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next month In San Diego during its October 1965 meeting, the Highway Commission adopted a route for extension of State Highway 190 from its present terminus at Quaking Aspen Meadow across the southern Sierra to Haiwee Pass at the Tulare-Inyo county line. During a photographic reconnaissance of this route last summer, Chief Photographer William Chaney made color and black-and-white photographs of the country the new route passes through. A selection of these photos will be included in the March—April issue. CALIFORNIA highways and public works OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE DIVISION OF HIGHWAYS, DERARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS, STATE OF CALIFORNIA VOLUME 4~~/,j JANUARY–FEBRUARY NOS. 1-2 FREEWAY AGREEMENTS Z lesfer s. koritz, EClitor By John Erreca srewart mitchell, Associate Editor TIOGA PASS—CONSTRUCTION 6 john c. robinson, Assoczate Editor marcia j. mickelsen, Assistant Editor ~4 TIOGA PASS—BEAUTY bill metzel, Art Director William r. Chaney, Chief Photograj~he~~ WINTER MAINTENANCE ZO By Marcia Mickelsen Editors are invited to use information contained herein and to request prints of any black COMBATING SNOW VIA RAD10 3O and white photographs. By Alice Wiegand Address communications to SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA STORM DAMAGE 3~ EDITOR, By Paul Brown CALIFORNIA HIGHWAYS AND PUBLIC WORKS P.O. BOX 1499 CAMINO-POLLOCK PINES FREEWAY ~2 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 95507 By Ray Sorum MARIPOSA ROADSIDE BEAUTIFICATION 34 LIME STABILIZATION 36 By ErnesT Zube and Clyde Gates G. T. MCCOY OBITUARY 4~ BEAUTIFIf'ING CALIFORNIA 42 HIGHLIGHTS OF CHC ACTIONS 45 NEW LIGHTING FOR PEDESTRIAN OVERCROSSINGS 46 By T. N. Kreiberg AWARDS AND RETIREM'ENTfi 4S FRONT COVER: Chances are that when this copy of the magazine comes off the press daffodils and flowering trees will be in bloom in the California valleys, but winter will still be hanging over the Sierra Nevada. The front cover stresses the highway maintenance man's view of winter in the mountains. (See article on page 21.) BACK COVER: Winter comes to southern California moun- tains, too. Scene on back of magazine is in the San Ber- nardino Range, on Rim of the World Drive (State Route 18), and not many miles as the crow flies from the City of San Bernardino. Photo by John Meyerpeter. °tAn outstanding network of state highways is essential to the future growth of California's economy" —Governor Edmund G. Brown ~1t one time handshake and now a complex instrzement of planning FEEAYA~RLEI~~IE1~TS Formal freeway agree- ings at which everybody can But today the cost of hig~h- ments, signed, sealed and at- blow off steam. way projects is counted in the tested, are a must today; no Their surveys and consul- millions instead of the thou- California freeway is com- tations led to recommenda- sands, highway and traffic en- plete without one. tions for a state highway net- gineering are more complex,_ But these pacts between the work so good that most of and right-of-way and plan- state and cities or counties its routes are in the system to ning problems more involved, have not always had their is this day. to say nothing of the sudden crossed and their is dotted so Fifteen years were to pass changes brought about bey un- meticulously. before their roads began to be foreseen new industrial or Back in 1895, when com- built, and then there was only commercial enterprises in our missioners of the then Bureau $18 million available for about vigorous economy. of Highways traveled the $36 million worth of work. So today it seems advisable state in buckboards, a meet- But the cities and counties to all parties concerned to ing of state and local minds took up a lot of the slack; have these things down on on a road matter was often counties by providing right- paper so that there is no ques- sealed with just a handshake. of-way and bridges, and cities tion what everybody agreed Those forerunners of to- by simply taking over the job to during the long period be- day's Highway Commission within their own boundaries. tween the time a route is and Division of Highways The habit of cooperation adopted and the time con- clippety-clopped about the built up over these 70 years, struction begins. BY state, consulting with super- now formalized almost into a The freeway agreement JOHN visors and city councilmen ritual, still exists, as the document—detailed on a map ERRECA about road locations, and League of California Cities —becomes a reference for any setting many of the patterns and the County Supervisors venture, private or public, that are still in use today— Association periodically af- with plans