Time for the penultimate update to the highway pages for 2021. Before I paste in the change log, I should insert enough text so that folks don’t get bothered by the masterpiece of an introduction that I’ve written. So suffice it to say that these changes include updates from my usual review of headlines, AARoads posts, and material sent to me, as well as bills and resolutions approved by the legislature and actions of the California Transportation Commission. Read it, enjoy it, and you’ll find it a real “shot in the arm”, if you get my drift. Oh, and “Ready, Set, Discuss”.
Here’s the change log:
Welcome to the penultimate update of 2021, capturing happenings in September and October. Whenever I write up these things of late, I’m always including a reminder for people to get (noun), I also advise people to (action). I’ve made comments about (event in the past), and even have expressed my opinion about (political figure). Invariably, when I share this on AAroads, some (noun) makes a comment about how I’m injecting politics into the forum. I want to make one thing absolutely clear: My highway pages are about the truth, without opinion, and discussion about the pages and these updates should be focused on the highways. But (noun) is real, and measures must be taken to reduce its spread and get us out on the roads again — and those roads must be safe and not filled with (plural noun) waiving their (plural nouns) and driving their (plural nouns). Oops. Did I say that with my public voice?
I thought about making the paragraph above in the form of a Mad Libs, but it was harder to format. Those who know me should know how to fill in the words. Those who are offended by the above, well, it is your mind that is filling in the blanks, and I think you should (anatomically impossible action).
As for the real introduction: September and October were interesting months. Newsom survived the recall attempt, and it will be interesting to see the impact of his survival on the roadbuilding and road rehabilitation programs of the state, as well as the future of High Speed Rail. There have been massive wildfires in the Northern and Eastern parts of the state that have impacted roads. I normally don’t note fire damage here because it will be repaired, but these fires have resulted in major closures on roads such as US 50, Route 88, Route 299 and much more. Let’s hope for their speedy and complete repair. As road lovers, we are all too aware of the impact of (noun) on highways, be it flooding on Route 37, fires on the roads in the Sierra Nevada or other forests, or damage from flash flooding out in the desert. This is one reason why emphasis of transportation programs is changing from building more roads and getting more vehicles from place to place faster to increasing capacity and improving the movement of people.
For those reading this on AAroads: Go over to the 2021 Changes page ((web page link)), and you can read the incredibly clever and witty introduction that I wrote, but decided not to post here because I didn’t want to deal with (username)‘s reaction this time. Trust me, it was really good.
On to the updates:
Updates were made to the following highways, based on my reading of the papers in September and October 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 PDERocco(2), Tom Fearer(3), HeyNow415(4), Rick Kelly(5), Michael McThrow(6): Route 1(ℱ), Route 2(ℱ), I-5(ℱ), LRN 5(5), I-10(ℱ), Route 11(ℱ,2), Route 24(ℱ), Route 26(ℱ), Route 49(ℱ), US 50(ℱ), Route 73(ℱ,3), US 97(3), Route 99(ℱ,3), US 101(ℱ), Route 107(ℱ), Route 108(ℱ), Route 113(ℱ), Route 133(ℱ), Route 139(3), Route 148(ℱ), Route 154(ℱ), Route 161(3), Route 190(3), Route 213(ℱ), LRN 232(ℱ), Route 238(4), Route 239(6), Route 241(ℱ), Route 299(3), I-580(ℱ,5), Route 710(ℱ), Route 905(ℱ), County Sign Route J4(6).
(Source: private email, Highway headline posts through October 2021 as indicated, AARoads through 11/13/2021)
Thanks to a question, I learned that there is an online version of “2020 Named Freeways, Highways, Structures and Other Appurtenances in California“. Did an audit against my names list. Discovered that Caltrans has errors in their document :-).
Reviewed the Pending Legislation page, based on the 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. As many people are unfamiliar 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. Noted the passage of the following:
