California State Route 78
State Route 78 is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs from Oceanside east to Blythe, traversing nearly the entire width of the state. Its western terminus is at Interstate 5 in San Diego County and its eastern terminus is at I-10 in Riverside County. The route is a freeway through the heavily populated cities of northern San Diego County and a two-lane highway running through the Cuyamaca Mountains to Julian. In Imperial County, SR 78 travels through the desert near the Salton Sea and passes through the city of Brawley and the Algodones Dunes before turning north on the way to its terminus in Blythe.
SR 78 was one of the original state highways designated in 1934, although portions of the route existed as early as 1900. However, it was not designated east of Brawley until 1959. The freeway section in the North County of San Diego that connects Oceanside and Escondido was built in the middle of the twentieth century in several stages, including a transitory stage known as the Vista Way Freeway, and has been altered several times. An expressway bypass of the city of Brawley was completed in 2012. There are many projects slated to add capacity to the freeway due to increasing congestion in the region.
Route description
SR 78 begins in Oceanside as a continuation of Vista Way. As it encounters a traffic signal and crosses over I-5, the route becomes a suburban freeway traveling east through Oceanside. The freeway loosely parallels Buena Vista Creek before entering the city of Vista. Turning southeast, SR 78 continues into the city of San Marcos near California State University San Marcos and enters Escondido, where it has an interchange with I-15. A 2011 Caltrans study estimated that the average commuter encountered a delay of 10 minutes on the portion from I-5 to I-15. After passing the Centre City Parkway interchange, the freeway abruptly ends at the intersection with Broadway. SR 78 then makes a turn south onto Broadway and continues through downtown Escondido by turning east onto Washington Avenue and south onto Ash Street, which becomes San Pasqual Valley Road.Turning east once again, SR 78 leaves the Escondido city limits and enters the San Pasqual Valley as it provides access to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and San Pasqual Battlefield State Park. After leaving the San Pasqual Valley, the road follows a serpentine alignment, heading south to enter the community of Ramona as Pine Street. In Ramona, SR 78 intersects SR 67 and makes a turn east onto Main Street, going through downtown Ramona. The highway leaves Ramona as Julian Road, which continues on a winding mountain alignment through Witch Creek to Santa Ysabel where it meets SR 79.
SR 78 runs concurrently with SR 79 across the headwaters of the San Diego River and through the hamlet of Wynola, briefly entering Cleveland National Forest before reaching Julian and entering the town as Washington Street. The route, still concurrent with SR 79, turns east onto Main Street and travels through downtown Julian before SR 79 diverges south towards Cuyamaca and SR 78 heads northeast as Banner Road. The road intersects with County Route S2 at a junction called Scissors Crossing; CR S2 runs concurrently in a wrong-way concurrency. Shortly afterwards, SR 78 enters Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and is designated as a scenic highway for its length in the state park. Although this route travels many miles south of the town of Borrego Springs, it provides access to the town via CR S3. SR 78 travels through the town of Ocotillo Wells before exiting the state park and entering Imperial County.
File:Julian CA SR 78 & 79.JPG|thumb|left|Road leading to SR 78 and SR 79 in Julian
In Imperial County, SR 78 intersects with SR 86, running concurrently with it southwest of the Salton Sea and northwest of San Felipe Creek. SR 78 passes through the desert community of Elmore Desert Ranch before entering the city of Westmorland. The route, still concurrent with SR 86, enters into the city of Brawley as Main Street, where SR 86 splits to the south towards El Centro. SR 78 continues north onto the Brawley Bypass, a freeway that passes to the north of downtown Brawley. SR 111 runs concurrently with SR 78 for a short duration before the latter exits from the freeway and continues east.
Then, SR 78 intersects with SR 115 east of Alamorio, running concurrently with it for a brief distance. Shortly after passing through the small community of Glamis, the road turns northeast and eventually north towards Blythe, passing near the Chocolate Mountain Naval Reserve. As it nears the Colorado River and the Arizona border, SR 78 briefly passes through Cibola National Wildlife Refuge before entering the community of Palo Verde, where the river turns away from the highway and SR 78 enters Riverside County.
As it nears Blythe, the highway makes a sharp turn east onto 32nd Avenue before turning north on Rannels Boulevard. It makes a right on 28th Avenue before turning north on South Neighbours Boulevard and passing through Ripley. SR 78 continues north for a few more miles to its terminus at I-10, approximately west of the Arizona border. North of I-10, Neighbours Boulevard becomes Interstate 10 Business for a block before the business route turns east toward Blythe.
SR 78 is designated as the Ronald Packard Parkway from I-5 in the city of Oceanside to I-15 in the city of Escondido, and Ben Hulse Highway from SR 86 near Brawley to I-10 near the city of Blythe. The portion of SR 78 from SR 86 in Brawley to CR S3 near Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is designated as part of the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail auto tour route, promoted by the National Park Service. An informal nickname for the road is "the Hops Highway," referring to the fact that the stretch of SR 78 from Oceanside to Julian passes by one-third of all the breweries in San Diego County.
SR 78 is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, although only the metropolitan section of SR 78 is a freeway. The section of SR 78 from the western junction of SR 79 to the western junction with SR 86 is designated by the California State Legislature as eligible by law for the State Scenic Highway System; however, only the section in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park has officially been designated by Caltrans as being part of the system, meaning that it is a substantial section of highway passing through a "memorable landscape" with no "visual intrusions", where the potential designation has gained popular favor with the community; it gained this status in 1971. SR 78 from I-5 to I-15, and from the eastern junction with SR 86 to the eastern junction with SR 111 is part of the National Highway System, a network of highways that are considered essential to the country's economy, defense, and mobility by the Federal Highway Administration. In 2013, SR 78 had an annual average daily traffic of 670 between the San Diego–Imperial county line and the western SR 86 junction, and 163,000 between Twin Oaks Valley Road and Nordahl Road, the latter of which was the highest AADT for the highway.
History
Original highway
The Old Banner Toll Road connected the towns of Julian and Banner in 1871, after a gold rush began in 1870, and eliminated the need to manually lower supplies to gold miners down a slope. The county bought the road from Horace Wilcox in 1874, and removed the toll. The road remained in service until 1925, and remained operational until a flood in the winter season of 1979–1980. By August 1874, a road from Valle de las Viejas to Julian was open and accessible for horse teams. In the meantime, the City of Oceanside began discussions regarding a road east from Oceanside through the San Marcos valley. Efforts to realign the road from Ramona to Julian began in 1892, when a county surveyor examined the prospect of shifting the road away from the Graves hill.Before the designation of SR 78, a road known as the Brawley-Westmorland-Julian-Oceanside Highway existed during the early twentieth century. This road roughly followed the current routing of SR 78 from Escondido to the east of Brawley, although it traveled along a different routing from Westmorland into Brawley. No road connected Brawley with Glamis in 1919; it was necessary to travel north through Calipatria to reach Blythe. East of the Sand Hills, there was a road from Glamis passing by Smith Well into Palo Verde, which roughly follows the routing of SR 78.
At this time, when the road from the west into Julian had been approved, many in the community began discussing a road east into the Imperial Valley. There were many proposed alignments besides the one east of Julian through Banner, including through the San Felipe Valley, and the Montezuma Valley. The plan was to construct the Santa Ysabel grade portion as a gravel road, and the rest of the road between Ballena and Julian as a concrete road. The work to pave the road from Santa Ysabel to Julian was nearing completion in September 1920. Grading was completed by August 1921, and paving work continued, as well as grading on the Santa Ysabel and Julian grades. In 1922, the Automobile Club of Southern California scouting expedition reported that the road from Ramona to Julian was "in excellent condition" though the pavement was poor from Ballena to Santa Ysabel, and under construction just east of Santa Ysabel.
A road from Julian to Kane Springs was completed in 1925. Efforts to include this road extending to Brawley into the state highway system date back from 1927, in order to receive state funding for the road. Plans for a cross-country road through Borrego Springs were being discussed by county government officials in 1927, as there were no east–west state highways in between Mountain Springs and Riverside. Those living in Calipatria and Westmorland supported the prospect of the road to Julian being improved, and included in the state highway system. In 1928, state assembly member Myron Witter wrote a letter to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors to suggest that the highway be incorporated as a second entrance to the county from the east, and that it would not detract from the progress of the other highway from El Centro; however, the county wanted to prioritize the paving over the designation. Chambers of commerce in the Imperial Valley generally agreed with Witter, proposing that the El Centro–Calexico road be made a part of the state highway system, and the Kane Springs–Julian road be given second priority for inclusion.
In June 1930, an agreement was made between the county and the state to share in the construction and maintenance on the road to Kane Springs from Julian; prison crews were to make up some of the workforce. Vista Way opened on November 26, 1930. By 1932, the road from Escondido to Ramona was a gravel road, and the portion from Julian to U.S. Route 99, which is currently designated as SR 86, was still a dirt road. That year, the cost was predicted to be $176,000.