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The Arroyo Seco Parkway, also known as the Pasadena Freeway, is one of the oldest freeways in the United States.
It connects Los Angeles with Pasadena alongside the Arroyo Seco seasonal river. Mostly opened in 1940, it represents the transitional phase between early parkways and later freeways. It conformed to modern standards when it was built, but is now regarded as a narrow, outdated roadway.
A 1953 extension brought the south end to the Four Level Interchange in downtown Los Angeles and a connection with the rest of the freeway system.
The road remains largely as it was on opening day, though the plants in its median have given way to a steel guard rail, and most recently to concrete barriers, and it now carries the designation State Route 110, not historic U.S. Route 66. Between 1954 and 2010, it was designated the Pasadena Freeway.
In 2010, as part of plans to revitalize its scenic value and improve safety, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) restored the roadway's original name.
All of its original bridges remain, including four that predate the parkway itself, built across the Arroyo Seco before the 1930s. The road has a crash rate roughly twice the rate of other freeways, largely due to an outdated design lacking in acceleration and deceleration lanes.
The Arroyo Seco Parkway is designated a State Scenic Highway, National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, and National Scenic Byway. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
The Arroyo Seco is an intermittent stream that carries rainfall from the San Gabriel Mountains southerly through western Pasadena into the Los Angeles River near downtown Los Angeles. During the dry season, it served as a faster wagon connection between the two cities than the all-weather road on the present Huntington Drive.
The first known survey for a permanent roadway through the Arroyo was made by T. D. Allen of Pasadena in 1895, and in 1897 two more proposals were made, one for a scenic parkway and the other for a commuter cycleway. The latter was partially constructed and opened by Horace Dobbins, who incorporated the California Cycleway Company and bought 10 km right-of-way from downtown Pasadena to Avenue 54 in Highland Park, Los Angeles.
Construction began in 1899, and about 2.0 km of the elevated wooden bikeway were opened on January 1, 1900, starting near Pasadena's Hotel Green and ending near the Raymond Hotel. The majority of its route is now Edmondson Alley; a toll booth was located near the north end, in the present Central Park.
Due to the end of the bicycle craze of the 1890s and the existing Pacific Electric Railway lines connecting Pasadena to Los Angeles, the cycleway did not and was not expected to turn a profit, and never extended beyond the Raymond Hotel into the Arroyo Seco. Sometime before 1910, the structure was dismantled, and the wood sold for lumber, and the Pasadena Rapid Transit Company, a failed venture headed by Dobbins to construct a streetcar line, acquired the right-of-way.
Due to the rise of the automobile, most subsequent plans for the Arroyo Seco included a roadway, though they differed as to the purpose: some, influenced by the City Beautiful movement, concentrated on the park, while others, particularly those backed by the Automobile Club of Southern California (ACSC), had as their primary purpose a fast road connecting the two cities. The first plan that left the Arroyo Seco in South Pasadena to better serve downtown Pasadena was drawn up by Pasadena City Engineer Harvey W.
Hincks in 1916 and supported by the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and ACSC. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Harland Bartholomew's 1924 Major Street Traffic Plan for Los Angeles, while concentrating on traffic relief, and noting that the Arroyo Seco Parkway would be a major highway, suggested that it be built as a parkway, giving motorists a great deal of incidental recreation and pleasure. By the mid-1930s, plans for a primarily recreational parkway had been overshadowed by the need to carry large numbers of commuters.
Debates continued on the exact location of the parkway, in particular whether it would bypass downtown Pasadena. In the late 1920s, Los Angeles acquired properties between San Fernando Road and Pasadena Avenue, and City Engineer Lloyd Aldrich began grading between Avenues 60 and 66 in the early 1930s.
By June 1932, residents of Highland Park and Garvanza, who had paid special assessments to finance improvement of the park, became suspicious of what appeared to be a road, then graded along the Arroyo Seco's west side between Via Marisol (then Hermon Avenue) and Princess Drive. Merchants on North Figueroa Street (then Pasadena Avenue) also objected, due to the loss of business they would suffer from a bypass. Work stopped while the interested parties could work out the details, although, in late 1932 and early 1933, Aldrich was authorized to grade a cheaper route along the east side between Avenue 35 and Hermon Avenue.
To the north, Pasadena and South Pasadena endorsed in 1934 what was essentially Hincks's 1916 plan, but lacked the money to build it. A bill was introduced in 1935 to add the route to the state highway system, and after some debate a new Route 205 was created as a swap for the Palmdale-Wrightwood Route 186, as the legislature had just greatly expanded the system in 1933, and the California Highway Commission opposed a further increase.
6.0 km section opened on July 20, 1940, connecting Orange Grove Avenue in South Pasadena with Avenue 40 in Los Angeles.
More information: PBS Socal
The story of 'Highway' is completely about travel.
It is about the fascination of travel to an extent
that I don't want to even reach the destination
and also being away from society gives you
a certain view of the society,
so that was the intention of the film.
Imtiaz Ali
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