What a long, strange year it has been. In March 2020, I saw my last live theatre for over a year: Passion at Boston Court. I had just returned from a trip to Madison WI to visit my daughter. We were just starting to worry about the Novel Coronavirus, with no idea of the long haul in front of us. Working from home had just begun. We were at the start of the 2020 election year, long before we had any inkling that the losing candidate would attempt an insurrection to overturn the election result and present Congress from doing their congressional duty. A long, long, strange year.
On the highway page front: I was continuing work on the major site redesign and rework, which was coming up in May. That behind me, updates preceded apace. I think the new site is fast. This year, due to some problems, I got rid of one of the plugins on the WordPress side of the site, and suddenly that became faster and more reliable. I may be getting back into the blogging side of the equation.
As for 2021: Let’s hope for a return to the new normal. We have a vaccine, and hopefully we’ll all be vaccinated by the summer—and so we might start to be able to do events and roadtrips again. We’ll likely still want to wear masks, as there will be those who refuse the vaccines, or for whom the vaccine is not 100% preventative. We have a new President, who is behaving a lot more…presidential. I don’t have major site changes planned. The hope for 2021 is: a new normal, and an uneventful new normal. כן יהי רצון Ken Yehi Ratzon—Let It Be So.
I do want to share one thing I saw going through the CTC Minutes that didn’t make it into these pages. The following was amended into the SHOPP at the May meeting, and is $730,000 of your tax dollars at work:
May 2021 CTC Agenda Item 2.1a.(1a): 05-Mon-1 PM 10.5. Route 1 Near Gorda, at the Willow Springs Maintenance Station at 72115 Cabrillo Highway (Route 1). Repair failed electrical system. In January 2021, a microwave oven caught fire while not in use at the maintenance station employee housing facility. A follow-up investigation of this incident, an ongoing low-voltage issue, and a history of damaged electrical appliances has identified numerous safety related issues due to undersized wiring, corrosion of components, long undersized wire runs, and all power runs connected to a ineffective single main breaker. This project will remove existing electrical components, install new pull boxes, conduit, wiring, and service panels.
On to the updates.
Updates were made to the following highways, based on my reading of the papers from January through May 2021 (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 (Ꜳ). This resulted in changes on the following routes, with credit as indicated [my research(ℱ), contributions of information or leads (via direct mail or ꜲRoads) from Ꜳ GaryA(2), Michael Ballard(3), Ꜳ Bing101(4), Shirleigh Brannon(5), Ꜳ DT Composer(6), Tom Fearer(7), Ꜳ HeyNow415(8), Cameron Kaiser(9), Rick Kelly(10), Ꜳ Kniwt(11), Scott Parker(12), Francesca Smith(13), Chris Sampang(14), and Joel Windmiller(15): Route 1(ℱ,7,12), Route 4(7), I-5(ℱ), I-8(ℱ), Route 9(ℱ), I-10(ℱ), Route 12(ℱ), Route 13(7), I-15(ℱ,7,12), Route 16(7), Route 20(7), Route 24(7,11), Route 25(ℱ), Route 29(ℱ), Route 37(ℱ), I-40(7), US 40(ℱ,8), Route 41(ℱ), Route 42(ℱ), Route 46(ℱ), Route 47(ℱ), US 48(10), Route 49(ℱ), US 50(ℱ,7,15), Route 55(ℱ), Route 57(ℱ), Route 62(ℱ), Route 67(ℱ), Route 70(ℱ), Route 74(ℱ), Route 75(ℱ), Route 78(ℱ), Route 79(ℱ), I-80(ℱ), Route 84(ℱ), Route 86(ℱ), Route 90(ℱ), US 91/ Route 91(ℱ,7,12), Route 92(ℱ), Route 99/US 99(ℱ,3,7,15), US 101(ℱ,2,7,12,6), I-105(ℱ,13), Route 108(ℱ), Route 111(ℱ), Route 118(ℱ), Route 120(ℱ), Route 123(4), LRN 125(7), Route 128(ℱ,7,8), Route 132(ℱ), Route 134(ℱ), Route 135(ℱ), Route 136(9), Route 138(ℱ), Route 140(ℱ), Route 143(ℱ), Route 148(ℱ), Route 152(7,14), Route 154(ℱ), LRN 174(ℱ), Route 174(ℱ), Route 198(7), Route 204(7), I-210(ℱ), Route 222(ℱ,7), Route 229(7), Route 236(ℱ), Route 241(ℱ), Route 254(ℱ), Route 263(ℱ), I-280(ℱ), Route 282(ℱ), I-305(ℱ,7), Route 371(ℱ), I-380(ℱ), US 399(7), I-405(ℱ), US 466(7,12), I-505(ℱ), I-580(ℱ), I-605(ℱ), I-680(ℱ), I-710(ℱ), I-980(ℱ), County Sign Route G8(7) .
(Source: private email, Highway headline posts through May 2021 as indicated, AARoads through 5/28/2021)
For those interested, there is an interview with me in Caltrans News 2021 № 1.
At the request of a long-time friend and contributor to this site(5), captured the “lost” Caltrans series of pages about the 50th Anniversary of the start of the Interstate system that occurred in 2005/2006. These pages were published on the Caltrans site in 2005, and disappeared during a site rework in 2019 (likely because they were felt to be outdated). But for those of us here at California Highways, we love that history—and so we have preserved them. Please contact Caltrans if you want to use the pictures, and say you saw it on the Wayback Machine (wink).
Added some information on the earliest days of this website to the 1996 and before changes page. Ronald J Hall at Caltrans sent me a correction for the statistics page regarding the highest point on Route 270.
