Unbuilt CA 64 on the Malibu Canyon-Whitnall Freeway

[Max Rockatansky]

I figured it was time for another Paper Highways edition.  This volume covers the history of the unbuilt CA 64 on the Malibu Canyon-Whitnall Freeway.  CA 64 was planned to begin at CA 1 and travel north over the Santa Monica Mountains via Malibu Creek.  Upon crossing the Santa Monica Mountains CA 64 was planned to swing east where it would have ended at a mutual junction with the Hollywood Freeway (CA 170) and I-5 (Golden State Freeway) in San Fernando.  CA 64 had a fully adopted alignment but it was abandoned during the early 1970s.  Interestingly despite being long removed from the Freeway & Expressway System the general planned route of CA 64 was never deleted by the State Legislature and still appears on modern maps.

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/04/paper-highways-california-state-route.html

[sparker]

I figured it was time for another Paper Highways edition.  This volume covers the history of the unbuilt CA 64 on the Malibu Canyon-Whitnall Freeway.  CA 64 was planned to begin at CA 1 and travel north over the Santa Monica Mountains via Malibu Creek.  Upon crossing the Santa Monica Mountains CA 64 was planned to swing east where it would have ended at a mutual junction with the Hollywood Freeway (CA 170) and I-5 (Golden State Freeway) in San Fernando.  CA 64 had a fully adopted alignment but it was abandoned during the early 1970s.  Interestingly despite being long removed from the Freeway & Expressway System the general planned route of CA 64 was never deleted by the State Legislature and still appears on modern maps.

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/04/paper-highways-california-state-route.html

There were always two overriding issues with the SF Valley section of CA 64:  one being the billions of dollars of property acquisition required to deploy a freeway there.  But the second was the presence of Van Nuys Airport, which, along with its takeoff/landing zone, occupies about 2/3 of the valley's N-S width.  Even though the projected (but never adopted) route essentially followed Roscoe Blvd., which skirts the north end of the runway (along with the Metrolink/former SP Santa Susana line), any facility would have had to be sunk below grade to avoid interference with airport operations.   For those not originally from that area, that airport is one of the most heavily-used "noncommercial" airfields in the country (no scheduled passenger flights, but a boatload of private jets), with a runway capable of handling commercial jets (rumor has it that Travolta lands his 707 there regularly).  L.A. "movers and shakers" fly corporate/private planes in & out of there daily; anything that would disrupt airfield operations would never be tolerated; it took decades to get the Roscoe Blvd. RR overpass through the developmental process; and even then the vertical apex of the bridge had to be moved about a quarter-mile west so as to be out of the runway's path. 

Given current Caltrans predilections, it's possible that the 64 corridor remains on the books as a "placeholder" for transit improvements now under Caltrans parvenu; as has been speculated previously, when the CA 71 freeway is completed through Pomona, that'll be about it for new freeway mileage in D7 south of the San Gabriel mountains. 

[nexus73]

Having driven SR 27 (Topanga Canyon), running a freeway through that terrain looks to be a real rough road to hoe in the most literal sense!  I loved the pix of the SR 1/SR 64 interchange.  That is a beautiful structure!  Tis a shame the freeway was never built.

Rick

[mrsman]

There is currently a diagonal street in Burbank, CA named Whitnall Hwy.  It starts near the old NBC studios (Olive/Alameda) and follows a pretty wide electrical wire corridor to the northwest continuing to the area near 170 and Roscoe.  The road is not continuous, but the wide corridor is and it is easiest to see on satellite view.  I imagine given its name and location, there may have also been plans to extend CA-64 into the Burbank Media District along this ROW.

[Max Rockatansky]

There is currently a diagonal street in Burbank, CA named Whitnall Hwy.  It starts near the old NBC studios (Olive/Alameda) and follows a pretty wide electrical wire corridor to the northwest continuing to the area near 170 and Roscoe.  The road is not continuous, but the wide corridor is and it is easiest to see on satellite view.  I imagine given its name and location, there may have also been plans to extend CA-64 into the Burbank Media District along this ROW.

