California

[Max Rockatansky]

Drove CA 58 from CA 99 east to US 395 in Kramer Junction.  Not my best photos given the sun glare but a caught a lot of the Kramer Junction Bypass project:

https://flic.kr/s/aHskUEJRRs

[Techknow]

Today I went on a road trip through heavy rain from San Francisco to Point Arena Lighthouse. The propose of the trip is not to see the lighthouse in windy and wet weather but rather to play an augmented reality video game there... but that's another story. My route there was CA 1 to the Golden Gate Bridge, US 101 to the River Road exit north of Santa Rosa (going through the Sonoma-Marin Narrows), River Road to CA 116 at Guerneville, CA 116 to CA 1 near Jenner, and finally CA 1 all the way to Point Arena Lighthouse. Unfortunately I have no pictures to share, I was driving all there way there and back, and it was so rainy, foggy, and windy that taking pictures was impractical, even though a friend was going with me.

Here are some observations I like to point out:

CA 116: I knew this was a good detour for CA 1 at Bodega Bay, except for a lack of signage. The road intersects the Bohemian Highway at Monte Rio, and turns northwest. Either there was no CA 116 West sign or I couldn't see it due to the rain, so I ended up going the wrong way. My friend had Google Maps on and instructed me to take Moscow Road, which was parallel to CA 116 and would end there. I drove it a couple miles until we got to a road closure! I knew it was closed actually because it was mentioned in Sonoma County's road conditions website. What surprises me is that although the road was closed mid-March, Google Maps still thinks it is open! We had to turn back to that intersection and back onto CA 116. On the way back home, when I got to the intersection again, there is a CA 116 East reassurance sign, but I looked for a spade outline for the west sign and couldn't find it.

CA 1: There was a few places where the asphalt was loose but overall the road held up well to the weather, no portion I drove was closed, had rocks, or flooded. Not much else to say about that, except for the portion between Meyers Grade road and Fort Ross, east of Mill Gulch, with gates in between. There's lots of switchbacks that require one to turn at 20 to 30 miles per hour, and whoever is not driving is subject to motion sickness! I was here last year and it happened to me, and today it happened to my friend. I know there's a sign that says "Prevent boil-over, turn off air conditioning" on CA 17 - there should be a sign at that section of CA 1 that says "Prevent motion sickness, take it slow". Even then it still might not be enough!

US 101: I'm guess I can say that the Sonoma Narrows improvement project(s) is just progressing along, where the 4-lane section north of Novato to Petaluma is supposed to be upgraded to six lanes. The section at Petaluma is still 4-lane freeway, and there's plenty of dried up grass growing in the median. But from the Petaluma Blvd South exit to north of the county line, there is room for six lanes and the shoulder had lane closed signs with markings that indicate you can't drive on it of course. Some of the construction shown in a Google Maps Streetview seems to be finished, but the shoulder was closed at portions south of the county line.

[Max Rockatansky]

Drove US 395 south from Kramer Junction to I-15 yesterday.  Not much has changed with 395 aside from the long over due passing zone immediately south of Kramer Junction almost being completed:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/151828809@N08/i654Xe

[sparker]

Drove US 395 south from Kramer Junction to I-15 yesterday.  Not much has changed with 395 aside from the long over due passing zone immediately south of Kramer Junction almost being completed:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/151828809@N08/i654Xe

A complete upgrade of that US 395 section is way past its sell-by date!  But every bit helps; that construction was in progress when I came through there in the other direction over New Years'.  But if D8 can't get an expressway funded in the next decade or so, a continuously alternating passing lane on the current alignment would definitely be a real improvement considering the seemingly ever-increasing truck volume.

[Max Rockatansky]

 

Drove US 395 south from Kramer Junction to I-15 yesterday.  Not much has changed with 395 aside from the long over due passing zone immediately south of Kramer Junction almost being completed:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/151828809@N08/i654Xe

A complete upgrade of that US 395 section is way past its sell-by date!  But every bit helps; that construction was in progress when I came through there in the other direction over New Years'.  But if D8 can't get an expressway funded in the next decade or so, a continuously alternating passing lane on the current alignment would definitely be a real improvement considering the seemingly ever-increasing truck volume.

