Highways, History, Image, Los Angeles County, Old Alignment, Ridge Route, Roads, US 99

Featured Image – 1/19/2020

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Old Ridge Route between Reservoir Summit and Kelly’s Halfway Inn. Taken 1/19/2020.
Highways, History, Roads, San Diego, San Diego County

City of San Diego – 1970

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The City of San Diego Clerk has been placing a large number of videos on YouTube over the past few months which are quite unique and eye-opening. In 1970, the City created videos of many of the roadways in San Diego. These are done in the same manner as Caltrans Photologs, which essentially takes a photo of the road every few feet or so, creating a fast motion video of the road. Roads such as Murphy Canyon Road and Kearny Villa Road no longer exist in the same manner as they did back then. Both have been greatly modified by I-15 and State 163. Some of the street names don’t match current names, however. Black Mountain Road, as shown in the video, is basically Del Mar Heights Road and Landsdale Dr, among others. Miramar Rd, in the video, covers current Eastgate Mall as well, as it was the old alignment of Miramar Rd through to UCSD.

These videos show this and more. Why not see it for yourself and be amazed! Try and count the number of spinning gas station signs too.

San Diego City Clerk YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn1v1JAjFEEvqMi-VHpee5w/videos

Highways, Website News

New Feature – Pass Heights

Top of Sherman Pass in the southern Sierra Nevada. Highest paved non-State highway pass in the range.

With all the snow this winter, not to mention the low elevations it has been falling, I thought it would be a good idea to add a “High Points” section to the Southern California Highways pages. These points, so far just name and elevation, show the highest points along each roadway and are located near the top of each route page. In time, I plan to add postmile or exit number, when applicable. Not all routes will have this, as they don’t all have named summits or passes. So far, all the main routes are covered (I-5, I-10, I-15, I-40, SR-74) as well as a few others.

Have a suggestion to add? Let us know!

Caltrans, District 6, District 7, Grapevine, Highways, I-5, Image, Kern County, Old Alignment, Ridge Route, Roads, US 99

Featured Image – 12/23/2019

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1932/34 concrete at the divergence of the lanes at Grapevine.

Here at Grapevine, a small section of concrete is visible adjacent to the southbound lanes of I-5. This is a section of former US 99. A small color difference can be noticed between the two lanes that are visible. This difference is due to age. The lanes to the left were constructed in 1932 when Grapevine Grade was realigned, bypassing the original 1914 Ridge Route grade. This was built as two lanes as a temporary measure to expedite the opening of the new route. Right after it was opened, a third lane was added, the lane on the right, creating a three-lane roadway with a common passing lane in the center, or “suicide lane”. This condition persisted until 1943 when the road was widened yet again to four lanes. In 1959 – 1960, these lanes were bypassed by the current southbound lanes of I-5. Today, they remain as one of the last remnants of the 1932-1959 version of Grapevine Grade.

Website News

Copyright Notice

As it seems it is necessary, I am posting this reminder that all original works on this site are copyrighted by Michael F Ballard. A notice has been posted since the 1990’s regarding this, ever since a newspaper plagiarized three pages on this site and printed them verbatim, without my permission. It is still up to the person to respect it regardless of this notice.

While I’m not on Facebook, I have found a page regarding US 99, Historic US Highway 99, that has many images from this site, as well as RidgeRoute.Org, that were posted without my permission, with no credit given, and without my knowledge. I find this very disappointing and disheartening. Some of the images are also posted with incorrect information, which also also a problem. The people posting these images should also know better.

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Your Resource For Highways, Geology, Railroads, History, Bicycling, And More Throughout Southern California Since 1995.