CA 120 Freeway; a legacy of US 99W, US 48 and US 50

[Max Rockatansky]

This past month I drove the route of the CA 120 freeway west from CA 99 to I-5.  Interestingly CA 120 between CA 99 and I-5 is part of the corridor of US 99W which was on LRN 66 on Yosemite Avenue.  The junction of CA 120 at I-5 actually blows through what was the second terminus of US 48 at US 99W.  The ramp from CA 120 west on I-5 south actually incorporates the 1949 Mossdale Highway Bridge at the San Joaquin River which was part of US 50.

https://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2019/03/california-state-route-120-freeway.html

My photo set for the CA 120 freeway can be found below:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmAZGTS7

[Kniwt]

According to this local report from 2010, state funding for the 120 freeway wasn't approved until 1976:
https://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/mantecas-freeway-to-the-future/

In the early 1990s, the first time I drove it, the 120 freeway was only two or three lanes total (one lane in each direction, with a narrow center barrier and a passing lane that switched directions in the middle), but it was fully grade-separated with the exits essentially the same as now, except for Union Road which was added later. I'm trying to find an exact date for when the freeway was expanded to four lanes -- perhaps 1995 was when that happened, but I haven't found any news reports from the time.

[Max Rockatansky]

According to this local report from 2010, state funding for the 120 freeway wasn't approved until 1976:
https://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/mantecas-freeway-to-the-future/

In the early 1990s, the first time I drove it, the 120 freeway was only two or three lanes total (one lane in each direction, with a narrow center barrier and a passing lane that switched directions in the middle), but it was fully grade-separated with the exits essentially the same as now, except for Union Road which was added later. I'm trying to find an exact date for when the freeway was expanded to four lanes -- perhaps 1995 was when that happened, but I haven't found any news reports from the time.

The crappy thing is 1990 is when the collection of State Highway Maps on David Rumsey fall off.  The State Highway maps had very high accuracy and only got more detailed from the late 1960s onward.

[Kniwt]

Here's an interesting section of a report from 1992 buried deep in the San Joaquin County official website, which includes the need to expand 120 to four lanes, so 1995 certainly seems like the earliest year by which that could have been done:
https://www.sjgov.org/commdev/cgi-bin/cdyn.exe/handouts-planning_GP-V3-II-C?grp=handouts-planning&obj=GP-V3-II-C
(I'm fairly certain it was complete by 1997 at the latest.)

SR 120 is primarily a two-lane facility, portions of which are considered as a freeway and others as a conventional highway. Passing through Manteca and Escalon, the road connects I-5 and Stanislaus County, a distance of about 21 miles. The western segment, between I-5 and SR 99, had the greatest volumes, ranging from about 18,000 to 24,500 in 1987. Traffic conditions in this stretch are at LOS "F."

A table on Page 8 corrects my memory on one small point: The first 1.1 miles of CA 120 eastbound from I-5 were already four lanes, before decreasing to two lanes the rest of the way to CA 99.

[sparker]

Originally, the CA 120 Manteca bypass freeway was planned essentially as it is today, but when the alignment opened to traffic in spring 1980, it was configured as a "super two" with a few overpasses and a couple of interchanges (I first drove on it about a week after it opened).  The overpasses were quite short, consisting of a single span over the roadway, which was a single lane in each direction with a double-yellow line down the center (this preceded the later prevalence of K-rails).  The scaling down of CA 120 was one of the actions taken by Caltrans under Adriana Gianturco, who openly preferred to provide as few amenities to the driving public as possible to discourage private automobile usage.  In the mid-1980's, after Gianturco was out of office, the existing single carriageway was widened to provide an alternating passing lane to accommodate the high volume of truck traffic on that facility.  When the decision was made to expand the highway to a full 2+2 freeway, the crossing single-span overpasses had to be razed because there wasn't room to place twin carriageways through them; they were replaced with conventional CA-standard overpasses with a supporting bent in the median.  The very wide 3-lane carriageway that preceded the freeway upgrade can still be seen today as an extra-wide inner shoulder on the EB lanes of the current freeway. 

[kurumi]

The scaling down of CA 120 was one of the actions taken by Caltrans under Adriana Gianturco, who openly preferred to provide as few amenities to the driving public as possible to discourage private automobile usage.

So that's why we always took the train to Yosemite when I was little! I always wondered.

[sparker]

The scaling down of CA 120 was one of the actions taken by Caltrans under Adriana Gianturco, who openly preferred to provide as few amenities to the driving public as possible to discourage private automobile usage.

So that's why we always took the train to Yosemite when I was little! I always wondered.

Hey, the Sierra Railroad ran tourist trains from Oakdale to near Sonora for decades; don't know if that operation exists today.  But more on point, Ms. Gianturco elected to yield a machete rather than a scalpel when approaching cuts to the CA freeway and expressway network -- some of her deletions, including the crosstown Long Beach CA 1 freeway, which would have wiped out much of the historical housing area north of downtown, were actually reasonable -- but she viewed rural freeways, which, of course, have different purposes than urban arterials, with the same level of disdain as more urban mileage; the original US 101 freeway through Coyote Valley, which started construction in 1980-81 (and completed in early 1984) was cut back from its originally planned 6 to 4 (2+2) lanes; the last few miles of CA 58 east of CA 99 in Bakersfield were similarly reduced (although the stretch immediately east of there, opened prior to Gianturco's arrival, was 6 lanes).  Most of the statewide "shrinkage" has been subsequently addressed, some remains to this day.   

[Max Rockatansky]

The scaling down of CA 120 was one of the actions taken by Caltrans under Adriana Gianturco, who openly preferred to provide as few amenities to the driving public as possible to discourage private automobile usage.

So that's why we always took the train to Yosemite when I was little! I always wondered.

The real shame is that the Yosemite Valley Railroad is gone.  Having explored much of the old grade in the Merced River Canyon it's easy to envision a grand train trip from Merced to El Portal.