I think that's a vestige of planned Whitnall Parkway from the 1920s.

[sparker]

There is currently a diagonal street in Burbank, CA named Whitnall Hwy.  It starts near the old NBC studios (Olive/Alameda) and follows a pretty wide electrical wire corridor to the northwest continuing to the area near 170 and Roscoe.  The road is not continuous, but the wide corridor is and it is easiest to see on satellite view.  I imagine given its name and location, there may have also been plans to extend CA-64 into the Burbank Media District along this ROW.

I think that's a vestige of planned Whitnall Parkway from the 1920s.

Definitely!!!  Pre-state Freeway & Expressway System (inception 1959), the city of L.A. had its own plans for freeways (plans our own Fritz would probably find excessive!).  The Whitnall Freeway started near Dodger Stadium, headed north through Los Feliz (right!?), through the backlands of Griffith Park's west side (skirting Traveltown on the west) and essentially taking over the Burbank/North Hollywood/Arleta path of the electric transmission lines (apparently the plan was to put the lines in pipes under the freeway!), eventually ending up at what is now the CA 118 freeway in Granada Hills.  The SF Valley plans included not only this freeway (the main diagonal paralleling the Golden State/I-5 freeway but somewhat westerly) but a series of N-S ones, including today's CA 170/Hollywood Freeway, I-405, one basically up Reseda Blvd., and, of course, one out a bit west of Topanga Canyon (CA 27).  E-W freeways included today's US 101 and CA 118, but no less than two in between; one would have gone from the Foothill Freeway near Hansen Dam, striking out west and staying between Parthenia and Nordhoff avenues before terminating at the Topanga Freeway.  The second one would have essentially sat atop Sherman Way, using La Tuna Canyon from the Foothill (today's I-210) freeway west around the north end of then-Lockheed Field (now Hollywood/Burbank Airport), then right down Sherman all the way out past Topanga and ending up at US 101 near Calabasas.  Even as a budding roadgeek still in single-digits, my reaction when I first saw the plans circa 1958 was "holy shit!"  The Valley was at the time just winding down its massive postwar development, and -- except for that Whitnall ROW, was pretty much built-out, with property acquisition and use of eminent domain looming large over any freeway developments -- but the freeways that are there now had been in the works even before the F & E system's inception and, except for I-210 through San Fernando and Sylmar (where ROW had to be acquired), the ROW's were preserved and housing tracts arranged around that ROW, particularly with the CA 118/Simi Valley (later R. Reagan) facility.  The "round dot" freeways, like the subject of this thread and the CA 14 southern extension through Reseda and over the mountains to the coast, where exact alignments were never formally adopted, didn't receive this treatment, of course; since they were considered speculative at best (which characterized a lot of the '59 network and its '65 revisions), so it was deemed OK to kick that particular can down the road.  Needless to say, the state plan superseded the L.A. pipedreams, so that plan simply faded away in the early '60's, although several of its components south of the Santa Monicas (like CA 258 down Western Avenue!) were incorporated into the prospective state network.  But if it isn't currently on the ground or in process, the chances of any more new-terrain freeway development in the L.A. Basin, including the Valley, are negligible. 

[mrsman]

There is currently a diagonal street in Burbank, CA named Whitnall Hwy.  It starts near the old NBC studios (Olive/Alameda) and follows a pretty wide electrical wire corridor to the northwest continuing to the area near 170 and Roscoe.  The road is not continuous, but the wide corridor is and it is easiest to see on satellite view.  I imagine given its name and location, there may have also been plans to extend CA-64 into the Burbank Media District along this ROW.

I think that's a vestige of planned Whitnall Parkway from the 1920s.

