🚘 Headlines About California Highways – May 2026

And with the flipping of the page, the Lusty Month of May is over. What lusty thing did you do in May? Me, I went to St. Louis. But more on that later. We’re also near the end of the primary political season here in California. If you want to see my deep-dive ballot analysis and recommendations, you can find the posts here. Feel free to disagree with me and to comment on the posts, but note I’ve already cast my ballot. You might convince someone else, tho…

Going back to St. Louis. During the election season, I’ve seen loads of folks (especially on Nextdoor) complaining about the conditions of our city streets here in Los Angeles. Having driven in St. Louis for a week, we have it great in Los Angeles. Trotting down Gravois or Market or Grand or other streets within the city, we were rattling so much I thought I would lose a filling. No city is perfect, but LA streets are great compared to places that have freeze cycles.

Turning to the California Highways: Route by Route podcast: Tom and I are finishing up recording Season 4 (we have 2 episodes yet to record), and are planning the inter-season bonus episodes. I particularly like ep 4.12, which covers the unbuilt freeways of the San Fernando Valley, using the first segment of Route 14 as the starting point. I’m continuing the research for Season 5, which in may has meant looking into US 91, US 95, Sign Route 195, and some digressions into US 399 and US 466. Zencaster is working well for recording the podcast, although Tom had some microphone trouble in the last episode. As a reminder: You can help our listening audience grow. Please tell your friends about the podcast, “like”, “♥”, or “favorite” it, and give it a rating in your favorite podcatcher. Share the podcast on Facebook groups, and in your Bluesky and Mastodon communities. For those that hear the early episodes, the sound quality of the episodes does get better — we were learning. If you know sound editing, feel free to give me advice (I use Audacity to edit). As always, you can keep up with the show at the podcast’s forever home at https://www.caroutebyroute.org , the show’s page on Spotify for Creators, or you can subscribe through your favorite podcatching app or via the RSS feeds (CARxR, Spotify for Creators) . The following episodes have been posted this month:

• May | CA RxR 4.11: Route 13: Oakland and Berkeley. With Episode 4.11, our attention turns to Route 13. In this episode, we look at LRN 13, Sign Route 13, and Route 13. LRN 13 was the Sonora and Mono Wagon Road, which became today’s Route 219 and Route 108. Sign Route 13 was short-lived, quickly being renumbered as Sign Route 17 and Route 17, and is today’s Route 17, I-880, and I-580 N of the Bay Bridge. The post-1964 Route 13 of today runs from Route 61 to Route 61 through Oakland and Berkeley, and is best known as the Warren Freeway and Ashby Blvd. As for Route 61, you’ll just have to listen to the episode. Next time: In Ep 4.12, we’ll look at Route 14 and the unbuilt freeways of the San Fernando Valley. Lastly, note that in this episode Tom was having microphone trouble, so his sound is a bit off (and I don’t know Audacity well enough to fix it). (Spotify for Creators)

As a reminder: One of the sources for the highway page updates (and the raison d’etre for for this post) are headlines about California Highways that I’ve seen over the last month. I collect them in this post, which serves as fodder for the updates to my California Highways site, and so there are also other pages and things I’ve seen that I wanted to remember for the site updates. Lastly, the post also includes some things that I think would be of peripheral interest to my highway-obsessed highway-interested readers.

Well, you should now be up to date. Here are the headlines that I found about California’s highways for May 2026, which was a pretty light much for highway headlines of interest.

Key

[Ħ Historical information | ＄ Paywalls, ＄＄ really obnoxious paywalls, and ∅ other annoying restrictions. I’m no longer going to list the paper names, as I’m including them in the headlines now. Note: For ＄ paywalls, sometimes the only way is incognito mode, grabbing the text before the paywall shows, and pasting into an editor. See this article for more tips on bypassing paywalls. ＄＄ paywalls require the use of archive.ph. ☊ indicates an primarily audio article. 🎥 indicates a primarily video article. 🎩 indicates hat/tip to someone for finding this article. ]

Highway Headlines

• State Route 41 Expressway Project (FB/Caltrans District 6). Caltrans was honored to be part of Madera County’s official groundbreaking ceremony today on their new State Route 41 Expressway Project! The project will widen State Route 41, in both directions, from a two-lane highway to a four-lane expressway. The project is scheduled to be completed in May of 2028
• ＄ Highway 101 offramp closure planned in San Rafael (Marin I-J). The northbound Highway 101 offramp onto Manuel T. Freitas Parkway in San Rafael will be closed from 11 p.m. Monday through 5 a.m. Friday. The closure will allow Caltrans to perform drainage improvements related to the construction of an $11.5 million traffic roundabout at the intersection of Freitas Parkway at Civic Center Drive and Redwood Highway on the east side of the highway. The intersection, which closed in February, will remain closed through June for construction. The project is expected to be completed this fall.
• Embarcadero road improvements in Palo Alto scheduled for summer (San José Spotlight). Amid concerns about traffic congestion and emergency response times, one glaring issue that could arise if Palo Alto leaders decide to close the Churchill Avenue train crossing is the lack of an adequate detour for cyclists and pedestrians. For Palo Alto High School students trying to get to class, their most likely route would follow Embarcadero Road to get on the other side of the Caltrain tracks. But as students and residents have testified, walking or biking along the street feels dangerous due to the lack of pedestrian infrastructure and the speed of passing vehicles. Some residents have suggested that closing Churchill in an attempt to prevent youth suicides could have the unintended effect of causing injury or death to rerouted high schoolers attempting to traverse Embarcadero on the way to school.
• Half Moon Bay to host workshops on Highway 1 traffic, safety (Local News Matters). Half Moon Bay city officials are inviting residents to share feedback on traffic and safety concerns along Highway 1 during a series of community workshops this week.  The city will host a public “Discovery Workshop” and multiple open studio sessions to gather input on daily travel experiences and potential improvements to the highway corridor, according to city officials.  An in-person workshop is scheduled for May 6 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Half Moon Bay Library, along with a drop-in session earlier that day from 3 to 7 p.m. at the same location. Additional open studio sessions will be held May 7 and May 8 at the city’s Emergency Operations Center.
• $3M secured for ‘deck park’ over Interstate 5 in downtown Sacramento. How much more is needed? (Fox 40 Sacramento). More than $3 million in federal funding has been secured to help kickstart a long-discussed project aimed at reconnecting downtown Sacramento with the riverfront. But is it enough? The $3.15 million in funding would support planning for a proposed “deck park” over Interstate 5 between Capitol Mall and O Street, near the Crocker Art Museum. City leaders said the project would help address the divide created when Interstate 5 was built through Sacramento, separating downtown from the riverfront and displacing what was once part of the city’s Japantown.
• How this new ‘crisscross’ interchange will improve Vallejo traffic (KTVU FOX 2). More than $3 million in federal funding has been secured to help kickstart a long-discussed project aimed at reconnecting downtown Sacramento with the riverfront. But is it  enough? The $3.15 million in funding would support planning for a proposed “deck park” over Interstate 5 between Capitol Mall and O Street, near the Crocker Art Museum. City leaders said the project would help address the divide created when Interstate 5 was built through Sacramento, separating downtown from the riverfront and displacing what was once part of the city’s Japantown.

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