hot cinders -- always a problem with coal-fired locomotives.
Quote from: TheStranger on February 01, 2018, 02:46:32 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 01, 2018, 12:16:36 AM
Quote from: sparker on January 31, 2018, 05:09:20 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 31, 2018, 04:40:54 PM
Finished up the blog post on CA 17. I only really went in depth on surface alignments from Santa Cruz to San Jose:
http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/01/california-state-route-17.html
That's fitting, since the surface alignments in San Jose remain intact as traversable streets. Once north of town, there are numerous "gaps" in north-central Milpitas, where the old Main Street has been severed and replaced by Jacklin Road and North Milpitas Blvd. on different but nearby alignments. The very north end of Milpitas Blvd., just before the Alameda county line, does follow the original LRN 5/CA 17 route. Just north of the CA 262 intersection, the original road is again severed -- this time due to the construction of the BART extension. Fremont Blvd., the original route through Fremont, remains intact, as does most of the remainder north through San Leandro (another very short gap in downtown) and up East 14th Street into Oakland itself. I've done the full "old route" -- as much as possible -- a couple of times; except for central Fremont, the alignment has been pretty much subsumed by suburbia (and East Oakland); it's not a particularly inviting drive these days.
I noticed that north of San Jose when I was looking at the maps. I kind of had to do the same thing with US 99 in Fresno a couple months back. Shame that the original alignment is all cut up, it wouldn't just be a CA 17 corridor but US 101E.
It does seem like the only portion that has the semi-rural feel of the Route 17 era would be at the intersection of Old Warm Springs/Lopez Court (the old Route 17/US 101E alignment) and Grimmer Boulevard:
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.504197,-121.9431404,3a,75y,298.18h,98.59t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTUFU-BpJrMOhlFae3-osFw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DTUFU-BpJrMOhlFae3-osFw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D212.55603%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192
Was this also at one point US 48?
I agree this looks like the last remaining vestige of farmland/rural Fremont, and I also do not expect it to stick around for much longer. It'll kind of be sad when the area will be cannibalized into the rest of urban Fremont.
I took a video of Google Street View showing the area for posterity. Enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy78-XSyy-8&feature=youtu.be
Back in 2017 I did an entry on CA 17 in the Gribblenation blog series. At the time I was more concerned with the initial surface route of CA 17 (really CA 13 i) and a behind the wheel drive along the modern highway alignment north through the Santa Cruz Mountains. After visiting a portion of I-880 on the Nimitz Freeway I decided to go back and add the full story of CA 17. Included in the blog below is now the complete history of CA 17 from when it was planned to be signed as CA 13 all the way up through when the Nimitz Freeway became I-880 and the advent of I-580 on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Numerous sections behind the wheel on I-880, I-580, and downtown Oakland have been added along with numerous articles from California Highways & Public Works regarding the development of CA 17.
https://www.gribblenation.org/2018/01/california-state-route-17.html
Nice writeup! Did you happen to find anything about the rebuild of CA 17 over the Santa Cruz Mountains after the Loma Prieta Earthquake? I've heard reports that a lot of work had to be done to make it passable again and in the process some shoulders widened and curves eased, but I haven't been over it myself since.
Quote from: kkt on January 27, 2020, 11:39:43 PM
Nice writeup! Did you happen to find anything about the rebuild of CA 17 over the Santa Cruz Mountains after the Loma Prieta Earthquake? I've heard reports that a lot of work had to be done to make it passable again and in the process some shoulders widened and curves eased, but I haven't been over it myself since.
Unfortunately not really. Since the CHPW guides pretty much die in the late 1960s a lot of the lesser incidents on highways around the Bay Area after the Loma Prieta Earthquake are hard to track down information on. Given how the Santa Cruz Mountains is essentially just loose soil it's not hard to envision landslides being an issue on all the State Highways. .
I was only in junior high school in Santa Cruz when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit in 1989, so I don't have any first-hand knowledge of the damage on CA 17 due to the earthquake. From what I heard at the time and the pictures that I saw, there were a number or landslides/rockslides and concrete median breaks on the Santa Cruz County side, as the highway crosses the San Andreas Fault west of the epicenter of the quake. IIRC, CA 17 was closed for a few months, and the Highway 17 Express bus service (jointly run by Santa Clara VTA and the Santa Cruz Metro Transit District) was born of that closure. (I used that bus later when I attended San Jose State University while living at home in Santa Cruz.)
