🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <FAIGIN.94Apr13130305@soldan.aero.org>,
Daniel P. Faigin <faigin@aero.org> wrote:
>On Wed, 13 Apr 1994 18:20:46 GMT, hatunen@netcom.com (DaveHatunen) said:
>
>> That's because the name came BEFORE the numbers.
>
>Not in terms of freeways. It is true for highways: names such as the xxx
>turnpike did come before the Federal Highway system. In California, roads such
>as the National Trails highway (later, US66) or Lincoln highway (later Rte 1)
>did come before the actual numbers. But not necessarily with the Freeways,
>except, perhaps, with the original two (Ramona Expwy and Arroyo Seco Parkway).
>Numbers were certainly in place by the time that much of the Golden State
>(1960s) and San Diego were in place. [The Santa Ana Freeway, now Rte 5, was
>part of Rte 101 before the interstates, and might have had a name].

Although construction of most of the LA freeways occured after passage
of the Interstate Highway act, I was under the impression that many of
them were on the drawing boards prior to that, and that the routes were
pretty well picked, as were the names. It was in that sense that I
believe most of the freeways had names before they had Interstate
numbers. 

For local people, the names generally can mean more than the numbers
(except to the extent that the numbers are just another name). As
numbers, the numbers are mostly useful to people travelling with state
highway maps. I think to the Angeleno, "Harbor Freeway" is a lot more
useful and descriptive than a number. And, of course, the number
usually means a whole lot more than the name. You take I-10 to Blythe
as well as to Santa Monica, while "Santa Monica Freeway" means that
thing that starts downtown and ends up at the pier.

As to route numbers and names, they get moved around a lot. For
instance, here in the SFBay area, the Bayshore Freeway was originally
the Bayshore Highway, which was little more than a boulevard, complete
with sidewalks (which can still be seen in the northbound railroad
underpass just south of Redwood City). It was not 101; El Camino Real
was 101. Then the Bayshore became Alt-101. Then finally the Bayshore
became 101 and El Camino became 82 up the peninsula. 

Maybe some outsiders fine the traffic reports confusing with local
names, but I find that saying "101 northbound is closed at Sir Francis
Drake" a lot less helpful than "The Redwood Highway is closed at Sir
Francis Drake". Both are pretty meaningless to the outsider, but the
latter means more to the local.

-- 
    ********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@netcom.com) **********
    *                Daly City California:                *
    *       where San Francisco meets The Peninsula       *
    *       and the San Andreas Fault meets the Sea       *
    *******************************************************