usaca: California State Highways

[Jim]

While that would make sense for CA 1, I don't think it would for say, the Dakotas' 1804 and 1806, which are physically discontinuous as opposed to victims of relinquishments and signing apathy.

Right - things like this are also pretty common and I would want those to remain separate routes.

[vdeane]

I suppose the question if how is the continuation signage supposed to be maintained?  If it's supposed to be "CA X [direction]", then I would handle it like the town/city/county maintained portion of NY touring routes (and US routes and similar systems in other states) and just include them.  If TO banners are supposed to be used, then it becomes more complicated, and I would probably be inclined to break them up.

[rickmastfan67]

New ramps from NB CA-905 to NB CA-125 opened today.

So, this should mean that CA-125 should be extended south from it's current end, plus all the points for CA-11, CA-905, & CA-125's interchange should all be centered together or however you see fit.  This also includes the one active route, Future I-905's file.

[oscar]

Weird that the southbound ramps from CA 125 to CA (Fut I-) 905  won't be built until 2018.

I'll go ahead and make the changes soon. But I'll first try to get a better fix on the exact center of the 905/125/11 interchange once the SB connectors are completed, so I won't have to re-center in 2018.

[oscar]

In addition to the CA 11/125/905 updates, I've just made a bunch of other changes to usaca routes, as another way to procrastinate on Christmas shopping. Many were to clear to-do list items on this forum and the old CHM forum. But I've also started on legislative relinquishments of state route segments to local governments.

The easiest ones were route-end truncations, at the west end of CA 2 in Santa Monica, east end of CA 74 in Palm Desert, south end of CA 144 in Santa Monica, and CA 170 south of the US 101/CA 134 inrerchange. In those cases, even though state law requires the jurisdiction taking over a relinquished segment to maintain signage pointing motorists to the continuation of the route, there is no (or almost no) such signage. Signage on Caltrans-maintained intersecting roads also ignores those (former) state route designations. The above truncations are just the ones I have traveled or confirmed on GMSV. I expect there will be others, given generally uneven compliance with the continuation-signage law.

Mid-route relinquishments cause more heartburn since they split routes (some into multiple pieces). I'm not sure how to handle those, though maybe bhemphill's suggestion could work for at least the shorter gaps. But I did split CA 111 into separate Calexico and Palm Springs segments, to reflect a long stretch of relinquished mileage from Cathedral City to Indio. Most of the relinquished segment has minimal continuation signage (only "Highway 111" street blades). But travelers need to make a turn in Indio onto Golf Center Parkway to follow the relinquished segment to the rest of CA 111, and there is no longer any signage indicating that. For many other mid-route relinqushments, travelers can simply continue on the same road to get from one non-relinquished segment to another, even with poor or no continuation signage. They can't do that here, so I'm comfortable with splitting at least this route.

BTW, CA 111's south end is defined legislatively at the Mexican border. But the Federales used eminent domain to take the south end from Caltrans, to facilitate expansion of the Calexico port of entry, and the HB reflects that small truncation.

[yakra]

Longtime contributors: Is "MEX/USA" still kosher a bit north of the actual boundary if the endpoint is a port of entry?

[oscar]

Longtime contributors: Is "MEX/USA" still kosher a bit north of the actual boundary if the endpoint is a port of entry?

That might confuse people into thinking you have to cross the border to clinch the route (if they're as fussy as me), even where the actual route end is north of the last U-turn before the border, as appears to be the case for the Calexico POE.

In that situation, is there a better label than "End" for an endpoint at the north port of entry boundary? (Same applies to CA 7's south endpoint, except its last U-turn opportunity is at the north POE boundary.)

BTW, the other California routes ending at ports of entry (I-5, CA 905, CA 188, CA 186) appear to end exactly at the border, so MEX/USA or BC/CA are correct for them.

[si404]

In that situation, is there a better label than "End" for an endpoint at the north port of entry boundary?

MexBorChe for Mexico Border Check?

[yakra]

That might confuse people into thinking you have to cross the border to clinch the route (if they're as fussy as me)

Fair enough.

*Should* we call the actual route end north of the last U-turn before the border, though?
If I understand correctly, the southernmost (truncated) bits were just truncated due to a change in (ownership, maintenance, what-have-you) jurisdiction (Caltrans -> Los Federales). The "end is defined legislatively at the Mexican border" bit is the sticking point for me. Thinking of the countless cases of jurisdiction changes (state vs municipal for example) here...

[oscar]

While I'm still recovering from eye surgery (hope that'll be complete by the end of this month), I'm looking ahead to additional work needed to push this system to preview.

One task is to identify and remove additional unsigned routes. Candidates for that include CA 109, CA 17 Business (Scotts Valley), CA 99 Business (Chico), and CA 174 Business (Colfax). Any comments on those, or others I should be reviewing?

