I was living in Roseville back in 1987 when the CA 65 bypass freeway was opened to traffic (hard to believe it was 30 years ago!). Prior to that, CA 65 (US 99E before '64) took a rather convoluted route through the central part of town. The I-80/CA 65 interchange was at Riverside Ave. in the SW part of town; from there NB CA 65 used Riverside Ave., a two-lane city street, north to Vernon Ave., which ran diagonally (SW-NE) along the south side of the massive SP (now UP) Roseville rail yard. It used Vernon NE for about 5 blocks, then turned south on Grant Street for one block to Oak Street, then east (actually NE) on Oak another block to Washington Blvd. It finally turned north on Washington Blvd., a 4-lane divided facility, to go through a series of underpasses of Vernon Street and Atlantic Street and finally the east end of the railyard. Washington Street (CA 65) emerged from the underpass and continued north out of town, where it narrowed to 2 lanes and passed through another RR underpass.
Until the original US 40 (later I-80) bypass freeway was completed circa 1955, US 40 multiplexed with US 99E along Riverside and Vernon streets in Roseville; it continued east on Vernon, curving north east of downtown to Atlantic Street, which it used to exit town eastbound toward Rocklin and Auburn. The convoluted US 99E/CA 65 underpass arrangement was due to the postwar expansion of the rail yard; the original alignment of 99E went two blocks further east on Vernon (with US 40) and turned left (north) on Lincoln Street; it crossed the east end of the yard (about 6 tracks wide at the time) at grade, then used Lincoln Street, which was a couple of blocks east of Washington Blvd., to exit the town. When SP decided to expand and reconfigure the yard, it became clear that an at-grade railroad crossing wouldn't be feasible (it would be occupied by trains most of the time), so the underpass arrangement was planned and constructed by 1949. Until the direct CA 99 connection between Sacramento and Yuba City was made in 1964, the US 99E alignment through Roseville saw a high level of through truck traffic; after 1964, most traffic was local or regional; it wasn't until the Roseville/Rocklin/Lincoln area became overwhelmed with housing development in the late '70's and early '80's that the CA 65 bypass freeway became a necessary project. The Washington Blvd. underpass and its approaches remain intact, maintained today by the City of Roseville.
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Topic: State route alignments before the freeways (Read 3392 times)