California State Route 4; Stockton Cross Town Freeway

This past month I drove the California State Route 4 Cross Town Freeway located in Stockton from I-5 east to CA 99.

The CA 4 Cross Town Freeway is officially known as the "Ort J. Loftus Freeway" and connects I-5 east to CA 99 through downtown Stockton. The Cross Town Freeway as currently configured replaced the original alignment of CA 4 by 1994 through downtown Stockton. The original alignment of CA 4 in downtown Stockton had been on the former US 50/US 99W corridor on Charter Way. CA 4 connected to US 99 via Mariposa Road (former US 99E) east of Charter Way.

CAhighways.org on CA 4

The Cross Town Freeway first appeared on State Highway Maps as a proposed freeway in 1965.

1965 State Highway Map City Insert

Originally the Cross Town Freeway was intended to connect to with the surface route of CA 4 near the San Joaquin River. Today the Cross Town Freeway only extends west of I-5 to Navy Drive. This was part of the early segment of the Cross Town Way which was completed between Fresno Avenue and Center Street by 1975.

1975 State Highway Map City Insert

The Cross Town Freeway is shown as nearly complete between I-5 east to CA 99 by the 1990 State Highway Map City Insert.

1990 State Highway Map City Insert

Interestingly the route of CA 4 through Stockton was submitted as a proposed Interstate in 1945 according to CAhighways.org. The irony is that recent (somewhat) studies for a possible I-7/I-9 corridor tend to favor routing an Interstate over the Cross Town Freeway rather than CA 99 north of Stockton. This likely has much to do with the standards of the Cross Town Freeway being at or are far closer to Interstate standards than CA 99 north of Stockton.

My approach to the Cross Town Freeway east was from I-5 south.

Eastbound traffic is given an a ramp to the Cross Town Freeway westbound which is simply signed as connecting to Navy Drive.

CA 4 east on the Cross Town Freeway enters downtown Stockton. CA 4 east actually multiplexes I-5 north to reach the Cross Town Freeway.

CA 4 eastbound traffic can enter downtown Stockton on El Dorado Street while merging onto the Cross Town Freeway.

East of El Dorado Street CA 99 is signed as 2.5 miles away on the Cross Town Freeway. Exit 66 is signed as access to Stanislaus Street.

Wilson Way is accessed from CA 4 east on the Cross Town Freeway at Exit 67.

Exit 68A accesses Filbert Street whereas Exit 68B accesses CA 99 north. CA 4 east exits the Cross Town Freeway onto CA 99 south before splitting away at Farmington Road.

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