At minimum the upgrade is needed north of CA 18 and has been that way for decades.  The worst part is that there a lot of quarry trucks in that area that can't really maintain a speed above 55 MPH.  Perhaps things will get some attention once the Kramer Junction Bypass is complete.

[Max Rockatansky]

A couple more road albums from yesterday:

I-215 from I-15 to CA 210

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmDp764r

-  This was my first time through I-215 into San Bernardino since the CA 210 interchange was completed.  I didn't drive very far into San Bernardino but I did catch one of the new guide signs that shows CA 66 (I never thought I'd see new signage).


CA 259

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmDp7BTc

-  This is a short stub freeway that essentially is a connect route between CA 210 and I-215.  What I've always found odd about this route is that it does have several exits which ought to justify it getting actual route signage instead of "To CA 210" or "To I-215."


CA 18; Rim of the World Highway to CA 138

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmDCxuDJ

-  This probably is the coolest expressway in California from a design standpoint as it maintains four lanes from San Bernardino to CA 138 in Crestline.  I had good sight lines for once given the recent rains...at least I could see I-215 to the west near the junction with CA 138.


CA 173 west segment

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmBmnU2z

-  I drove CA 173 east from CA 138 to the closure gate at the unpaved portion.  I noted only one reassurance shield on CA 173 aside from the trailblazer at the junction at CA 138.  The dirt segment from what I could see appears to have eroded badly and has started to wash out at the western closure gate.  The real shame is that I'd be interested in driving this segment given dirt highways were something of a common occurrence when I lived in Arizona.

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^^
I'm just as surprised to see CA 66 mentioned on any BGS' on I-215 -- although, AFAIK, the section of that highway along 5th Street in San Bernardino hasn't been relinquished as of yet (even though the segment through Fontana to the west was relinquished about 2012).  I guess Caltrans is maintaining their policy of signing things they own regardless of present utility.

The last time I was on SB CA 259 (ca. 2012), there was a standalone 259 reassurance shield after the end of the flyover from WB CA 210.  Since the pix above were from the opposite direction, no surprise that it wasn't shown.  "TO 210" signage has been common NB since that number was applied in 2007 when that older section through San Bernardino was connected to the rest of that freeway (it retained the CA 30 number up to that time). 

The main purpose of the west section of CA 173 is simply as a connector from CA 138 to the East Main Street extension toward the east side of Hesperia; it gets some use as a commute route (except during flash flood incidents; locals know to avoid it during rainy periods).  If Caltrans were in the business of adopting & signing surface routes for navigational purposes rather than agency title, that isolated section of 173, along with Main Street in Hesperia, would make a useful regional route if renumbered (and Caltrans is literally sitting on a pile of "dead" numbers!).  They could revive 106 or 206 -- the shields are probably sitting in their Colton corporate yard collecting dust & rust!  Oh well; one can speculate! 

[ClassicHasClass]

^^^^

I assume you mean one of these CA 259 shields:

http://www.floodgap.com/roadgap/30-18-259/1/#img_45

It was up for probably all of a year, maybe. The one going your direction I think survived a little longer. I'm intentionally keeping that page with the old photographs since it's a memorial to old CA 30.

[Max Rockatansky]

One more album from this past weekend; the entirety of CA 138.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmcwtBDM

[nexus73]

The eastern section of 138 in the mountains reminded me of 1 north of Mill Valley as that highway wends its way to Fort Bragg.  All that is missing is an ocean view! 

Oregon has a 138.  It is incredibly scenic as it crosses the Cascades from US 97 to Roseburg with the western section running from Sutherlin to Elkton.  138 must be a magic number for a road!

Rick

[Max Rockatansky]

The eastern section of 138 in the mountains reminded me of 1 north of Mill Valley as that highway wends its way to Fort Bragg.  All that is missing is an ocean view! 

Oregon has a 138.  It is incredibly scenic as it crosses the Cascades from US 97 to Roseburg with the western section running from Sutherlin to Elkton.  138 must be a magic number for a road!