Definitely!!!  Pre-state Freeway & Expressway System (inception 1959), the city of L.A. had its own plans for freeways (plans our own Fritz would probably find excessive!).  The Whitnall Freeway started near Dodger Stadium, headed north through Los Feliz (right!?), through the backlands of Griffith Park's west side (skirting Traveltown on the west) and essentially taking over the Burbank/North Hollywood/Arleta path of the electric transmission lines (apparently the plan was to put the lines in pipes under the freeway!), eventually ending up at what is now the CA 118 freeway in Granada Hills.  The SF Valley plans included not only this freeway (the main diagonal paralleling the Golden State/I-5 freeway but somewhat westerly) but a series of N-S ones, including today's CA 170/Hollywood Freeway, I-405, one basically up Reseda Blvd., and, of course, one out a bit west of Topanga Canyon (CA 27).  E-W freeways included today's US 101 and CA 118, but no less than two in between; one would have gone from the Foothill Freeway near Hansen Dam, striking out west and staying between Parthenia and Nordhoff avenues before terminating at the Topanga Freeway.  The second one would have essentially sat atop Sherman Way, using La Tuna Canyon from the Foothill (today's I-210) freeway west around the north end of then-Lockheed Field (now Hollywood/Burbank Airport), then right down Sherman all the way out past Topanga and ending up at US 101 near Calabasas.  Even as a budding roadgeek still in single-digits, my reaction when I first saw the plans circa 1958 was "holy shit!"  The Valley was at the time just winding down its massive postwar development, and -- except for that Whitnall ROW, was pretty much built-out, with property acquisition and use of eminent domain looming large over any freeway developments -- but the freeways that are there now had been in the works even before the F & E system's inception and, except for I-210 through San Fernando and Sylmar (where ROW had to be acquired), the ROW's were preserved and housing tracts arranged around that ROW, particularly with the CA 118/Simi Valley (later R. Reagan) facility.  The "round dot" freeways, like the subject of this thread and the CA 14 southern extension through Reseda and over the mountains to the coast, where exact alignments were never formally adopted, didn't receive this treatment, of course; since they were considered speculative at best (which characterized a lot of the '59 network and its '65 revisions), so it was deemed OK to kick that particular can down the road.  Needless to say, the state plan superseded the L.A. pipedreams, so that plan simply faded away in the early '60's, although several of its components south of the Santa Monicas (like CA 258 down Western Avenue!) were incorporated into the prospective state network.  But if it isn't currently on the ground or in process, the chances of any more new-terrain freeway development in the L.A. Basin, including the Valley, are negligible.

Obviously not expecting any new freeways in the SFV, but it would be nice to have some type of at-grade expressway oriented E-W along Roscoe or so and perhaps a similar expressway along Topanga Canyon.  Those areas are pretty far from paralleling freeways and travel can take some time.  Also, given the mountains, traffic along a Roscoe expressway would only be local (not interregional) as it would be pretty hard to traverse the mountains to the west.  Use 101 or 118 for travel into Ventura County.

[sparker]

Obviously not expecting any new freeways in the SFV, but it would be nice to have some type of at-grade expressway oriented E-W along Roscoe or so and perhaps a similar expressway along Topanga Canyon.  Those areas are pretty far from paralleling freeways and travel can take some time.  Also, given the mountains, traffic along a Roscoe expressway would only be local (not interregional) as it would be pretty hard to traverse the mountains to the west.  Use 101 or 118 for travel into Ventura County.

Any improvement on Roscoe, which is chock-full of commercial and residential development from Lankershim all the way across the valley to the airport area, would have to be incremental at best -- there's simply no room to expand the facility without extensive property acquisition.  And no one is considering double-deck construction after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; that would be only way to effect even express lanes along Roscoe or any other cross-Valley arterial.  Current Valley plans are singularly transit-oriented; increasing throughput capacity isn't even on the table.

[don1991]

There is currently a diagonal street in Burbank, CA named Whitnall Hwy.  It starts near the old NBC studios (Olive/Alameda) and follows a pretty wide electrical wire corridor to the northwest continuing to the area near 170 and Roscoe.  The road is not continuous, but the wide corridor is and it is easiest to see on satellite view.  I imagine given its name and location, there may have also been plans to extend CA-64 into the Burbank Media District along this ROW.

