Gribblenation

This past month I drove the entirety of Interstate 980 upon returning to the San Francisco Bay Area. I-980 is a short 2 mile long connecting Interstate in downtown Oakland which connects I-880 eastward to I-580/CA 24. The route that eventually became I-980 was legislatively defined in 1959 a refinement to Legislative Route Number 226 between what was US 50 and CA 17. This change to LRN 226 first appears on the 1960 State Highway Map. 1960 State Highway Map City Insert During the 1964 State Highway Renumbering LRN 226 between US 50/I-580 and CA 17 was designated as part of future freeway alignment of CA 24. 1964 State Highway Map City Insert By 1970 the route of the CA 24 freeway opened from Caldecott Tunnels west to downtown Oakland.  CA 24 at the time terminated just west of I-580 at Martin Luther King Jr. Way in downtown Oakland. 1970 State Highway Map I-980 was designated as a future Interstate corridor by 1976 according to CAhighways.org. CAhighways.org on ...

On a recent trip to the Bay Area I drove/clinched numerous highways.  Some of them had oddities like not being signed, not completed as planned or even relinquished segments.  None was as strange as California State Routes 112, 61 and 260 which all essentially serve as a signed version of CA 61. As completed CA 112, 61 and 260 serve as a functionally signed (mostly...) CA 61 which starts at CA 185 in downtown San Leandro and traverses northwest through Alameda to downtown Oakland at I-880.  Below is a historic summary of each highway which serves to make up the signed portions of CA 61. CA 112, CA 61 and CA 260 were all part of Legislative Route Number 69 which was added to the State Highway system in 1925 according to CAhighways.org.  LRN 69 originally only was part of the highway system from LRN 1 (future US 101) in San Rafael eastward to Point San Quentin where the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge would later be located.  LRN 69 was extended in 1933 which ex...