California State Route 110
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Legend
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California State Route 110 extends from California State Route 47 in San Pedro, California to Glenarm Street in Pasadena, California, USA. Most of Route 110 south of the Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10) is designated Interstate 110; the southernmost section is again signed as a state route. Route 110 is 33 miles (53 km) long. The portion of Route 110 north of Interstate 10 is called the Pasadena Freeway. The portion south of Interstate 10 is called the Harbor Freeway. The surface street extension of this route in Pasadena is known as the Arroyo Parkway, and extends to intersect with Colorado Boulevard. Colorado Boulevard is now California State Route SR-66 and was formerly US Route US-66, of Route 66 fame.
Even though the Pasadena Freeway legally ends at Interstate 10 (see below), "Harbor Freeway" does appear on freeway signs north of the Santa Monica Freeway up to U.S. Highway 101 and the Four Level Interchange in downtown Los Angeles.
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Pasadena Freeway
A nine-mile (14 km), dedicated cycleway was built in 1897 by a private business to connect Pasadena to Los Angeles. Its right of way followed the stream bed of the Arroyo Seco and required 1,250,000 board feet (2,950 m³) of pine wood to construct. The roundtrip toll was $0.15 (USD), and the cycleway was lit with electric lights along its entire length. The enterprise was not financially successful, so eventually the structure was dismantled and the wood was sold for a profit. The right of way later became the route for the Arroyo Seco Parkway. [1]
The original freeway was designed by Spencer Cortelyou[2] and was first named the Arroyo Seco Parkway. It had no highway number designation when it first opened and originally had a speed limit of 45 miles an hour (72 km/h). Traffic originally ran in two lanes in each direction with a wide shoulder available for emergency parking. The original route of this Parkway — its 1940 appellation — ran from the Chinatown district in downtown Los Angeles to Pasadena, and was later extended to meet the Hollywood Freeway and Santa Ana Freeway. It was the first modern urban freeway ever built in the United States (the first modern rural freeway was the Pennsylvania Turnpike). The Parkway opened to traffic on December 30, 1940; a writer for the New York Times noted that it was one of the "outstanding highway improvements in the country."[3]
The original portion of the Pasadena Freeway is considered by today's standards to be obsolete and rather dangerous. In its current six-lane configuration, there are no shoulders, although there are periodic turnouts that one can swerve into during an emergency.
Entry or exit from the freeway is a death-defying feat, best illustrated by the Avenue 52 intersection in Highland Park. At this point the freeway is depressed and Avenue 52 passes over it. There is one on-ramp and one off-ramp in each direction, each perhaps 100 feet (30 meters) in length. At the bottom of the on-ramp there is actually a limit line and a stop sign. Freeway users must stop at the line, wait for an opening in traffic, and then accelerate from a complete stop directly into traffic moving at 55 mph — there is no acceleration lane.
Exiting the freeway entails pulling onto the off-ramp while still at speed and skidding to a stop. While the freeway is posted for 55 mph (90 km/h), most drivers regard the speed limit as nothing more than guidelines.
When traveling from Los Angeles into South Pasadena, there is a set of sharp, sweeping turns required to keep the freeway within the bounds of the canyon. Since the original design envisioned a much slower traffic flow, these turns are not banked. The speed through them is reduced, but driving this freeway for the first time can be, even for an experienced driver, a hair-raising experience. Despite all this, the freeway is still heavily used by drivers, as it remains the most direct route between Los Angeles and Pasadena for automobiles.
Image:Postcard-arroyo-seco-parkway.jpg
Four medium-sized tunnels (called the "Figueroa Street Tunnels") run under and through the hills of Elysian Park. In the northward direction (toward Pasadena), stairways and bus pads can still be seen to the left before the tunnels. These remnants date from the days when the Arroyo Seco Parkway was first opened, and are no longer in use.
The Pasadena Freeway runs through heavily working-class Latino neighborhoods such as Lincoln Heights and Highland Park, as well as upper-middle-class white populated portions of Pasadena and South Pasadena (these generalizations about ethnicity are drawn from U.S. Census data).
