The Crosstown Freeway and Old Highway 30, Part 2: BR 30/Old CA 30 in San Bernardino and Highland (Highland Avenue); BR 18 (Sierra Way) and CA 18 (Waterman Ave); Old CA 30 and Old CA 106 in Redlands (Boulder Avenue)

Going back to the Highland Avenue exit from southbound CA 259 (Part 1), we now exit to traverse Highland Avenue east of the Interstate 215 N/S plumbline and the old CA 30 routing east to Highland. As a reminder of its heritage, an old white business banner sits on the trailblazer shields at the mouth of the offramp, still up as of this writing (fall 2008). [They disappeared around a year later.]

So let's explore BR 18. CA 18, for those unfamiliar, was an original 1934 state highway and one of the longer routings in Southern California, stretching from the northern San Bernardino Mountains down past Big Bear into San Bernardino and Riverside to terminate at Long Beach. As originally designated (as the map sequences on the Flash map demonstrate), CA 18 descended from the San Bernardino Mountains into the city along Sierra Way, heading east on Highland to E Street where it joined CITY US 66, then south to 5th St (4th Street in its earliest days, see Old Highway 395 Part 15), and east to Mount Vernon Avenue where it joined US 395 and later US 91 for points south. In 1968, after the CA 259 freeway was completed (signed as CA 18; see Part 1 for why), CA 18 was moved from Sierra Way to Waterman Avenue north of that point and the relevant portions of Sierra and Highland became BR 18 south and west to connect to the "CA 18 freeway." This means that today BR 18 extends quite a bit further south than the modern highway does, though still not as far as CA 18's greatest extent, of course (it was not truncated until around 1961).

San Bernardino national forest boundary, almost immediately upon leaving the urban area proper which seems to be built right up to the foothills. The result is predictable during fire season.

Getting back on EB Highland Avenue at Waterman, but south of CA 30 CA 210, so now it's no longer CA 18. A lonely set of BR 30 shields cling here to the traffic mastarms. These are the last, furthest east BR 30 shields along Highland Avenue. [Incredibly, as of 1/2014, these shields are still up.]

Now for Boulder Avenue, the former routing of CA 106, and then the former routing of CA 30. Technically we re-enter San Bernardino city limits here, but we'll be back in Highland very quickly.

The diagonal curves back and joins Orange just north of Plunge Creek and the Redlands city limits, where this old bridge postmile survives on the northbound side at PM T32.06 (another Temporary postmile).

At Lugonia, we pick up CA 38. A curious irregularity exists here in LRN 190; it continued not only south (with us in this case) towards LRN 26, which was US 99 then, later US 70-US 99 and now Interstate 10, but also east up to (again) CA 18 near Big Bear along CA 38 today (the arrow, of course, should be pointing to the left). The southern spur to US 99/I-10 (then LRN 26) was originally CA 106 and was transferred to CA 38, meaning CA 106 ended here, in 1965. After CA 30 took over CA 106 in 1972, however, it seems that this stub was returned to CA 30 and CA 38 once again truncated to this point. When CA 30 was transferred to the freeway in 1984, CA 38 finally took the spur back, so now we continue south into Redlands along old CA 106, old CA 30 and modern CA 38.

Continue to Part 3