I think that's a vestige of planned Whitnall Parkway from the 1920s.

Definitely!!!  Pre-state Freeway & Expressway System (inception 1959), the city of L.A. had its own plans for freeways (plans our own Fritz would probably find excessive!).  The Whitnall Freeway started near Dodger Stadium, headed north through Los Feliz (right!?), through the backlands of Griffith Park's west side (skirting Traveltown on the west) and essentially taking over the Burbank/North Hollywood/Arleta path of the electric transmission lines (apparently the plan was to put the lines in pipes under the freeway!), eventually ending up at what is now the CA 118 freeway in Granada Hills.  The SF Valley plans included not only this freeway (the main diagonal paralleling the Golden State/I-5 freeway but somewhat westerly) but a series of N-S ones, including today's CA 170/Hollywood Freeway, I-405, one basically up Reseda Blvd., and, of course, one out a bit west of Topanga Canyon (CA 27).  E-W freeways included today's US 101 and CA 118, but no less than two in between; one would have gone from the Foothill Freeway near Hansen Dam, striking out west and staying between Parthenia and Nordhoff avenues before terminating at the Topanga Freeway.  The second one would have essentially sat atop Sherman Way, using La Tuna Canyon from the Foothill (today's I-210) freeway west around the north end of then-Lockheed Field (now Hollywood/Burbank Airport), then right down Sherman all the way out past Topanga and ending up at US 101 near Calabasas.  Even as a budding roadgeek still in single-digits, my reaction when I first saw the plans circa 1958 was "holy shit!"  The Valley was at the time just winding down its massive postwar development, and -- except for that Whitnall ROW, was pretty much built-out, with property acquisition and use of eminent domain looming large over any freeway developments -- but the freeways that are there now had been in the works even before the F & E system's inception and, except for I-210 through San Fernando and Sylmar (where ROW had to be acquired), the ROW's were preserved and housing tracts arranged around that ROW, particularly with the CA 118/Simi Valley (later R. Reagan) facility.  The "round dot" freeways, like the subject of this thread and the CA 14 southern extension through Reseda and over the mountains to the coast, where exact alignments were never formally adopted, didn't receive this treatment, of course; since they were considered speculative at best (which characterized a lot of the '59 network and its '65 revisions), so it was deemed OK to kick that particular can down the road.  Needless to say, the state plan superseded the L.A. pipedreams, so that plan simply faded away in the early '60's, although several of its components south of the Santa Monicas (like CA 258 down Western Avenue!) were incorporated into the prospective state network.  But if it isn't currently on the ground or in process, the chances of any more new-terrain freeway development in the L.A. Basin, including the Valley, are negligible.

I think I am one of the very few - even in this forum - who believes we should have built every single planned freeway (and then some) in Southern California.  Even the Pacific Coast Freeway on stilts.  But oh well.  One can dream when I am driving in 10 MPH traffic on the 101 Freeway at freaking 11:30 PM on a weekday evening (with no accidents) between Alvarado and CA-110.  Pre-COVID times at least.

[don1991]

There is currently a diagonal street in Burbank, CA named Whitnall Hwy.  It starts near the old NBC studios (Olive/Alameda) and follows a pretty wide electrical wire corridor to the northwest continuing to the area near 170 and Roscoe.  The road is not continuous, but the wide corridor is and it is easiest to see on satellite view.  I imagine given its name and location, there may have also been plans to extend CA-64 into the Burbank Media District along this ROW.

I think that's a vestige of planned Whitnall Parkway from the 1920s.