to build or develop including local public hear- firm. anything on any kind of property near a future free- without the agreement of sinned by planning or engi- way. And sometimes not so local government. neering differences that have near. The same code of laws also been at issue from the begin- In other words, a planning says where highways must be- ning, with all parties negotiat- guide. Basically the agree- gin, where they must end, ing right down to the wire. ment is that when the state and sometimes through which Occasionally they are is ready to build, the city points they must pass. Within prompted by a strong local or county will cooperate by these limits, however, it does urge to deny that any such closing the streets and roads not say around which hill the lengthy exchange of informa- it is necessary to close in road must go, or through tion took place; to assuage order to build the freeway. whose barn, or on which side the disappointed with the Actually it establishes of the valley. consolation that their tivoes where access to the freeway This is the province of the came asa complete surprise, will be provided by inter- Highway Commission, which sprung by afar -off and ras- changes, which streets or determines the road's course cally state bureaucracy. roads will be closed or car- by majority vote after allthe In this "Who struck John?" ried over or under the free- evidence is in. a standard gambit is to view way, the location of frontage However, in order for the with alarm any state purchase roads to carry local traffic to State Highway Engineer to be of right-of-way before -the interchange points, and how able to recommend one align- local government has signed streets or roads may be relo- ment over another, his rep- the freeway agreement. This cated or extended to main- resentatives will have been makes good copy about who tain traffic circulation in rela- working with- local planning isforcing whose hand. tion to the freeway. and engineering staffs and The fact is .that the state The authority of the high- public officials for months orwill not buy property before way people to act as the years before a route is adopt- the agreement is signed, ex- state's agent is spelled out in ed or a freeway agreement cept under the following two the Streets and' Highways signed. conditions (bearing in mind Code of the California Stat- Once the commission has that the route itself has been utes, which is periodically adopted the alignment, it is up adopted, regardless of wheth- amended and refined by the to the Division of Highways er the details have been Legislature. to negotiate the freeway worked out) The law says that a free- agreement. (1) Where some home- way cannot close off any city Much more often than not, owner in a genuine hardship street or county road without all sides having been kept case (a death in the- family, the agreement of the city or informed at all stages, no orders to Schenectady or Sai- county and that no city street mysteries remain about the gon) has to get rid of his or county road can be con- terrain features, buildings, house and can't sell it to any- nected to a freeway without schools and other controls body but the state because the agreement of the state. that led the commission to nobody else will buy in the The law does not say that adopt the line it did, and the freeway's path. a freeway cannot be built freeway agreement moves in (2) Where a property without a freeway agreement, a routine manner through owner intends to build a facil- and it would be at least theo- local and state staff proce- ity the state will have to pay retically possible to build one dures to final approval.. handsomely for at some time despite the opposition of local A resolution of the city in the future.(A current case goverment as long as it did council or county board ex- of this kind is one where city not close off local streets. presses official approval for and state agree that they will But the long-established the community, and the Di- need a certain piece of prop- practice of consulting with rector of Public Works signs ertyfor ahighway, but where local people has led the de- it for the state. the property owner has a partment to adopt a policy Delays in signing the agree- chance to put upand lease a that nofreeway will be built ment are sometimes occa- $500,000 building. The formal Traveling by buckboard, as highway commissioners did in 1895, provided incentive for building good state highways. 4E9@NO ~~p INT ER&TATE !!IG %~s4ti U.S. uIGwWAr Traffic projections show where most cars STATE NION WAY will want to go. How to get them there is tempered by how not to disrupt a community.

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