America's First Freeway: The 110

ThnderBlt's comment on this post got us thinking about what's alternately known as the Harbor Freeway and the Pasadena Freeway and can be generally summed up by its route number, the 110. Designed by a man named Spencer Cortelyou (who, coincidentally, is the great-great uncle of the first girl we ever made out with), the former Arroyo Seco Parkway was originally built to connect Pasadena with Los Angeles.

It opened in December of 1940, running from Chinatown to Pasadena and was later extended to meet the 101 and the 5. Eventually, the freeway was sent through Downtown and extended all the way to the top of San Pedro where it dumps onto Gaffey Street. Although the entire 31.9-mile expanse of Macadam, concrete and rebar is known internally as "State Route 110" the stretch from Pedro to Downtown meets Interstate standards, and is signed as such. Bless thee, noble 110, although you have tried to kill us on numerous occasions. Now please, somebody do something about that 110/5 meetup. If not for that piece of boneheaded interchange wizardry, it'd be a lot faster to go see Coonce and Bumbeck.

State Route 110 (California) [Wikipedia]


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