Definitely!!!  Pre-state Freeway & Expressway System (inception 1959), the city of L.A. had its own plans for freeways (plans our own Fritz would probably find excessive!).  The Whitnall Freeway started near Dodger Stadium, headed north through Los Feliz (right!?), through the backlands of Griffith Park's west side (skirting Traveltown on the west) and essentially taking over the Burbank/North Hollywood/Arleta path of the electric transmission lines (apparently the plan was to put the lines in pipes under the freeway!), eventually ending up at what is now the CA 118 freeway in Granada Hills.  The SF Valley plans included not only this freeway (the main diagonal paralleling the Golden State/I-5 freeway but somewhat westerly) but a series of N-S ones, including today's CA 170/Hollywood Freeway, I-405, one basically up Reseda Blvd., and, of course, one out a bit west of Topanga Canyon (CA 27).  E-W freeways included today's US 101 and CA 118, but no less than two in between; one would have gone from the Foothill Freeway near Hansen Dam, striking out west and staying between Parthenia and Nordhoff avenues before terminating at the Topanga Freeway.  The second one would have essentially sat atop Sherman Way, using La Tuna Canyon from the Foothill (today's I-210) freeway west around the north end of then-Lockheed Field (now Hollywood/Burbank Airport), then right down Sherman all the way out past Topanga and ending up at US 101 near Calabasas.  Even as a budding roadgeek still in single-digits, my reaction when I first saw the plans circa 1958 was "holy shit!"  The Valley was at the time just winding down its massive postwar development, and -- except for that Whitnall ROW, was pretty much built-out, with property acquisition and use of eminent domain looming large over any freeway developments -- but the freeways that are there now had been in the works even before the F & E system's inception and, except for I-210 through San Fernando and Sylmar (where ROW had to be acquired), the ROW's were preserved and housing tracts arranged around that ROW, particularly with the CA 118/Simi Valley (later R. Reagan) facility.  The "round dot" freeways, like the subject of this thread and the CA 14 southern extension through Reseda and over the mountains to the coast, where exact alignments were never formally adopted, didn't receive this treatment, of course; since they were considered speculative at best (which characterized a lot of the '59 network and its '65 revisions), so it was deemed OK to kick that particular can down the road.  Needless to say, the state plan superseded the L.A. pipedreams, so that plan simply faded away in the early '60's, although several of its components south of the Santa Monicas (like CA 258 down Western Avenue!) were incorporated into the prospective state network.  But if it isn't currently on the ground or in process, the chances of any more new-terrain freeway development in the L.A. Basin, including the Valley, are negligible.

Obviously not expecting any new freeways in the SFV, but it would be nice to have some type of at-grade expressway oriented E-W along Roscoe or so and perhaps a similar expressway along Topanga Canyon.  Those areas are pretty far from paralleling freeways and travel can take some time.  Also, given the mountains, traffic along a Roscoe expressway would only be local (not interregional) as it would be pretty hard to traverse the mountains to the west.  Use 101 or 118 for travel into Ventura County.

Agreed.  It would almost have to be a freeway though.  Expressways in a dense urban area are difficult and they offer little more relief than an arterial.  This is why CA-71 in Pomona is about to be converted into a full freeway (though the elimination of the signals has created somewhat of a jersey-style freeway, with RIRO movements where the signals used to be).

[sparker]

There is currently a diagonal street in Burbank, CA named Whitnall Hwy.  It starts near the old NBC studios (Olive/Alameda) and follows a pretty wide electrical wire corridor to the northwest continuing to the area near 170 and Roscoe.  The road is not continuous, but the wide corridor is and it is easiest to see on satellite view.  I imagine given its name and location, there may have also been plans to extend CA-64 into the Burbank Media District along this ROW.

I think that's a vestige of planned Whitnall Parkway from the 1920s.