Likely some of the myriad of books written about the Loma Prieta earthquake damage (especially ones centered on Santa Cruz County) should have more detail about the damage and cleanup of CA 17.
I read Max's post on gribblenation and have a qn. (Maybe it was answered in the post, but my mind may have spaced out).
It seems that since 1936, the routing from Oakland to Santa Cruz was first signed as CA 13 and at some point later, the routing became CA 17.
When did the Albany-Richmond, Richmond-San Quentin, and San Quentin-San Rafael (to US 101) portions become part of CA 17? Were these segments part of a different highway originally and then lobbed on to CA 17? Was CA 17 extended at the time of the construction of the Richmond Bridge?
In my mind, if this segment was not part of the original CA 13 declaration, I'm clueless as to what would cause the authorities to connect the roadway north of Richmond, with the Oakland-San Jose-Santa Cruz routing. Since a good portion of the routing was shared by US 40 (or I-80 in later days), it would seem that the two routes are really separate.
(And even in its latest iteration as I-580, the portion north of Richmond is definitely different from the Oakland-I-5 routing of the rest of I-580, but I understand that given the desire to make the routing Interstate and given the lack of I-x80s to choose from, they would have to extend either I-880 or I-580 along the Eastshore towards Richmond.)
Quote from: mrsman on January 31, 2020, 03:25:58 PM
I read Max's post on gribblenation and have a qn. (Maybe it was answered in the post, but my mind may have spaced out).
It seems that since 1936, the routing from Oakland to Santa Cruz was first signed as CA 13 and at some point later, the routing became CA 17.
When did the Albany-Richmond, Richmond-San Quentin, and San Quentin-San Rafael (to US 101) portions become part of CA 17? Were these segments part of a different highway originally and then lobbed on to CA 17? Was CA 17 extended at the time of the construction of the Richmond Bridge?
In my mind, if this segment was not part of the original CA 13 declaration, I'm clueless as to what would cause the authorities to connect the roadway north of Richmond, with the Oakland-San Jose-Santa Cruz routing. Since a good portion of the routing was shared by US 40 (or I-80 in later days), it would seem that the two routes are really separate.
(And even in its latest iteration as I-580, the portion north of Richmond is definitely different from the Oakland-I-5 routing of the rest of I-580, but I understand that given the desire to make the routing Interstate and given the lack of I-x80s to choose from, they would have to extend either I-880 or I-580 along the Eastshore towards Richmond.)
Interestingly San Rafael was part of the original route description of CA 13. CA 13 was probably never field signed and CA 17 wasn't extended north of Oakland until 1957.
^^^^^^^^^^
Back in the old SSR days, there was a bit of controversy regarding just where the signed state route from San Jose to Oakland would run. The plans for original US 101E -- up former US 48 from San Jose to Castro Valley via LRN 5 -- were essentially set in stone (101W would use LRN 2 up the peninsula); it would then use the Foothill (later MacArthur) corridor to Lake Merritt, then twist its way to downtown to the ferry terminal near today's Jack London Square. But that left two other parallel routes: what would later become the surface route of SSR 17 from Warm Springs through central Fremont and Union City and on via Hesperian, Llewellyn, and Washington boulevards to downtown San Leandro (LRN 69). But the northern extension of LRN 105 from Hayward to that same point in San Leandro also figured into the mix. Also, the city of Alameda didn't want to be left out; once the Posey Tube was open, it wanted an SSR to serve it. Apparently at one point -- since the numbers jumped by 4 from west to east -- SSR 13 was planned to use LRN 69 up to San Leandro, where it "bumped" into LRN 105; it would then have turned west on Davis St. (today's CA 112 but then the continuation of LRN 69) west to Doolittle, where it would trace present CA 61 north into Alameda, then back to Oakland (on present CA 260) via the tube. East 14th Street, which hosted LRN 105 both north and south of San Leandro, was to have become the original SSR 17 as it was east of the SSR 13 corridor. But that plan never got past the planning stage; some parties objected to the "13" number, and it was decided to jettison the dual-signage plan, stick with 17, but omit any signage along LRN 105 between Hayward and San Leandro (today's in-process-of-relinquishment CA 185) as well as through the Alameda loop for the time being -- which of course was delayed over 30 years until the 1964 renumbering. Of course the convoluted SSR 17 path in Alameda County was obviated when the Nimitz Freeway was constructed in the '50's. And Max is absolutely correct re the southeastern approach to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge; the Richmond city streets over which the original SSR 17 traveled weren't brought into the state network until just before the bridge opened in '57; the freeway connection next to Franciscan Blvd. up to US 101 in San Rafael was part of the overall bridge project and was effectively "new-terrain" construction.