Rick

The real interesting thing is that CA 138 from CA 2 east to CA 173 was originally part of CA 2.  CA 2 continued east to CA 18 over what is now the last segment of dirt State Highway.  It seems like that the ridge line motif was something planners were going for with CA 2, too bad it never really panned out aside from Angeles Crest. 

The real interesting thing about CA 138 is that it is close to the San Andreas Fault for the majority of its alignment.  Some of those rock formations near Cajon Pass really remind me of Pinnacles National Park. 

[gonealookin]

Caltrans shoots for opening Ebbetts Pass/CA 4 and Sonora Pass/CA 108 for Memorial Day weekend.  Same with the National Park Service for opening Tioga Pass Road across Yosemite which connects the two segments of CA 120.  It's not just clearing the snow off the roads though.  In addition to mitigating avalanche dangers they have other jobs such as getting rid of damaged trees which are in danger of falling across the road.  Also if they find damage to the road once they've scraped the snow off, it has to be repaired.  A couple years ago there was slide damage on CA 4 east of Ebbetts Pass and it was into the summer before the road was reopened.  With the heavy snow season this year, Memorial Day is a nice target date but maybe mid-June is a better idea of a date when you'd be more certain of them being open.

Follow up:  It's Memorial Day weekend and Caltrans still shows CA 4 and CA 108 as closed for the winter with no estimated reopening date shown.  Usually the Highway Conditions site shows a couple days in advance "Will reopen May 24 at noon" if that's the case.  This week's update on the National Park Service specifically says "no estimated date for opening" of the Tioga Road.  Along with the well above average snow over the winter we've had a number of storms which have added snow at the high elevations the last couple weeks; I'm at 6500 feet and I woke up to a fresh 5 inches of snow a couple days ago.

[Max Rockatansky]

Caltrans shoots for opening Ebbetts Pass/CA 4 and Sonora Pass/CA 108 for Memorial Day weekend.  Same with the National Park Service for opening Tioga Pass Road across Yosemite which connects the two segments of CA 120.  It's not just clearing the snow off the roads though.  In addition to mitigating avalanche dangers they have other jobs such as getting rid of damaged trees which are in danger of falling across the road.  Also if they find damage to the road once they've scraped the snow off, it has to be repaired.  A couple years ago there was slide damage on CA 4 east of Ebbetts Pass and it was into the summer before the road was reopened.  With the heavy snow season this year, Memorial Day is a nice target date but maybe mid-June is a better idea of a date when you'd be more certain of them being open.

Follow up:  It's Memorial Day weekend and Caltrans still shows CA 4 and CA 108 as closed for the winter with no estimated reopening date shown.  Usually the Highway Conditions site shows a couple days in advance "Will reopen May 24 at noon" if that's the case.  This week's update on the National Park Service specifically says "no estimated date for opening" of the Tioga Road.  Along with the well above average snow over the winter we've had a number of storms which have added snow at the high elevations the last couple weeks; I'm at 6500 feet and I woke up to a fresh 5 inches of snow a couple days ago.

I'd speculate mid-late June for a lot of the passes.  On the western side of the Sierras there was 1-2 feet of snow in places reported.  My yard actually flooded in Fresno which I've never seen happen even in a stormy winter.  Suffice to say some of those storms were quite large and unusual for a May. 

[nexus73]

Caltrans shoots for opening Ebbetts Pass/CA 4 and Sonora Pass/CA 108 for Memorial Day weekend.  Same with the National Park Service for opening Tioga Pass Road across Yosemite which connects the two segments of CA 120.  It's not just clearing the snow off the roads though.  In addition to mitigating avalanche dangers they have other jobs such as getting rid of damaged trees which are in danger of falling across the road.  Also if they find damage to the road once they've scraped the snow off, it has to be repaired.  A couple years ago there was slide damage on CA 4 east of Ebbetts Pass and it was into the summer before the road was reopened.  With the heavy snow season this year, Memorial Day is a nice target date but maybe mid-June is a better idea of a date when you'd be more certain of them being open.

