This post provides links to articles I’ve seen over the past month related to California Highways. As I am finally working on an update to the California Highways pages (Memorial Day weekend), those items that have not yet been processed into the pages are shown with ♦. [Update: Didn’t finish Memorial Day weekend. I have a few more AAroads articles to go through, plus the legislature actions and the CTC minutes. It’ll be done sometime in June]
- Why a historic highway that united California’s two halves may never reopen to cars. Harrison Scott discovered the Ridge Route in 1955. Then 18, he was out freewheeling in a brand new Ford he’d bought with a loan from his parents. The sinuous route, an engineering marvel that tamed the San Gabriel Mountains through the highway corridor that is now known as the Grapevine, was already a relic. Opened in 1915, and credited by historians with uniting the economies of Northern and Southern California, the notoriously slow and dangerous roadway had been superseded in 1933 by Highway 99, itself to be replaced in 1970 by the 5 Freeway. Scott liked the abandoned motorway, but did not return to the route until exploring it again in 1991, this time on a road trip with his son. Spurred by the boy’s interest, and retired from a long career with Pacific Telephone, Scott became an amateur historian and began collecting photos and stories of the highway.
- It’s a mess along O.C.’s part of PCH, traffic study says. Traffic congestion and safety conflicts among vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians continue to plague traveling conditions along Orange County’s portion of Pacific Coast Highway, according to a newly published transportation study. The nearly $400,000 report, released last month and conducted by the Orange County Transportation Authority and the California Department of Transportation, examined the iconic but aging 37-mile highway from Seal Beach to San Clemente.
- Highway 121 repairs could cost $5.5 million. Highway 121 is at least several months and $5.5 million away from once again having both lanes open north of Wooden Valley Road between Napa and Lake Berryessa. A section of the northbound lane on the narrow, two-lane road slipped a half-dozen feet during early March storms. The road reopened on March 25 with temporary signals in place to alternate traffic in the southbound lane.