I was able to get the 1935 Gousha Highway Map scan we've used in so many of these threads up and running again on cartweb.geography (it was down for about a month). It lends evidence to what Sparker stated as CA 17 appears to utilize LRN 69 through Alameda whereas US 101A is shown on LRN 105:
http://cartweb.geography.ua.edu/lizardtech/iserv/calcrgn?cat=North%20America%20and%20United%20States&item=States/California/California1935b.sid&wid=1000&hei=900&props=item(Name,Description),cat(Name,Description)&style=simple/view-dhtml.xsl
I had another thought about early CA 17, why stop at Oakland? The definition of CA 13 announced in 1934 had it ending in San Rafael. LRN 69 from Point San Quentin to San Rafael existed at the time and it wouldn't have been far fetched to have CA 17 on surface roads through Richmond to the ferry landing at Point Castro. So why wasn't CA 17 actually signed on local roads before 1940? There was plenty of State Highways signed on local roadways like CA 33, CA 49, and CA 180 (which can be seen on the map in the previous post) that weren't under state maintenance.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 02, 2020, 11:32:37 PM
I had another thought about early CA 17, why stop at Oakland? The definition of CA 13 announced in 1934 had it ending in San Rafael. LRN 69 from Point San Quentin to San Rafael existed at the time and it wouldn't have been far fetched to have CA 17 on surface roads through Richmond to the ferry landing at Point Castro. So why wasn't CA 17 actually signed on local roads before 1940? There was plenty of State Highways signed on local roadways like CA 33, CA 49, and CA 180 (which can be seen on the map in the previous post) that weren't under state maintenance.
If I'm not mistaken, wasn't the Richmond-San Rafael ferry under private ownership too back then?
But then I recall that was true of the Martinez-Benicia ferry and that was still part of Route 21 before the bridge across the Carquinez Strait was constructed.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 02, 2020, 11:32:37 PM
I had another thought about early CA 17, why stop at Oakland? The definition of CA 13 announced in 1934 had it ending in San Rafael. LRN 69 from Point San Quentin to San Rafael existed at the time and it wouldn't have been far fetched to have CA 17 on surface roads through Richmond to the ferry landing at Point Castro. So why wasn't CA 17 actually signed on local roads before 1940? There was plenty of State Highways signed on local roadways like CA 33, CA 49, and CA 180 (which can be seen on the map in the previous post) that weren't under state maintenance.
Any decision to sign non-state-maintained facilities would have originated at the district level; there's no indication that the relevant district for Richmond-area signage, D4, actually did this prior to WWII; the sole instance where this was done, but during and after WWII, was SSR 21 between LRN 75 (later SSR 24 and current CA 242) in Concord and the ferry terminal in Martinez, likely to provide navigational assistance for employees and military personnel stationed at the Port Chicago ammo depot straddling SSR 4. That section of signed SSR 21 wasn't brought into the state system until later as a "spur" of LRN 75. But since the Richmond-San Rafael ferry wasn't operated by the state, there was likely no local pressure to sign its access routes, so it simply wasn't of concern to D4 until planning for the actual bridge commenced -- and, during the war, likely considered less vital to the war effort. This is in direct contrast to D6, which elected to respond to local requests to provide signage for those connecting routes -- likely from the counties, themselves responding to local agricultural interests; that resulted in the signate of ersatz SSR 33, 49, and 180, as well as the central section of SSR 45 further north, over county roads in order to provide navigational continuity for commercial transport. And into the '50's other districts, famously D7 with SSR 39's "missing link", did likewise for the sake of local navigation.