Antelope Valley Freeway

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Signed as

Major cities/towns:	Sylmar Santa Clarita Agua Dulce Acton Palmdale Lancaster Rosamond Mojave
Direction:	North-South

Southern California freeways

The Antelope Valley Freeway is a freeway in Los Angeles and Kern counties in southern California. It is signed as California State Highway 14 along its length. It connects Greater Los Angeles to the rapidly developing Antelope Valley, and then, via U.S. Highway 395, to the Owens Valley, Lake Tahoe, and Reno, Nevada.

1 The Route
2 History
3 Legal definition
4 Communities Served
5 Major Intersections
6 Reference

[edit] The Route

It begins in the Santa Susana Mountains, just north of Newhall Pass, by splitting from the Golden State Freeway (Interstate 5) and proceeding in a northerly direction. Forming the eastern boundary of the city of Santa Clarita along its route, it continues to the northeast and crosses the western San Gabriel Mountains via the canyon of the seasonal Santa Clara River. After entering the Antelope Valley, it turns due north, crossing the California Aqueduct and passing through Palmdale and Lancaster. It continues across the Los Angeles/Kern County line before terminating at California State Highway 58 in Mojave. CA-14 continues northward, as an expressway in most portions, to U.S. 395 in Inyokern.

[edit] History

The Antelope Valley Freeway, like many freeways in southern California, was built in stages. Its first stub, from just north of the Newhall Pass to San Fernando Road was completed in 1963. Further portions in the intercanyon areas of Acton to Saugus (this part of historical Saugus is now referred to as Santa Clarita and Canyon Country) were completed by 1966. By 1968 the freeway was complete as far north as Avenue P-8 in Palmdale. The completed freeway route to Mojave was finished by 1977. Before the Antelope Valley Freeway was constructed, Sierra Highway was generally primarily used, and today remains a prime alternate route.

The high viaduct connecting the Antelope Valley Freeway with the Golden State Freeway was nearly complete when the February 9, 1971 Sylmar earthquake completely destroyed its interchange with the Golden State Freeway and wrecked large portions of its route through the San Gabriels. Rebuilt to stronger specifications, it again collapsed during the 1994 Northridge earthquake and was closed, but reopened within a year.

Rapid exurban growth in Santa Clarita, Lancaster, and Palmdale has made the Antelope Valley Freeway one of the most congested in southern California, with average rush hour speeds well below 20 miles per hour (30 km/h). In response, the government of Palmdale has successfully campaigned for the proposed high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco to follow the Antelope Valley Freeway's right-of-way and stop in Palmdale before crossing the Tehachapi Mountains at Tehachapi Pass. Such a route would add 20 minutes to the train's travel time between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but would be considerably safer than the earthquake-prone Grapevine Canyon route along the Golden State Freeway's right-of-way, and facilitate the much-discussed development of the Palmdale Regional Airport as an alternative to LAX.

Since the 1950s, proposals have also been made to bypass the Antelope Valley Freeway by boring a massive tunnel underneath the San Gabriels and extending the Glendale Freeway through it to the Antelope Valley Freeway just south of Palmdale. The difficulty of such a project, and the costs of insuring it against earthquakes and terrorism, would likely make its cost prohibitively expensive to perpetually cash-strapped Caltrans. Recently, the idea has been advanced as a combination toll tunnel and surface highway, and it was deemed economically feasible, although no environmental studies have begun on the project. It is unclear how many will be willing to pay at least $8 each way to save an hour each way, although it should be enough to lessen the congestion from Vincent down to Interstate 5 on the Antelope Valley Freeway. [1]

A third alternative worth looking into would be to run the high-speed rail through such a tunnel route, a solution that would only add less than five minutes to travel time between Los Angeles and Bakersfield, compared with the Grapevine Canyon route, but would add onto the cost of a ticket compared to either of the other two alternatives. The tunnel route between Montrose and Vincent would be a shorter western parallel to the existing windy mountain route of the Angeles Crest Highway and Angeles Forest Highway.