Extension of route
Since its original opening, the freeway has been extended southwards from the four level interchange near downtown Los Angeles to the port of Los Angeles, in San Pedro. The Harbor Freeway runs through the poorer inner-city sections — with a predominantly African American population — of South Los Angeles. The Harbor Freeway is entirely within the city of Los Angeles except a four-mile stretch where it marks the boundary between Carson, California and an unincorporated area in the South Bay. Because this section of freeway is up to Interstate Highway standards, it is much wider and is far safer to drive than the older Pasadena-to-Los Angeles route.
Landmarks and filmography
Some famous landmarks along or nearby the Interstate 110 Harbor Freeway include the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Shrine Auditorium (where several major film, TV, and music awards are presented), Staples Center (home of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers and NHL's Kings), Chinatown, Dodger Stadium (home of the MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers ), and the Southwest Museum (a museum dedicated to Native American culture).
Tucked within the southwest loop of the intersection with Interstate 10 is the Central Los Angeles office of the California Highway Patrol. It was heavily photographed for the 1970s U.S. television program CHiPs, as it was depicted as the home office of its main characters, Officers Jon Baker and Frank Poncherello. It does not have direct access to or from either freeway, though.
During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a white truck driver named Reginald Denny was pulled from his truck and beaten on an intersection, Florence Avenue and Normandie Street, about a mile (2 km) west from the 110 Freeway. The incident was broadcast live via news helicopter.
The Pasadena Freeway can be seen in the introduction of the 1971 Steven Spielberg film, Duel. Dennis Weaver's character drives through several tunnels before entering the Interstate 5 interchange (which leads to Sacramento and beyond).
Citizen involvement
In 2001, Richard Ankrom, a local artist, who repeatedly got lost trying to get onto Interstate 5 North from the 110 Freeway because there was no clear official signage labeling access to the 5 North, solved his frustration by covertly modifying one of the overhead signs on the freeway just before the tunnels. Using official government sign specifications, Ankrom fabricated two sign pieces, one being an Interstate marker shield with the number '5' on it, and one with the word "NORTH", and affixed them to the left side of the sign. He performed his modifications in broad daylight, disguised as a CalTrans worker, and the results went unnoticed for nine months, until his friend leaked the news to the Los Angeles Times.
Prior to Ankrom's work, the only signage directing motorists to the 5 North off-ramp came at a quarter-mile before the exit, thus forcing many to merge across multiple lanes in a very short distance. The unofficial modifications remain on the sign to this day, after having been inspected by CalTrans to ensure it would not fall off onto the road below. CalTrans is gradually upgrading all California freeway signs to a newer, more reflective form; when this happens on the 110, Ankrom's work will be lost, but the new sign will include "5 North" icons.
Ankrom was never charged, despite statements from officials that his actions were illegal.
- See http://www.thisistrue.com/freeway.html for a picture of Ankrom's work.
State law
Legal definition of Route 110
410. (a) Route 110 is from Route 47 in San Pedro to Glenarm Street in Pasadena. (b) The relinquished former portion of Route 110 that is located between Glenarm Street and Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena is not a state highway and is not eligible for adoption under Section 81.
Source: California Streets and Highways Code, Chapter 2, Article 3, Section 410
Legal definition of the Pasadena Freeway
Route 110 from Route 10 to Pasadena. [State Highway Commission (11/18/1954)]
Source: 2004 Named Freeways, Highways, Structures and Other Appurtenances in California (PDF)
See also
Trivia
The name Arroyo Seco in Spanish means Dry Wash.
Alternate Transportation
There exists an alternate way of getting from Los Angeles to Pasadena. The Metro Gold Line, on the former AT&SF Pasadena Subdivision right-of-way, offers "quick, convenient transit" from Pasadena to Los Angeles, with various intermediate stops.
References
^ Anonymous. "Spencer V. Cortelyou, 83, Highway Official on Coast." New York Times, 11 August 1962, p. 12.
^ Ullman, William. "Cities Give Cars Room: Traffic 'Paralysis' Cured By Costly Building Of More Street Space." New York Times, 26 January 1941, p. 4.
External links
- Arroyo Seco Parkway preservation site
- A textual account of Ankrom's sign modification
- Cahighways.org article on the 110 freeway
- California's Great Cycle-Way
- Pasadena Freeway - Various pictures of Pasadena portion
Categories: Southern California freeways | California state highways | Historic civil engineering landmarks | Pasadena, California | U.S. Highway 66 | California State Highway stubs | California State Highway articles needing work
