Day: July 20, 2019

What better than Independence Day as the time to start working on the next round of updates. The site redesign is still on the horizon, but I still need to read my Responsive Design book and figure out the design I want. As I’ve noted before, I have no plans to change the content or my method of content generation. I have settled on my replacement editor for HoTMetaL Pro: BlueGriffon. as it seems to have a good tag manipulation mode. I also plan to use Pinegrow to check the responsive design aspects. and plan to continue to use Amaya as the main editor (even though Amaya seems to be abandonware). You can see my thoughts on what I would like from the redesign here; it also explains how the site is generated. I’ll note that I tried to use BlueGriffon for some of this round of update. It introduces some form of HTML error that Amaya has trouble with, so I need to investigate fuller. No one seems to make a clean editor anymore: they all seem to enforce their designer’s ideas.

Caltrans Website Rework and Its Impacts

Note: Caltrans and the CTC have updated their websites to a new accessible design, as the result of AB 434, which required all state websites to be accessible. Of course, the state waited to contract it until the last moment, and many of the resources are now broken, awaiting remediation for accessibility. All Caltrans and CTC links should be revisited, as they likely no longer work. I’m reporting broken links as I find them to Caltrans on Twitter where appropriate, and fixing them as a run into them. In particular, the Caltrans Bridge Log seems to have (temporarily) disappeared. Luckily, Bonnie Kuhn, the Public Information Officer for Mendocino and Lake Counties has provided me copies of the logs for all the districts, and they have been uploaded to my Caltrans Resources page, together with the following additional resources (Thank you very much, Ms. Kuhn):

• National Bridge Inventory Data: https://bridgereports.com/
• FHWA LTBP Infobridge: https://infobridge.fhwa.dot.gov/Data
• Democrat and Chronicle Bridge Inspections: https://data.democratandchronicle.com/bridge/california/06/ 
• Bridgehunter: Historical and Notable Bridges in the US: https://bridgehunter.com/

Also the CTC minutes and liaison website are broken, but luckily I found someone at the CTC who was willing to help me in this round of updates. Agenda Item 4.4 from the May 2019 CTC meeting provided more information:

1. The Commission’s website must be redesigned and rebuilt using the most recently revised version of the State of California’s Website Template to ensure the underlying infrastructure is compliant with accessibility standards.
2. All content migrated to the Commission’s newly redesigned website (documents, images, graphics, videos, etc.) must be converted to meet the accessibility criteria established in AB 434. This complex conversion process is commonly referred to as document remediation.
3. The Commission must remove content older than three years from its website, and save it internally to be provided upon request.

This means that if you are looking for older content, you should contact Caltrans or the CTC to get a copy of it. Those of us who run websites should coordinate to make these retrieved resources available to the public, and to relieve the burden on the CTC and Caltrans personnel. I have created a preliminary page to make such information available.

Update Details

Updates were made to the following highways, based on my reading of the papers (which are posted to the roadgeeking category at the “Observations Along The Road” and to the California Highways Facebook group) as well as any backed up email changes. I also reviewed the the AAroads forum. This resulted in changes on the following routes, with credit as indicated [my research⁽¹⁾, contributions of information or leads (via direct mail) from Tom Fearer⁽²⁾, Maryam Madani⁽³⁾, Northcoast707 on AARoads⁽⁴⁾, Scott Parker (Sparker)⁽⁵⁾, Anthony Pearson⁽⁶⁾, Splashflash on AARoads⁽⁷⁾, Don Wilson⁽⁸⁾: Route 1^(1,2,5), Route 2^(1,2), Route 4⁽¹⁾, I-5^(1,2,5), I-8⁽²⁾, I-10^(2,5), Route 11⁽¹⁾, Route 12⁽¹⁾, Route 14^(2,6), I-15⁽²⁾, Route 17⁽¹⁾, Route 18^(1,2,5), LRN 18⁽²⁾, Route 23⁽²⁾, Route 25⁽¹⁾, Route 27⁽²⁾, Route 29⁽¹⁾, Route 37⁽¹⁾, Route 39⁽²⁾, Route 41⁽²⁾, Route 46⁽¹⁾, Route 47⁽¹⁾, Route 49⁽¹⁾, US 50⁽¹⁾, Route 58^(1,2), Route 59⁽¹⁾, US 60⁽²⁾, Route 60^(1,5), US 66⁽²⁾, Route 67⁽⁵⁾, US 70⁽²⁾, Route 74⁽¹⁾, US 80⁽²⁾, I-80⁽¹⁾, Route 84⁽⁵⁾, Route 89⁽¹⁾, Route 91^(1,2), Route 99^(1,2,5,7), US 101^(1,2,8), Route 104^(1,2), Route 108⁽¹⁾, Route 109^(1,2), Route 110^(2,5), Route 113⁽¹⁾, Route 120⁽¹⁾, Route 121⁽¹⁾, Route 125⁽¹⁾, Route 126⁽²⁾, Route 128⁽¹⁾, Route 131⁽²⁾, Route 134⁽²⁾, Route 138⁽²⁾, Route 142⁽¹⁾, Route 147⁽²⁾, Route 156⁽¹⁾, Route 163⁽²⁾, LRN 165⁽⁵⁾, Route 170⁽²⁾, Route 173⁽²⁾, Route 177^(1,2), Route 180^(1,2), Route 194^(2,5), Route 195⁽²⁾, I-210⁽¹⁾, I-215^(1,2), Route 228⁽³⁾, Route 235⁽²⁾, Route 241⁽¹⁾, Route 243⁽¹⁾, Route 247⁽²⁾, Route 259⁽²⁾, Route 268⁽²⁾, I-280⁽¹⁾, Route 282⁽²⁾, US 395^(1,2), I-405⁽¹⁾, Route 480⁽⁴⁾, I-580⁽¹⁾, I-680⁽¹⁾, I-710⁽¹⁾, I-805⁽²⁾, I-880⁽¹⁾, Route 905⁽¹⁾, I-980⁽¹⁾, County Sign Route N2⁽²⁾.

Added a link to the hardest cycling climbs in the world. If you are looking to find the grade of steep road, this will help. Expressways and freeways are limited in their steepness, but other state highways that permit bicycles can be very steep. Those will show up on this maps. Updated the Stats page.

Updated the El Camino Real page regarding the removal of the bell at UC Santa Cruz. Grabbed some information I posted on the Scenic Highway requirements, and added it to my highway types page. Alas, the links therein are broken due to the Caltrans site rework. Added some more map sources.

Reviewed the Pending Legislation page, based on the new California Legislature site. As usual, I recommend to every Californian that they visit the legislative website regularly and see what their legis-critters are doing. Although numerous bills have been introduced, none have gone to the Governor for signature yet. As many people are unfamilair with how the legislature operates (and why there are so many “non-substantive changes” and “gut and amend” bills), I’ve added the legislative calendar to the end of the Pending Legislation page.

Read More …