Should Historic Status Go to a Freeway?

We’ve heard of historic houses, historic battlefields, even entire neighborhoods that inspire preservationists. But are we ready for historic freeways?

Los Angeles this week is hosting the nation’s first conference about saving historic roads across America while still ensuring driving safety. At the top of the local agenda are two highways that probably generate more commuter frustration than nostalgia--the curvy Arroyo Seco Parkway, or Pasadena Freeway, and the Hollywood Freeway’s hilly Cahuenga Pass, scene of Thursday’s fatal traffic pileup that turned parts of the city into a parking lot.

Conference official Dan Marriott acknowledged public skepticism that a freeway could, or should, inspire the devotion that Gettysburg or Mount Vernon does. “Because we use freeways every day, we don’t think of them as special,” said Marriott, a road expert with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

*

But he and other participants in the conference say that even traffic-weary Southern Californians might forgo road widenings if the original freeway and its views are beautiful and interesting enough.

The Arroyo Seco is an obvious choice for protection, boosters say, because it winds along six miles of parkland between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena, and is the oldest freeway in the western United States, having opened in 1940.

Yet the very features that make the road so visually attractive cause some drivers to detest and fear it: its undulating curves built for maximum speeds of 45 mph, its lack of shoulders and acceleration lanes, its sudden and sharp exit ramps. The Arroyo Seco’s accident rate involving exits and entrances is about double the state freeway average, according to the California Department of Transportation.

Caltrans is adjusting to the idea that some of its roads built more than 50 years ago are now eligible to become national landmarks for their age, aesthetics and cultural significance. “We’ve been trained to look at what’s alongside the road, not the road itself,” said Diane Kane, Caltrans’ architectural historian for Southern California.

About 80 engineers, architects, landscapers and just plain road fanatics came to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel for the four-day conference called “Preserving the Historic Road in America,” which began Thursday. The meeting’s sponsors included the National Trust, the National Park Service and Caltrans.

Assigning formal historic status is a lengthy process, involving reviews by state and federal agencies. But several Southern California roads, including the Arroyo Seco Parkway and the Cahuenga Pass, have been declared “eligible” for the National Register of Historic Places. Eligibility provides some protections even though it is a step short of landmark status, which could provide special federal funding for repairs.

*

Historic status doesn’t mean those freeways must be frozen in their original, and now outdated, construction techniques. However, any alteration plans would have to at least consider how to save, for example, the Arroyo Seco’s parkland and the 1940 Art Deco bridges on the Hollywood Freeway’s 1.3-mile stretch from the Hollywood Bowl to just north of the Barham Boulevard overpass.

Other area roads to receive such special consideration are a 1.6-mile section of the Cabrillo Freeway (Route 163) through Balboa Park in San Diego and intermittent sections of Route 66. Notable freeway structures, such as the four-level exchange in downtown Los Angeles, are thought to be eligible even if adjacent roads aren’t.

Much of the conference discussion focused on rural, scenic highways, including the 76-year-old Columbia River Highway in Oregon, sections of which were abandoned and are now undergoing a massive restoration.

But whether the historic roads are in the country or the city, they pose the problem of how to balance preservation against current safety standards, attendees stressed. One seminar scheduled for today, for example, is to focus on how to design better-looking guardrails.

Emil Frankel, a former Connecticut highway commissioner, described the constant tug between nostalgia for the leafy Merritt Parway there and the economic need for an efficient commuter highway. Roads around the country, he said, “have significant roles, unfortunately conflicting, roles in our lives.”

Kane of Caltrans agreed. The agency’s mandate is to have all freeways as close to current high-speed standards as possible. Because some roads like the Arroyo Seco do not meet those standards, “that makes it a real challenge to administer and maintain,” she said. Without sufficient freeway shoulders, simple road cleaning can be dangerous for workers.

Mainly because there is not enough land to widen the Arroyo Seco, Caltrans is not expected to alter it much, officials said. A regional task force founded last year by state Sen. Richard G. Polanco (D-Los Angeles) is looking at better ways to preserve the roadway and possibly install lighting fixtures and signs that resemble the originals and meet 1990s standards.

*

The Arroyo Seco may not be the fastest road, but it offers other charms, according to Los Angeles architect Jeff Samudio. Drivers on it “are transported back in time. They get a sense of time when people went out for a Sunday drive, when driving was meant to be a leisure activity,” said Samudio, who is a member of both the regional task force and the state Historical Resources Commission.

The 58-year-old Cahuenga Pass has been much more changed since it opened about six months after the Arroyo Seco. The Hollywood road used to include a trolley line in its center. Still, upcoming plans for expansion of Universal City are expected to generate controversy about possible alterations to the road’s reinforced concrete bridges, which may be inadequate to handle increased traffic flow.

Conference participants are touring the Los Angeles area to sample some of the car culture here. Scheduled tours were to examine the bridges over the Los Angeles River, the neon signs along Wilshire and Sunset boulevards and parts of Route 66 through the San Gabriel Valley and desert areas.

But some participants said they received their most dramatic lesson about freeways’ importance to Southern California when the streets surrounding their hotel became impassable as a result of Thursday’s accident on the Hollywood Freeway.

“Our problems,” said Jeff Squires, a Vermont highway official on Friday, “seem manageable in the context of the events last night.”