Definitely!!!  Pre-state Freeway & Expressway System (inception 1959), the city of L.A. had its own plans for freeways (plans our own Fritz would probably find excessive!).  The Whitnall Freeway started near Dodger Stadium, headed north through Los Feliz (right!?), through the backlands of Griffith Park's west side (skirting Traveltown on the west) and essentially taking over the Burbank/North Hollywood/Arleta path of the electric transmission lines (apparently the plan was to put the lines in pipes under the freeway!), eventually ending up at what is now the CA 118 freeway in Granada Hills.  The SF Valley plans included not only this freeway (the main diagonal paralleling the Golden State/I-5 freeway but somewhat westerly) but a series of N-S ones, including today's CA 170/Hollywood Freeway, I-405, one basically up Reseda Blvd., and, of course, one out a bit west of Topanga Canyon (CA 27).  E-W freeways included today's US 101 and CA 118, but no less than two in between; one would have gone from the Foothill Freeway near Hansen Dam, striking out west and staying between Parthenia and Nordhoff avenues before terminating at the Topanga Freeway.  The second one would have essentially sat atop Sherman Way, using La Tuna Canyon from the Foothill (today's I-210) freeway west around the north end of then-Lockheed Field (now Hollywood/Burbank Airport), then right down Sherman all the way out past Topanga and ending up at US 101 near Calabasas.  Even as a budding roadgeek still in single-digits, my reaction when I first saw the plans circa 1958 was "holy shit!"  The Valley was at the time just winding down its massive postwar development, and -- except for that Whitnall ROW, was pretty much built-out, with property acquisition and use of eminent domain looming large over any freeway developments -- but the freeways that are there now had been in the works even before the F & E system's inception and, except for I-210 through San Fernando and Sylmar (where ROW had to be acquired), the ROW's were preserved and housing tracts arranged around that ROW, particularly with the CA 118/Simi Valley (later R. Reagan) facility.  The "round dot" freeways, like the subject of this thread and the CA 14 southern extension through Reseda and over the mountains to the coast, where exact alignments were never formally adopted, didn't receive this treatment, of course; since they were considered speculative at best (which characterized a lot of the '59 network and its '65 revisions), so it was deemed OK to kick that particular can down the road.  Needless to say, the state plan superseded the L.A. pipedreams, so that plan simply faded away in the early '60's, although several of its components south of the Santa Monicas (like CA 258 down Western Avenue!) were incorporated into the prospective state network.  But if it isn't currently on the ground or in process, the chances of any more new-terrain freeway development in the L.A. Basin, including the Valley, are negligible.

Obviously not expecting any new freeways in the SFV, but it would be nice to have some type of at-grade expressway oriented E-W along Roscoe or so and perhaps a similar expressway along Topanga Canyon.  Those areas are pretty far from paralleling freeways and travel can take some time.  Also, given the mountains, traffic along a Roscoe expressway would only be local (not interregional) as it would be pretty hard to traverse the mountains to the west.  Use 101 or 118 for travel into Ventura County.

Agreed.  It would almost have to be a freeway though.  Expressways in a dense urban area are difficult and they offer little more relief than an arterial.  This is why CA-71 in Pomona is about to be converted into a full freeway (though the elimination of the signals has created somewhat of a jersey-style freeway, with RIRO movements where the signals used to be).

A very temporary situation.  The RIRO's are/were (I understand they're in the process of being cut off) the remnants of the previous signalized intersections on that section of CA 71, an old "expressway" dating from about 1956-57, built at the same time as the original US 70/99 San Bernardino Freeway bypass of Pomona, now I-10, of course.  Conversion of this stretch to full freeway is likely the last D7 project of that sort for the foreseeable future; if any further freeway activities occur, they will be simply modifications of existing facilities (such as the I-5 upgrade from the Orange County line to I-605). 

[don1991]

There is currently a diagonal street in Burbank, CA named Whitnall Hwy.  It starts near the old NBC studios (Olive/Alameda) and follows a pretty wide electrical wire corridor to the northwest continuing to the area near 170 and Roscoe.  The road is not continuous, but the wide corridor is and it is easiest to see on satellite view.  I imagine given its name and location, there may have also been plans to extend CA-64 into the Burbank Media District along this ROW.

I think that's a vestige of planned Whitnall Parkway from the 1920s.

