Pacific Highway

Pacific Highway may refer to:

See also

Pacific Highway (United States)

Pacific Highway is the name of several north-south highways in the Pacific Coast region of the Western United States, either by legislation officially designating it as such or by common usage.

Good roads advocate and road-building pioneer Sam Hill was perhaps the main motivating force behind building the original Pacific Highway as a "national auto trail"; from Blaine, Washington, on the United States–Canada border, where he would build his Peace Arch, through Oregon to the Siskiyou Mountains of northwestern California. The road was built in the early 20th century—long before the U.S. Highway System was established. In 1923, its 1,687 miles (2,715 km) of pavement made it the longest continuous stretch of paved road in the world at the time. The Pacific Highway later extended north to Vancouver, British Columbia, and south through San Francisco to San Diego in Southern California.

The Pacific Highway auto trail became British Columbia Highway 99 from Vancouver to the Canada–United States border, U.S. Route 99 from the border to Red Bluff, California, in the Sacramento Valley; U.S. Route 99W from Red Bluff to Davis, California, in the Central Valley; U.S. Route 40 from Davis to San Francisco; and U.S. Route 101 from San Francisco to San Diego. This alignment is now mostly Interstate 5 in California, except between Woodland, California, and Los Angeles, where it uses State Route 113, Interstate 80 and then U.S. Route 101.

List of Primary State Highways in Washington

Primary State Highways were major state highways in Washington state. They were used from 1905 to 1964. The 1964 state highway renumbering changed the highway numbering in the state to consolidate and create a more organized and systematic method of numbering the highways within the state.

History

The first state road, running across the Cascade Range roughly where State Route 20 now crosses it, was designated by the legislature in 1893 (However, this road wasn't actually opened until 1972). Two other roads - a Cascade crossing at present State Route 410 and a branch of the first road to Wenatchee - were added in 1897. The Washington Highway Department was established in 1905, and a set of twelve State Roads, numbered from 1 to 12, were assigned. A thirteenth was added in 1907, and State Roads 14 to 18 in 1909.

However, it was not until 1913 that a connected system was laid out - earlier state roads had been disconnected segments of road needing improvements. The seven primary roads were only assigned names, while the older state roads kept their numbers as secondary roads. In 1923, most state roads were assigned new numbers, though the primary and secondary split remained, and several roads remained named only. The United States Numbered Highways were assigned in late 1926, overlapping some of the State Roads.