Not only politics divide Central Valley from coast
Do you seek beauty and danger in California but feel unsure of which direction to find it? West. Just drive west. Or east. California is reliably connected from north to south by workhorse highways like Interstate 5, 99 and 101, with multiple lanes, center divides and the other protections of big, modern roads. But if you want to travel horizontally in this state — from east to west or back — your task will be harder, your risks higher, perhaps on one of the country’s most dangerous interstates: I-80 in the north or I-10 in the south. And if you’re heading inland or to the coast, away from the big cities, your only option may be a windy state highway that offers little protection from oncoming traffic.
California’s east-west connections, despite improvements, are narrow, far from numerous and hard to navigate. It’s not merely politics that divide the blue coast from the red inland; it’s our geography, our weather, our Pacific Coast Range and the very roads that connect us.
I recently faced California’s eastwest challenge in Yreka, in Siskiyou County, inland along the Oregon border.
I needed to go to Crescent City — 80 miles west — for meetings the next day. But the Klamath National Forest stood between me and the coast. Google Maps said I’d have to drive 150 miles, for at least three hours, to get there.
“You gotta go north and south to go east and west here,” Mark Baird, a leader of the movement to create a new state in the far north of California, told me .
As the locals laid it out, I had three options. I could take the long, Califor- nia way: south through Redding over to the Eureka area on CA-299 before heading back north on 101 to Crescent City. But that could take more than five hours.
The two other east-west routes required me to go north — into Oregon. The faster route would be a semicircle: taking I-5 North into Oregon through Medford before connecting with U.S. 199 in Grants Pass to take me back to the California coast. But this drive would require going over the Siskiyou Pass, near the Oregon-California border, where it was snowing. The previous night, as I came south over the snowy pass, I had skidded to the side of the road in my rented SUV.
So I chose the third, geographically direct option: right through the forest. I got on tiny CA-96 and headed west along the windy Klamath River and through the hills. After nearly three hours, the roads took me back into Oregon, where I connected with U.S. 199, the Redwood Highway, with its awe-inspiring trees and views of the Smith River’s Middle Fork. I arrived at the Pacific in Crescent City nearly four hours after I’d left Yreka, weary from the drive but happy from having seen so much beauty.
That mix of feelings is common in east-west travel, no matter where you are in the state. I experience it most frequently on 152, which I use to cut between I-5 at Los Banos and 101 at Gilroy on drives between Southern California and my grandmother’s house in San Mateo. 152 shows you a lot — the stark otherworldly blue of the San Luis Reservoir, the Diablo Range, the sweet smell of the garlic fields and fruit stands near Gilroy. But it’s also dangerous between 156 and 101, where you must keep your headlights on to avoid head-on collisions.
California hides wonderful surprises on these roads, like the sun-splashed lemon groves on 126 between Valencia and Ventura, and the Boston House of Pizza in Lemoore at CA-198 and CA-41, where I had the tastiest pie on a nighttime drive from Visalia to Paso Robles.
But these small roads also represent a failure for a big state. California’s economy relies on our mastery of trade and logistics, so it should be much easier to move sideways on the map. Over the years, there have been proposals for rail links or cargo-only roads from east to west. Building tollways for cargo movements would make a ton of sense.
It’s past time for action. East-west traffic is increasing, with more people and businesses in the growing inland regions needing to get to the coast. Surely we can find faster, safer ways to help Californians traverse the beautiful east-west divide.