Tel Aviv in the 40s with a Topolino and one of the few Lincoln Zephyrs exported there in the background- Sign says "silence please", fat chance of that in Israel (I grew up there so I know)
Hello, Since the Pasadena Freeway is the oldest in So Cal or just about anywhere, it has its short comings. When it was designed, it was ok for the types of cars and traffic. But over the years and development in the whole Los Angeles area, the freeway has short comings. Just look at the photo above. From a 65 mph lane, the off lane is relatively none and when one gets off of the actual freeway/roadway, it is the shortest distance to the stop. This is not the only one in the area. There are countless others and for those that think the lane curves into a merging stop, it is so short that it surprises a lot of people. If there is a slowdown getting off of the short off ramp, it piles up the lane and then the blockage goes back into the freeway lane. Then, we all know what happens. It has been like that ever since the cars overpowered the design and the advent of tons more folks driving causes major traffic tie ups every day of every year. Unless of course, we all drive at 3:00 a.m. Then we all have to look out for “vampires”… Ha! Jnaki We have driven that section of the Pasadena Freeway many times and each time is almost the same. Those short off and on lanes create unusual traffic problems. So, for anyone coming out West for the annual Pasadena Rose Parade, get your motor running and be prepared for some thick traffic. Perhaps, that is why a lot of people make it an overnight situation with saved seating along the Colorado Blvd. route. They don’t worry about the New Year’s Day Parade traffic to and from the event, just how to stay warm and not freeze to death… YRMV
I believe that Jnaki is correct on all counts. The entrance from the regular streets onto the “Pasadena Freeway” (technically, an on-ramp) are very exciting, as you enter at 5 to 10 MPH and better have the gas pedal on the floor boards to accelerate up to highway speeds immediately, because the traffic lane you entered has traffic running at 60 to 65 MPH . The off-ramps are even worse, MUCH worse. The “Pasadena Freeway” was the first road of its kind to be built west of the Mississippi River, and the first so-called “Freeway” built in Los Angeles. The path the “Pasadena Freeway” takes was once a road, called Figueroa Street. Figueroa St. still exists, only the street name ends in downtown L.A. The Guinness Book of Records claimed Figueroa St. as the longest street in the world, as it used to run from Pasadena (or La Canada) south to San Pedro (the Pacific Ocean). It is still in daily use between downtown L.A. and the ocean. The vast majority of Freeways in the SoCal area were NOT built on existing streets. The City and State used “Eminent Domain” laws to just take your home if it was in the way of “progress” (they at least paid the home owners what the property was worth when they took it). Of course, it’s probably worth 10 times that much now. The neat thing about the HAMB is that it is focused on vintage cars and vehicles. We rarely think about the vintage streets and roads and highways these vehicles used, and how these roads and streets evolved over the years to accommodate these vehicles, which were also evolving. Being a native of Los Angeles, and being born prior to the beginning of WWII, I have always been interested in the history of our streets, roads and highways and I still am. I live in the city of Monrovia, CA now (population of about 37,000), which is just a few miles East of Pasadena. When I was born, my parents lived on Willoughby Ave., in Los Angeles (Hollywood to be exact). As a kid, I played on the lawn in front of the house, and watched who was driving on Willoughby Ave. I used to see this beat up DeSoto convertible driving by pretty often, driving east in the mornings and west in the late afternoons. One time when I was very young, I set up a lemonade stand near the sidewalk. People used to stop to buy a small cup of lemonade, and sometimes just to talk. A couple of times, the guy that drove the DeSoto rag top stopped. I remember him very well, he wore tennis shoes without socks, which I thought was very cool. My dad worked in the movie studios, and he knew a lot of the Hollywood crowd. My dad shook hands with the DeSoto driver and they talked for a few minutes. After the guy drank his lemonade and got back in his car, my dad said to me, “you have been serving lemonade to Howard Hughes and you never knew it.” As it turned out, there was a movie studio located about 7 or 8 blocks east of where we lived (Samuel Goldwyn Studios, which is still there and in use) located just off of Willoughby Ave. Hughes had his office on the lot, and instead of using Santa Monica Blvd. to drive back and forth to his home in Beverly Hills (too much traffic on SM Blvd), he used Willoughby Ave. If I was outside when he drove by, he always tooted his horn and waved to me, even if I wasn’t selling lemonade that day… To the best of my recolection, this late 1940's DeSoto Convert is about as close as I could come to finding a photo of HH's car, except this car is immaculate and Hughe's was kind of beat up...
I knew a family that had one just like this, same color. I remember it had a V8 but I didn't know what size. I rode in it many times.
Yes the original Arroyo was no more than three lanes, from the 5 all the way to where it ended in Pasadena. It had some scary curves that made me leery of going faster than 60. It opened to more lanes going from the 5 toward downtown.
The Jalopy Journal
