California State Route 153; The Supposedly Shortest State Highway

I mentioned California State Route 153 in El Dorado County on the CA 49 blog but I thought it was worth it's own blog entry considering the boast made on the placard about it being the "Shortest" state highway in California.

CA 153 is a 0.544 mile route from CA 49 near Coloma to the James Marshall Monument in Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park.

CA 153 being the the "Shortest State Highway" certainly isn't true as CA 225, CA 275, CA 283 and CA 77 are actually shorter.

CAhighways.org list of shortest state highways

CA 153 isn't even technically the shortest signed State Highway as CA 77 is presently signed at only 0.45 miles.. But with that said, CA 153 isn't signed particularly well as there is nothing to indicate there is an actual highway junction at CA 49 at the beginning of the route at Cold Springs Road. CA 153 begins on the left in the pictures below.

CA 153 turns off of Cold Springs Road on to Monument Road on the right in the picture below. Again, there is no indication that CA 153 actually exists due to the lack of signage.

Even most of Monument Road lacks any real indication that you're on CA 153.

Which changes with this lone CA 153 shield which might be the rarest ever posted in California.

CA 153 ends at the Marshall Monument which is dedicated to the finding of gold in the waters of the South Fork American River which spurred the 1849 California Gold Rush. CA 153 was a 1964 renumbering of Legislative Route Number 92 which was adopted which was adopted in 1933.

CAhighways.org on CA 153

The change from LRN 92 to CA 153 actually is observable on the 1963 and 1964 State Highway Maps.

It appears that at least up until the 1990s CA 153 wasn't actually signed in the field. The shield must have been a rogue placement by Caltrans District 3 as CA 153 isn't shown as signed on the 1990 State Highway Map

The 1935 California Division of Highways Map of El Dorado County actually shows LRN 92 branching off from CA 49 to Marshall's Monument.

1935 El Dorado County Highway Map

Comments

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population. The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

Gribblenation

Search This Blog