Golden State Freeway
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| Image:I-5 (CA).svg | |||||||||
| Golden State Freeway | |||||||||
| Maintained by Caltrans | |||||||||
| Image:INTERSTATE5.jpg Golden State Freeway in red | |||||||||
| South end: | Image:I-10 (CA).svgImage:US 101 (CA).svg I-10 / US 101 in Los Angeles | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Major junctions: | Image:I-10 (CA).svg I-10 in Los Angeles Image:California 134.svg SR 134 in Glendale Image:California 170.svg SR 170 in Pacoima Image:California 118.svg SR 118 in San Fernando Image:California 14.svg SR 14 in Santa Clarita | ||||||||
| North end: | Image:California 99.svg SR 99 in Lebec | ||||||||
| System: | Southern California freeways | ||||||||
| |||||||||
The Golden State Freeway is a north-south freeway running through Kern County and Los Angeles County, California. Originally built as U.S. Route 99, it was re-signed as Interstate 5 in 1964.
Contents |
[edit] Route description
I-5 and State Route 99 converge near the southernmost point of the San Joaquin Valley, approximately 30 miles (50 km) south of Bakersfield. At this point, the Golden State Freeway begins. It travels southward through the valley until sharply rising to cross the Tejon Pass through the Tehachapi Mountains, continuing through Grapevine Canyon. Path 26 power lines, a southern extension of Path 15, follow the freeway across the pass and onto Pyramid Lake. At one point along the treacherous route, the separated northbound and southbound lanes actually invert, with the southbound lanes being to the east of the northbound ones. The freeway continues into the Santa Clarita Valley, and then crosses Newhall Pass through the Santa Susana Mountains to enter the San Fernando Valley, and in turn, Los Angeles. Several major freeways split from the Golden State Freeway within a few miles of this point: the Foothill Freeway near Sylmar, the San Diego Freeway in Mission Hills, and the Hollywood Freeway in Sun Valley. Traveling through the cities of Burbank and Glendale, it closely follows the Los Angeles River as it skirts the Hollywood Hills. It ends at the East Los Angeles Interchange in Boyle Heights; I-5 continues thereafter as the Santa Ana Freeway.
While the former surface street portions of State Route 99 are often named the Golden State Highway or Golden State Avenue, Highway 99 itself is not called the Golden State Freeway.
[edit] Legal definition
The Golden State Freeway is Route 5 from the 5/10/60/101 Junction to Route 14, as named by the Metropolitan Transportation Engineering Board on February 28 1958.[1] Note that the segment from State Route 14 to Highway 99 is still legally unofficial.
[edit] Earthquakes and the Golden State Freeway
On February 9, 1971, the Sylmar earthquake destroyed a portion of the Golden State Freeway, including its interchange (then under construction) with the Antelope Valley Freeway, between the Santa Clarita and San Fernando Valleys. It was soon rebuilt with greater seismic reinforcement, but nevertheless sustained heavy damage in the January 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake (and had to be rebuilt again).
The risk of earthquake damage to the freeway remains high, as the Grapevine route crosses the notorious San Andreas Fault. The risk along this route is such that the proposed high-speed rail corridor between Los Angeles and San Francisco, originally planned to be built within the Golden State Freeway's alignment, will instead veer east into the Antelope Valley, going through the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster before traversing the more seismically stable Tehachapi Pass on its way to Bakersfield. Despite adding over 50 miles (80 km) of line to the railroad and 20 minutes to its travel time, the route change will save billions of dollars in construction costs, as Tehachapi Pass presents relatively few engineering challenges.
[edit] History
In 2002, a local artist[2] took it upon himself to fix one of the signs from the Harbor Freeway to I-5.[3] After nine months, the artist's work was eventually discovered. However, since it was performed to highway specifications, Caltrans kept the signage up, which still remains to this day.[4][5]
[edit] Control cities
Northbound
Southbound
[edit] Communities
Communities along the Golden State Freeway include:
- Lebec
- Gorman
- Santa Clarita
- Sylmar
- San Fernando
- Mission Hills
- Pacoima
- Arleta
- Panorama City
- Sun Valley
- Burbank
- Glendale
- Atwater Village
- Glassell Park
- Cypress Park
- Lincoln Heights
- Boyle Heights
[edit] References
Freeways in Greater Los Angeles | |
|---|---|
| Radial | Hollywood (US 101/SR 170) • Golden State (I-5) • Antelope Valley (SR 14) • Glendale (SR 2) • Pasadena (SR 110) • San Bernardino (I-10) • Pomona (SR 60) • Santa Ana (I-5/US 101) • Laguna (SR 133) • Corona del Mar (SR 73) • Long Beach (I-710) • Terminal Island (SR 103) • Seaside (SR 47) • Harbor (I-110) • Marina (SR 90) • Santa Monica (I-10) |
| Circumferential | Ventura (US 101/SR 134) • Foothill (I-210) • San Gabriel River (I-605) • Orange (SR 57) • Costa Mesa (SR 55) • Artesia (SR 91) • Garden Grove (SR 22) • Century (I-105) • Gardena (SR 91) • San Diego (I-5/I-405) • Moorpark (SR 23) • Ojai (SR 33) • Ronald Reagan (SR 118) • Santa Paula (SR 126) |
| Inland Empire | Chino Valley (SR 71) • Moreno Valley (SR 60) • Riverside (I-215/SR 91) • I-15 • I-40 • I-215 • SR 210 • SR 259 • SR 330 |
| Toll | Eastern (SR 133/SR 241/SR 261) • Foothill (SR 241) • San Joaquin Hills (SR 73) • 91 Express |