Follow up:  It's Memorial Day weekend and Caltrans still shows CA 4 and CA 108 as closed for the winter with no estimated reopening date shown.  Usually the Highway Conditions site shows a couple days in advance "Will reopen May 24 at noon" if that's the case.  This week's update on the National Park Service specifically says "no estimated date for opening" of the Tioga Road.  Along with the well above average snow over the winter we've had a number of storms which have added snow at the high elevations the last couple weeks; I'm at 6500 feet and I woke up to a fresh 5 inches of snow a couple days ago.

I’d speculate mid-late June for a lot of the passes.  On the western side of the Sierras there was 1-2 feet of snow in places reported.  My yard actually flooded in Fresno which I’ve never seen happen even in a stormy winter.  Suffice to say some of those storms were quite large and unusual for a May. 

No lie!  On the Oregon coast it felt like we had returned to what one would expect for early April weather.  Oregon State had a baseball series at Stanford see a game rained out so only two games were played.  Rain was falling in LA around the same time. 

The good news is that a cool wet spell pushes back the fire season some.  My friend and I are going to Boise, Reno and back to here in mid-June.  It would be nice to not have to reroute the trip due to massive blazes.

Rick

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^^^
The downside of the recent rains is that all that precipitation is enhancing the growth of underbrush in fire-prone areas -- stuff that'll be dried out by September or October, when the most devastating fires tend to occur as of late.  After Paradise/Camp Fire; USFS and CalFire, along with the counties, will likely have to spend serious $$ on massive cutting or even removal of excess grass and shrub growth.  But they probably won't be able to address every potential fire area -- and the ones they don't get to will probably be the ones that cause the most problems!

[skluth]

^^^^^^^^^^
The downside of the recent rains is that all that precipitation is enhancing the growth of underbrush in fire-prone areas -- stuff that'll be dried out by September or October, when the most devastating fires tend to occur as of late.  After Paradise/Camp Fire; USFS and CalFire, along with the counties, will likely have to spend serious $$ on massive cutting or even removal of excess grass and shrub growth.  But they probably won't be able to address every potential fire area -- and the ones they don't get to will probably be the ones that cause the most problems!

The additional underbrush has me quite worried as well. We've already had a few wildfires just north of the Salton Sea in the last couple weeks. We actually had measurable rain in Palm Springs earlier this week and several inches of snow fell around Mts San Gorgonio and San Jacinto. Tahquitz Creek had dried up past El Cielo a few weeks ago and now it's been recharged and is flowing nicely again. I only moved here last year, but even longtime residents have never seen a winter/spring as wet as this.

[Max Rockatansky]

Visiting the Los Angeles area this weekend, therefore as usual that means I'll be hitting a couple highways.  I ended up taking N2 and CA 14 on the Antelope Valley Freeway getting here:

County Route N2

https://www.flickr.com/gp/151828809@N08/

CA 14 Antelope Valley Freeway

https://flickr.com/photos/151828809@N08/sets/72157708769054651

[SoCal Kid]

Visiting the Los Angeles area this weekend, therefore as usual that means I'll be hitting a couple highways.  I ended up taking N2 and CA 14 on the Antelope Valley Freeway getting here:

County Route N2

https://www.flickr.com/gp/151828809@N08/

CA 14 Antelope Valley Freeway

https://flickr.com/photos/151828809@N08/sets/72157708769054651

CA 14 has decent scenery and is a very useful route to the Poppy Reserver

[Max Rockatansky]

Visiting the Los Angeles area this weekend, therefore as usual that means I'll be hitting a couple highways.  I ended up taking N2 and CA 14 on the Antelope Valley Freeway getting here:

County Route N2

https://www.flickr.com/gp/151828809@N08/

CA 14 Antelope Valley Freeway

https://flickr.com/photos/151828809@N08/sets/72157708769054651

CA 14 has decent scenery and is a very useful route to the Poppy Reserver

Which incidentally is on the old alignment of CA 138 on Lancaster Road. 

