I know this is a question but the topic seems too trivial to put in General Questions.
I lived in California until 1978 and noticed that whenever people from the LA area mentioned a highway or freeway, they often referred to it using freeway’s name (e.g., the Santa Monica Freeway) or, sometimes, the number (e.g., Highway 101 or I-5). However, now when I hear people from Southern California refer to the freeways there, it’s as “The Five” or “The 101”. When did this practice start? I don’t think there’s anywhere else in the U.S. where they do this.
Since they started building the interstates. I recall the 5 being called that as soon as it was completed near my house in the late 50’s early 60’s.
The offical names (Santa Ana, Golden State) were also used back then, but as time went on, the numbers won out.
We do it in Montreal all the time. Some highways have names, but a lot of them are referred to by number. “Take the 13 till the 40, then head west”. On a map they’re identified by these big ol’ numbers anyway, so it makes sense to me.
Some San Diego area freeways have offical names, but to best of my knowledge those names have never been heavily publicized or used in any fashion beyond a few scattered signs.
Due to that the (I think) common practice in the area is to just refer to the freeway’s number.
I was born in '75. I’ve never referenced them any other way. I think most LA natives know the actual names, too, but we use them infrequently.
One of my very good friends, who is from Michigan, has adopted our terminology out here. But when we went to visit her family back in her home, she insisted on correcting me if I referred to Michigan roads that way. “No, it’s not THE 96 – get over it.”
I don’t drive the freeways, but I know them all as “the [number].”
Also, if you call the CHP hotline to see if there are any delays, they ask for the number for voice activation of the report, so you might as well learn 'em all.
At least through the sixties everyone I knew called them by their names; The Harbor, The Pasadena, the Santa Ana. But then along came the Marina Freeway, all three or so miles of it. And they renamed it …the Richard Nixon Freeway!
O! The horror! Caltrans realized they had made an error of cataclysmic proportions and renamed it The Marina Freeway, but the damage was done, and Doubt had gained a foothold.
At about the same time the 605 made its entrance, and the name given it was The San Gabriel River Freeway. This was too long to remember and utter aloud, and everyone began calling it “The 605”. And the End was visible.
Sure, old- timers still talk of the Pasadena or the Harbor or the Golden State, but their days are numbered. When all the old codgers have died off or moved to Arizona, freeway names will be seen only at the Smithsonian, right next to the Dillinger exhibit.
Expand it. ‘Take [the] 5 [freeway] to [the] Venice [Boulevard exit].’ If you take out the bracketed terms, it becomes ‘Take 5 to Venice.’ Not so bad, but ‘take 5’ just sounds like something’s missing. I’m a native, and I’ve never heard a native use ‘interstate’. We have ‘freeways’. So why don’t was say ‘Take freeway 5…’? What other 5 would it be? ‘Take I5’? Then you’d have to differentiate between interstates and state routes (‘Take I5 to Route 14.’) It’s easier just to say ‘the’.
I never got into the habit of calling freeways by their names. The 10 is the Santa Monica freeway, but then the name changes to the San Bernardino Freeway. The Golden State Freeway changes to the Santa Ana Freeway. The San Diego Freeway doesn’t actually go to San Diego. As its numerical designation indicates, it is a loop of the 5. The 405 ends about 100 miles north of San Diego at The El Toro Y, where the 5 is then called The San Diego Freeway.
It’s just easier and makes more sense to say the [number] freeway.
Usually, the names depend on which direction you are going. The Santa Monica Freeway is the 10 West, and the San Bernadino Freeway is the 10 East. The Hollywood Freeway is the 101 South, and the Ventura Freeway is the 101 North. It’s shorter to say “take the 10 West” than “Take the Santa Monica Freeway,” and I think that’s part of why people started referring to them by number more often than by name. The shift came, as best as I can recall, during the 70’s.
That’s not correct. The freeway names apply to BOTH directions between two designated points of freeway that do not always correspond to a particular freeway number.
This is not correct. The San Diego Freeway has a northern terminus at the intersection of I-405 and I-5 in or near San Fernando, CA in Los Angeles County. This is also the northern terminus of I-405. I-5 at this location is named the Golden State Freeway.
From this point, the San Diego Freeway continues (applying to all lanes of traffic in each direction) in a southerly or south-easterly direction along I-405 to the intersection of I-5 and I-405 in or near Irvine or Lake Forest, CA in Orange County. (This intersection is Commonly known as “The Y” or “the El Toro Y”). I-5 at this location is named the Santa Ana Freeway. This point is also the southern terminus of the Santa Ana Freeway.
The San Diego Freeway then continues along I-5 from “The Y” all the way to San Diego and to its southern terminus at the US-Mexico Border.
So, if you take I-5 south all the way from The Grapevine to Mexico, you will have driven on the Golden State Freeway to the point where I-5 intersects US-101, the Santa Ana Freeway from that point to “The Y”, and the San Diego Freeway from “The Y” down to the border.
If you take I-5 south from The Grapevine, then take I-405 to The Y, then take I-5 again to San Diego, you will have taken the Golden State Freeway to the intersection of I-5 and I-405, then the San Diego Freeway the rest of the way.
This is the part I was disputing above. The San Diego Freeway does go all the way from San Fernando to San Diego, covering all of 5 south of The Y and all of 405 north of The Y.
I almost never go to San Diego. Even behind the Orange Curtain I almost never go to the Y. So to me ‘The San Diego Freeway’ refers to the 405, which doesn’t go to San Diego.
