State highways in California

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Interstate 5 shieldU.S. Route 101 shieldCalifornia State Route 1 shield
Standard route signage in California
System information
NotesAll classes of state-numbered highways are generally state-maintained.
Highway names
InterstatesInterstate X (I-X)
US HighwaysU.S. Route X (US X)
StateState Route X (SR X)
System links

The state highway system of the U.S. state of California is a network of highways that are owned and maintained by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).

Each highway is assigned a Route (officially State Highway Route

Interstate Highways
are Interstate X. Under the code, the state assigns a unique Route X to each highway, and does not differentiate between state, US, or Interstate highways.

The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is tasked with patrolling all state highways to enforce traffic laws.[3]

Overview

Route shield signs at the intersection of SR 123 and SR 13 in Berkeley

California's highway system is governed pursuant to Division 1 of the California Streets and Highways Code, which is one of the 29 California Codes enacted by the state legislature. Since July 1 of 1964, the majority of legislative route numbers, those defined in the Streets and Highways Code, match the sign route numbers. For example, Interstate 5 is listed as "Route 5" in the code.

On the other hand, some short routes are instead signed as parts of other routes — for instance,

State Route 61, and Route 51 is part of Interstate 80 Business
.

Eastshore Freeway
, only falls under the Route 80 description in the highway code while the definition of Route 580 is broken into non-contiguous segments.

The state may relinquish segments of highways and turn them over to local control. If the relinquished segment is in the middle of the highway's route, the local jurisdiction is usually required to install and maintain signs directing drivers to the continuation of that highway; they are not generally required to do so if the relinquishment effectively truncates the highway at one end, or is done as part of the process to re-route a highway. The state may also delete a highway completely and turn over an entire state route to local control.

State Route 14 whose control has not yet been transferred to the City of Santa Clarita
.

Some new alignments are considered supplemental

State Route 180S
.

History

Main article: History of California's state highway system
California State Automobile Association
(blue)

The first legislative routes were defined by the State Highway Bond Act in 1909, passed by the California State Legislature and signed by Governor James Gillett. These, and later extensions to the system, were numbered sequentially. No signs were erected for these routes.

The

national auto trails
and local roads since the mid-1900s.

In 1934, after the major expansion of the state highway system in 1933 by the California Legislature, California sign route numbers were assigned by the California Division of Highways (predecessor to Caltrans). The California sign route numbers were assigned in a geographical system, completely independent of the legislative routes. Odd-numbered routes ran north–south and even-numbered routes ran east–west. The routes were split among southern California (ACSC) and central and northern California (CSAA) as follows:

  • 0 or 1 modulo 4: central and northern California
  • 2 or 3 modulo 4: southern California

For instance,

State Route 74
) - in eastern California (north–south) and near the border between the two regions (east–west).

Main article: 1964 state highway renumbering (California)

The Interstate Highway System numbers were assigned by AASHO in late 1959. In 1963 and 1964, a total renumbering of the legislative routes was made, aligning them with the sign routes. Some changes were also made to the sign routes, mostly related to decommissionings of U.S. Routes in favor of Interstates.

Since the 1990s, many non-

freeway routes, especially in urban areas
, have been deleted and turned over to local control. This transfers the cost of maintaining them from state to local budgets, but also gives local governments direct control over urban arterial roads that carry primarily local traffic. Once transferred, if a local government wants to add landscaping in the center median or install additional traffic lights or other traffic control devices, it can immediately do so itself rather than having to negotiate with Caltrans. Not all cities have been prepared to accept such routes from Caltrans simultaneously, so many have been decommissioned from the state system one fragment at a time. In the case of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Caltrans district responsible for that region is granted permission to retain in the State highway system routes that run on conventional (non freeway or expressway) roadways unless a freeway is built to bypass the surface street route.

Nomenclature in California English

See also: California English

One

The Californians".[8] When the Southern California freeway system was built in the 1940s and early 1950s, local common usage was primarily the freeway name preceded by the definite article, such as "the Hollywood Freeway".[9] It took several decades for Southern California locals to start to commonly refer to the freeways with the numerical designations, but usage of the definite article persisted. For example, it evolved to "the 605 Freeway" and then shortened to "the 605".[9]
This did not occur in Northern California, where usage of the route numbers was more common.

List of routes

The list of routes, as defined in the California Streets and Highways code, is split into the following pages:

Former U.S. Routes In California

California State Route 1 road sign
U.S. Route 395 looking south at Mono Lake
  • U.S. Route 40
  • U.S. Route 40 Alternate
  • U.S. Route 48
  • U.S. Route 60
  • U.S. Route 66
  • U.S. Route 70
  • U.S. Route 80
  • U.S. Route 91
  • U.S. Route 99
  • U.S. Route 99E (central California)
  • U.S. Route 99E (northern California)
  • U.S. Route 99W (central California)
  • U.S. Route 99W (northern California)
  • U.S. Route 101A
  • U.S. Route 101 Bypass
    (San Francisco Bay area)
  • U.S. Route 101 Bypass
    (Los Angeles & Orange counties)
  • U.S. Route 101E
  • U.S. Route 101W
  • U.S. Route 299
  • U.S. Route 399
  • U.S. Route 466

See also

  • sign 
    California Roads portal
  • Deleted California State Highways
  • Unconstructed California State Highways
  • Scenic California State Highways
  • List of county routes in California

References

  1. ^ California Streets and Highways Code, Section 231
  2. Caltrans, Other State Highway Routes
  3. ^ Cal. Sts. & High. Code §§ 2400, 2401.
  4. ^ Metadata for ST_HWY GIS data layer (PDF)
  5. ^ Simon, Mark (2000-06-30). "'The' Madness Must Stop Right Now". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-09-22.
  6. ^ Simon, Mark (2000-07-04). "Local Lingo Keeps 'The' Off Road". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-09-22.
  7. ^ Simon, Mark (2000-07-29). "S.F. Wants Power, Not The Noise / Brown rejects docking floating plant off city". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-09-22.
  8. ^ Rose, Joseph (April 16, 2012). "Saturday Night Live's 'The Californians': Traffic's one big soap opera (video)". The Oregonian. Portland, Oregon. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  9. ^
    S2CID 144010897
    .

External links
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