An overflow crowd of over 300 attended a San Luis Obispo City Council meeting on a proposed freeway plan from San Luis Obispo to Cuesta College. 10-11-1971 ©The Tribune
Until the 101 freeway was built, driving through San Luis Obispo always required a dog leg turn. Highway 1 is offset from 227. Driving north on the old highway, a traveler enters on Higuera and exits on Monterey Streets. Creeks, hills, and later railroads and freeway have all conspired to tangle with the mind of the linear driver.
Engineers look at the tangle and think, “With money and bulldozers these bottlenecks can be removed.”
Take Highway 1 for example.
In the early 60s a proposal by the state – made at the request of the city — sketched a new highway route near Broad Street at the base of San Luis Mountain or near the railroad tracks. Residents and environmental groups halted those plans.
Proposed freeway interchange brought Highway 1 through a saddle in the hills next to the Madonna Inn at left.
Soon a new route was adopted in 1965 by the state highway department [now Caltrans] and by 1970 had advanced to the point where city approval was required. That is when the ‘build and grow’ ethic of 50s and 60s crashed into the nascent environmental movement of the 70s.
The plan was to build a Highway 1 freeway from Cuesta College to Highway 101 near the Madonna Inn. It would cost more than $2 million a mile for the 7.1 mile expansion.
In a February 9, 1971 article mayor Ken Schwartz argued a better alternative would be to build the road near Laguna Lake and connect at Prado Road. Downtown business owners were leery of a downtown bypass and city residents objected to losing a park to freeway development.
Highway department officials said that they liked their 7.1 mile plan and dismissed alternatives connecting at Los Osos Valley Road or Prado Road.
Supporters argued that the $16 million dollar project would make streets safer and remove an intolerable bottleneck.
The project was supported by city planners, city engineer David Romero and several land owners and contractors. C.A. Maino was quoted as saying that we need a road “from hell to breakfast” to move traffic.
As the new proposal moved forward, groups that opposed the earlier plan reactivated. Petitions were circulated and large numbers attended city council meetings. The then Telegram-Tribune editorialized against the road March 4, 1971 in a piece headlined “Maybe we won’t need additional freeways”.
At a five-hour-long city council meeting October 11, 1971 about 60 people spoke from an audience of almost 300. All but eight were against the freeway.
Among the issues raised a 1,500 foot stretch of San Luis Creek habitat would be disturbed by the new interchange, the base of the Morros would be scarred and there was doubt road was needed. Groups including the Sierra Club, Audobon Society, Zero Population Growth, League of Women Voters, Ecology Action and Obispo Beautiful association spoke out against the road.
The road lost a 3-2 council vote. Freeway supporters tried to revive the issue over the next few years but times had changed.
In other news on the page another environmental battle was forming over a proposed new marina in Morro Bay.
***
As someone who drives the roads of the county frequently, I don’t miss the unbuilt Cuesta freeway but why isn’t there an adequate Los Osos Valley Road interchange or any Prado Road interchange? It has been a topic for discussion for least 40 years. Hey we saved $16 million in unspent construction dollars ($83,818,487.96 in 2009 dollars according to Westegg inflation calculator) by skipping the Cuesta freeway. It seems like big idea projects find funding but garden variety bridges are harder to get done.
Memo to Sacramento: I can live without numbered freeway signs, traffic cameras and electronic traffic condition signs. I know budgets are lean now but could we put overpasses on the wish list for within the next 40 years?
What is on your Caltrans wish list?
October 12, 1971 Telegram-Tribune
October 12, 1971 Telegram-Tribune, inside page
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Wow David,
Im sure there’s an analogy to the proverbial “Pandora’s Box” or the “can of worms” in this one, and I think you may have just opened it. Again. I was out of town for a commitment to Uncle Sam when this took place, and from the accounts, it was cause for a lot of disagreement. Let the arguements begin, in
3..2..1..
*ducks*
Hi Joe,
No doubt people have strong opinions about roads. One of the few posts I have had to admonish folks to keep their comments civil was one on the Cuesta Grade road.
A reader left a message related to the David Romero story from a week or so ago and said that the proposed highway was a big story at the time. By coincidence I came across the Highway 1 file from that era a day or two later and this post was the result.
As an amateur cultural trend spotter it is interesting to see the change in the perceptions of highway building in the ten years from 1962-1972.
I can’t pinpoint when the environmental movement began but turning points include the publication of “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson in the fall of 1962. Later flash points were the Union Oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel and Cuyahoga River fire in 1969. The local environmental movement could count the two highway proposal defeats as an early signal that it could muster political power. Another signal was the Sierra Club, working with off-road groups, to move the nuclear power plant proposed for the Nipomo Dunes. The growth of the State parks system in the area from 1950-70 could also be one of the engines that drove environmental tourism in the area. San Luis Creek was cleaned up and Mission Plaza was built in the late 1960s.
Can anyone think of other earlier stories on the trend toward local environmental awareness?
David,
One that comes to mind for me was the cessation of blasting of Morro Rock for breakwater material, followed by declaring it off limits to climbing and making it a bird sanctuary. I remember the last blasting that took place in the mid 50s. It shook our house and rattled the windows, and we lived on the very eastern edge of town.
I left SLO in 1981 and returned in 1998. During this time, a freeway appeared running through San Luis Obispo. When was it built? Are there any maps from the 1970s out there?
Thanks
Tony
Highway 101 was built as freeway in the 1950s. This post shows construction in Atascadero in 1955. http://sloblogs.thetribunenews.com/slovault/2011/10/armageddon-in-the-sky-nuclear-testing/
For a map from 1940 San Luis Obispo click here:
http://sloblogs.thetribunenews.com/slovault/2011/07/san-luis-obispo-map-1941/