A second is to make the more obvious removals of relinquished mileage on existing routes. Right now, I would keep focusing on end-of-route relinquishments, rather than ones that would break a route in two or more (additional) pieces. Also, completely relinquished routes (as seems likely for CA 187, if it hasn't happened already), which I would treat as decommissioned even though there is a technical difference between "relinquished" and "decommissioned". To my mind, we can put this system into preview without first resolving how we handle mid-route relinquishments like several on CA 1. so long as I've cut back on what peer reviewers would be looking at.

Related to the above is taking a deep dive into cahighways.org and the Pacific Southwest board on the aaroads.com forum, to get caught up with the latest changes and older changes I missed.

[oscar]

One task is to identify and remove additional unsigned routes. Candidates for that include CA 109, CA 17 Business (Scotts Valley), CA 99 Business (Chico), and CA 174 Business (Colfax). Any comments on those, or others I should be reviewing?

A second is to make the more obvious removals of relinquished mileage on existing routes. Right now, I would keep focusing on end-of-route relinquishments, rather than ones that would break a route in two or more (additional) pieces. Also, completely relinquished routes (as seems likely for CA 187, if it hasn't happened already), which I would treat as decommissioned even though there is a technical difference between "relinquished" and "decommissioned". To my mind, we can put this system into preview without first resolving how we handle mid-route relinquishments like several on CA 1. so long as I've cut back on what peer reviewers would be looking at.

I did some of the above over the weekend. Based on that review, I'll be removing from the Highway Browser CA99Bus (Chico), CA109, CA110 (San Pedro), and CA187. The first has no signage on the CA 99 mainline, though some markers remain on the locally-maintained (former) business route, so it seems Caltrans is treating the business route as decommissioned. CA 109 and CA 110 (San Pedro) appear to be completely unsigned. Caltrans and the city of Los Angeles have agreed to terms of relinquishment for all of CA 187, and if the relinquishment hasn't happened already, it probably will very soon. Other routes that I had targeted for removal turned out to be at least minimally signed at their junctions with other routes.

I've also edited some other files to address the most important Datacheck issues, such as duplicate labels, that would get in the way of TM mapping user travels. More work will need to be done, especially on the headachy issue of addressing the remaining relinquishments. But I think the system will be more or less in as good a shape as other systems that have gone into preview, and usaca can go there too, so users can start at least preliminarily mapping their travels.

One of the many remaining tasks will be to finish synching up state routes with each other and I- and US routes. I've synched up many of the major state routes, and some of the minor ones. Until the rest are done, TM might not automatically credit users for routes concurrent with the state routes in their list files. Also, as with any preview system, updates that may break your list file may be made without notice, so keep an eye on your error log.

[oscar]

For those of you updating your list files for your California state route travels, CA 58 has a new expressway segment on a new alignment, a few miles from its east end. The east endpoint and the exit preceding it have new labels (for example, 241 -> I-15) since I was unable to confirm the exit numbers for them in the route file.

I'll be doing other cleanup on CA 58, and if time permits also CA 166, before moving the system to preview, so that we have a few more major west-east routes synched up with the major north-south routes I've already more or less finalized. More of that will need to be done for other routes, while usaca is in preview.

[Jim]

usaca is now in preview status!  I forgot the systemupdates.csv entry, but that's now in and will reflect in the next site update.  I expect I'll be running a site update tonight once I have a chance address some of the errors in my own list file that now show up with this system's promotion.  Thanks to all whose work got us to this point, and let the peer review begin!

[oscar]

As I assemble usaca additions to my list file (I notice some of you have already done that, and have claimed mileage on the system), I'm reminded that some minor and urban routes have not been re-done since they were first drafted many years ago, when things like waypoint spacing and labeling were done differently. In general, most of the major north-south and west-east routes have been redone, like the Interstates and US routes were re-done awhile ago, and should be in near-final form. Shorter and especially urban non-freeway routes (the ones which Caltrans seemingly yearns to remove from the state highway system), not so much.  Also, some unsigned routes remain, like the short CA 710 stub in Pasadena (which I forgot to include in my latest route removals) and CA 244 in Sacramento, and will need to be addressed later. There are some other routes that have almost no route signage, like CA 262 north of San Jose, which remain in the Highway Browser.

Comments at this stage are welcome, even if some of them will remind me of things I already know. A more systematic review can wait until I do some more work on the system. But in the meantime, you'll be able to map your California state route travels.

[oscar]

While updating my list file, I caught a gruesome error on CA 140, where I accidentally truncated the route to end well west of Yosemite NP. The actual end is at the park boundary. I'll fixed the file accordingly, and will submit it in a pull request later today or tomorrow.

Also, quickie truncations of CA 83's north end, and CA 91's west end.