Definitely!!!  Pre-state Freeway & Expressway System (inception 1959), the city of L.A. had its own plans for freeways (plans our own Fritz would probably find excessive!).  The Whitnall Freeway started near Dodger Stadium, headed north through Los Feliz (right!?), through the backlands of Griffith Park's west side (skirting Traveltown on the west) and essentially taking over the Burbank/North Hollywood/Arleta path of the electric transmission lines (apparently the plan was to put the lines in pipes under the freeway!), eventually ending up at what is now the CA 118 freeway in Granada Hills.  The SF Valley plans included not only this freeway (the main diagonal paralleling the Golden State/I-5 freeway but somewhat westerly) but a series of N-S ones, including today's CA 170/Hollywood Freeway, I-405, one basically up Reseda Blvd., and, of course, one out a bit west of Topanga Canyon (CA 27).  E-W freeways included today's US 101 and CA 118, but no less than two in between; one would have gone from the Foothill Freeway near Hansen Dam, striking out west and staying between Parthenia and Nordhoff avenues before terminating at the Topanga Freeway.  The second one would have essentially sat atop Sherman Way, using La Tuna Canyon from the Foothill (today's I-210) freeway west around the north end of then-Lockheed Field (now Hollywood/Burbank Airport), then right down Sherman all the way out past Topanga and ending up at US 101 near Calabasas.  Even as a budding roadgeek still in single-digits, my reaction when I first saw the plans circa 1958 was "holy shit!"  The Valley was at the time just winding down its massive postwar development, and -- except for that Whitnall ROW, was pretty much built-out, with property acquisition and use of eminent domain looming large over any freeway developments -- but the freeways that are there now had been in the works even before the F & E system's inception and, except for I-210 through San Fernando and Sylmar (where ROW had to be acquired), the ROW's were preserved and housing tracts arranged around that ROW, particularly with the CA 118/Simi Valley (later R. Reagan) facility.  The "round dot" freeways, like the subject of this thread and the CA 14 southern extension through Reseda and over the mountains to the coast, where exact alignments were never formally adopted, didn't receive this treatment, of course; since they were considered speculative at best (which characterized a lot of the '59 network and its '65 revisions), so it was deemed OK to kick that particular can down the road.  Needless to say, the state plan superseded the L.A. pipedreams, so that plan simply faded away in the early '60's, although several of its components south of the Santa Monicas (like CA 258 down Western Avenue!) were incorporated into the prospective state network.  But if it isn't currently on the ground or in process, the chances of any more new-terrain freeway development in the L.A. Basin, including the Valley, are negligible.

Obviously not expecting any new freeways in the SFV, but it would be nice to have some type of at-grade expressway oriented E-W along Roscoe or so and perhaps a similar expressway along Topanga Canyon.  Those areas are pretty far from paralleling freeways and travel can take some time.  Also, given the mountains, traffic along a Roscoe expressway would only be local (not interregional) as it would be pretty hard to traverse the mountains to the west.  Use 101 or 118 for travel into Ventura County.

Agreed.  It would almost have to be a freeway though.  Expressways in a dense urban area are difficult and they offer little more relief than an arterial.  This is why CA-71 in Pomona is about to be converted into a full freeway (though the elimination of the signals has created somewhat of a jersey-style freeway, with RIRO movements where the signals used to be).

A very temporary situation.  The RIRO's are/were (I understand they're in the process of being cut off) the remnants of the previous signalized intersections on that section of CA 71, an old "expressway" dating from about 1956-57, built at the same time as the original US 70/99 San Bernardino Freeway bypass of Pomona, now I-10, of course.  Conversion of this stretch to full freeway is likely the last D7 project of that sort for the foreseeable future; if any further freeway activities occur, they will be simply modifications of existing facilities (such as the I-5 upgrade from the Orange County line to I-605).

Indeed.  Unless COVID got in the way, they are supposed to start the full 6+2 freeway upgrade this year on CA-71.  The RIROs were temporary but a very welcome one.  Even though the full freeway is needed, just getting rid of the signals was a huge improvement for that stretch.  The RIROs are still in place and are likely to remain until the full freeway is constructed.  Then there will be no exits from Mission to Rio Rancho.