[SoCal Kid]

Sorry for this extremely late reply, but was the two CA 259 shields put up by accident? Caltrans has signed state routes as Interstates before by accident, so I wouldn't be surprised.

[ClassicHasClass]

CA 14 has decent scenery and is a very useful route to the Poppy Reserver

Which incidentally is on the old alignment of CA 138 on Lancaster Road.

Now, which strip of road is that? Around what point?

A long time ago Joel found a CA 48 postmile on "Lancaster Road" but I've been unable to locate it since and I don't think it was removed, so I'm assuming I just picked the wrong old alignment.

[nexus73]

Visiting the Los Angeles area this weekend, therefore as usual that means I’ll be hitting a couple highways.  I ended up taking N2 and CA 14 on the Antelope Valley Freeway getting here:

County Route N2

https://www.flickr.com/gp/151828809@N08/

CA 14 Antelope Valley Freeway

https://flickr.com/photos/151828809@N08/sets/72157708769054651

"Take The Old Road" literally came to life in that sign on the southern end of 14.  That was fun to see!  Never having driven the Antelope Valley Freeway, the only memory it has for me is when the CHP officer died in the 1971 quake when an overpass collapsed, leaving him feeling like Wile E. Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon.  Thanks again for another fine photo essay!

Rick

[Max Rockatansky]

CA 14 has decent scenery and is a very useful route to the Poppy Reserver

Which incidentally is on the old alignment of CA 138 on Lancaster Road.

Now, which strip of road is that? Around what point?

A long time ago Joel found a CA 48 postmile on "Lancaster Road" but I've been unable to locate it since and I don't think it was removed, so I'm assuming I just picked the wrong old alignment.

From 245th Street West from Neenach all the way into Lancaster.  The alignment switched to D Street crica 1955/1956:

https://www.gribblenation.org/2019/05/california-state-route-138.html?m=1

[sparker]

Sorry for this extremely late reply, but was the two CA 259 shields put up by accident? Caltrans has signed state routes as Interstates before by accident, so I wouldn't be surprised.

It's more a matter of D8 (Caltrans District 8, which covers San Bernardino & Riverside counties) getting a bit literal-minded with signage.  Since that stretch of road is legally CA 259, someone within the district hierarchy probably ordered the signage at some point; the field crews just put up the signs as directed.  Generally, when that happens, unless the signage as placed is completely misleading, the signs tend to stick around until (a) at a later date someone orders their removal, or (b) they're taken down as part of a maintenance or rebuild project.  While there are agency-wide general guidelines, the districts are given relatively broad latitude regarding such things as signage -- and some districts are a bit more OCD about such things than others.  D8, within which I lived for about a decade, falls in between lax and exacting -- probably depends upon the whims of individual district management at any given time.  That 259 signage originally appeared in the early 2000's (IIRC, about 2003-04) and was still around when I left the area in 2012, so in the interim it appears that no one in the district HQ had any serious objections to its presence.  That being said, it is something of an anomaly, seeing as how that short freeway connector is signed as "TO SOUTH I-215" at one end and "TO EAST CA 210" on the other, with secondary reference to control points along CA 18.  Put it this way -- we roadgeeks are probably the only people who care about that signage -- probably more than any collection of D8 personnel at any given time.  If it's gone by now, it won't be missed -- and if it's still there, it'll only be noted by few.

[ClassicHasClass]

CA 14 has decent scenery and is a very useful route to the Poppy Reserver

Which incidentally is on the old alignment of CA 138 on Lancaster Road.

Now, which strip of road is that? Around what point?

A long time ago Joel found a CA 48 postmile on "Lancaster Road" but I've been unable to locate it since and I don't think it was removed, so I'm assuming I just picked the wrong old alignment.

From 245th Street West from Neenach all the way into Lancaster.  The alignment switched to D Street crica 1955/1956:

https://www.gribblenation.org/2019/05/california-state-route-138.html?m=1

Thanks (though minor pedantry: Avenue D, not D St). Looks like that wobbles through Fairmont and comes out as Avenue I. I'll add that to my list to investigate; maybe it's still there.