Skip to main content

California State Route 52

A recent acquisition in sign collecting renewed my interest in revisiting the history of a freeway I used to frequently drive in northern San Diego; California State Route 52.


CA 52 is a 17.22 mile freeway which connects Interstate 5 in San Diego east to CA 67 in Santee.



Part 1; The History of California State Route 52

The history of CA 52 is fully documented on stub page for the highway on CAhighways.org.   The origin of what became CA 52 was in 1959 when Legislative Route Number 279 was added as a planned highway between La Jolla and Santee.  LRN 279 can be seen for the first time on the 1960 Division of Highways State Map City Insert as a planned highway.


According to CAhighways.org the alignment of LRN 279 between what is now I-5 and I-805 was formally adopted in 1962.  The formal route adoption of LRN 279 between I-5 and I-805 can be seen on the 1963 Division of Highways State Map City Insert.


During the 1964 State Highway Renumbering all Legislative Route Numbers were dropped.  LRN 279 was replaced with the designation of CA 52 which can be seen on the 1964 Division of Highways State Map City Insert.


According to CAhighways.org CA 52 between I-5 and I-805 opened during 1970.  The 1970 Division of Highways State Map City Insert shows CA 52 under construction between I-5 and I-805 whereas the 1975 Caltrans State Map City Insert shows it open.  According to CAhighways the planned route of CA 52 east to I-15 was formally adopted in July 1972 (which can be seen on the 1975 Caltrans Map).



CA 52 was opened east to I-15 in 1988 according to CAhighways and can be seen on the Caltrans State Map City Insert from said year.


According to CAhighways.org the formally planned alignment of CA 52 east to CA 67 was adopted in July of 1989.  CA 52 was completed to Mast Boulevard in 1993 and to CA 125 by November 1998.  CA 52 can be seen on the 2005 Caltrans State Map City Insert opened to CA 125.


CA 52 was completed to CA 67 during the Spring of 2011.  Unfortunately 2005 was the last year Caltrans published a State Highway Map hence why there is no accompanying image below.  CA 52 today is known as the Soledad Freeway but was known as the San Clemente Freeway previously.


Part 2; Some Road Scenes Related to CA 52

As noted above I recently acquired a CA 52 shield for my sign collection.  There was a button-copy variation available but the standard shield was only one third of the price.


Most my drives on CA 52 were during 2011-2013 when I was working frequently in Southern California.  Most of my photo stock from those times was lost in a hard drive crash in 2013.  I recently took some photos related to CA 52 in April/May of 2019.  These photos below were taking from I-5 north approaching the CA 52 interchange.





Below are photos of I-805 southbound approaching the interchange with CA 52.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ghost Town Tuesday; Mannfield, FL and the stairway to Hell

Back in 2015 I went searching the Lecanto Sand Hills for the original Citrus County Seat known as Mannfield.  Unlike Centrailia in Hernando County and Fivay in Pasco County I did find something worth seeing. Mannfield is located in the Lecanto Sand Hill section of Withlacoochee State Forest somewhat east of the intersection of Citrus County Route 491 and Mansfield Road. Mannfield was named after Austin Mann and founded in Hernando County in 1884 before Citrus County Split away.  In 1887 Citrus County was split from northern Hernando County while Pasco County was spun off to the south.  Mannfield was selected as the new Citrus County seat due to it being near the county geographic center.  Reportedly Mannfield had as many as 250 people when it was the County Seat.  The town included various businesses one might include at the time, even a sawmill which was common for the area.  In 1891 Citrus County voted to move it's seat to Inverness which set the s...

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...

The mystery of Hawaii Route 144 and temporary Hawaii Route 11

The 1959 Gousha Road map of Hawaii features two largely unknown references in the form of Hawaii Route 144 and Temporary Hawaii Route 11.  Both corridors are shown running from the boundary of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park east to Glenwood via Volcano Village.  At the time Hawaii Route 11 was using the so-called "Volcano Road" which was constructed as a modernization of Mamalahoa Highway during 1927-1928.  This blog will examine the two map references and will attempt to determine what they might indicate.  The mystery of Hawaii Route 144 and Temporary Hawaii Route 11 Hawaii Route 11 is part of Mamalahoa Highway (the Hawaii Belt Road) and is the longest Hawaiian State Route at 121.97 miles.  The highway begins at the mutual junction of Hawaii Route 19 and Hawaii Route 190 in Kailua-Kona.  From Kailua-Kona the routing of Hawaii Route 11 crosses the volcanic landscapes of southern side of the Big Island.  Hawaii Route 11 terminates at Hawaii Route 19/Ka...