A New Year's Day Angeles Crest Highway Story - Should the Racetrack Be Saved?

[ellisonz]

Part 59: A New Year’s Day Angeles Crest Highway Story - Should the Racetrack Be Saved?
January 3, 2024

By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

The Los Angeles Times ran the most beautiful story on Wrightwood on New Year’s Day 2024 by journalist Grace Toohey entitled “Wrightwood youth connect with elderly neighbors facing extreme weather, dangerous loneliness.” The piece described in detail the new Golden Raccoon program launched by Wrightwood Elementary School to keep lonely seniors company including one retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy with some new youthful, lifelong friends.

Wrightwood sits at the eastern end of the Angeles Crest Highway, Highway 2 by the State of California’s numeration under Caltrans. We salute the Golden Raccoon’s and even the housebound retired Sheriff’s deputy, but grandma wasn’t out on the Highway this New Year’s Day along with just about everyone else not at the Rose Parade. The San Gabriel Mountains can indeed by a place of “extreme weather” and “dangerous loneliness” and not only for senior citizens, but also for hikers stranded just as Rene Compean several years ago in a then closed section of the forest.

Link: https://zacharyellison.substack.com/p/part-59-a-new-years-day-angeles-crest

The second part in my new storyline on Angeles Crest Highway and the Angeles National Forest. I'm worth reading!

Zachary "Obama" Ellison out!

[Xolodno]

1. I think they will re-open it as it brings in both local and non local tourism.

They have been trying to figure a way to re-open Hwy 39 forever. But every time they get funding, it gets diverted. I wonder if Glendora Ridge Road is still open, been a very long time since I traversed it.

Problem with theses mountains, is they are seismically active and thus need more maintenance and better engineering just like PCH. But its a great way to hit a picnic area and escape for a few hours from LA, or hit a hiking trail, etc.

What really needs a hard look at is the canyon roads that go from LA to Palmdale. People drive like maniacs on it. Someone I know got T-boned...while parked in a dirt pull out. Guy flew out of the tunnel at a high rate of speed while going into a diabetic episode....which he had to help out with before the ambulance arrived. And he had the nerve to say it wasn't his fault and was the person I knew who was parked well off the road.

The area is going to get hit with more wild fires, last years rains and probably this year is going to increase an insane amount of brush growth. And the road is needed as the PCT goes through it and will be needed for search and rescue, not to mention fire trucks during a fire.

[ellisonz]

2. If it's possible...some of it is technology like cutting out a mountain side...

And some of it is just seasonality. Climate change will bring more storms, more landslides, bigger fires and more snow. So how do you get a bullet train through there if we can barely keep a 70 year old highway open?

Really trying to address some of the psychology around these places and issues. We'll see if it gets any traction. You'd be amazed the number of people who tell me off for simply suggesting I'm a journalist.

[Xolodno]

3. Meanwhile they are dropping bank on the 99, 41 and 14.

And still haven't fixed issues on the 58 after a long project.

All in red areas. The same people who filed court case after court case to stop the bullet train, delaying it and making sure it would have cost over runs. Maybe they don't like the idea of people from LA speeding past their towns and not smelling the cattle? Or it was Obama, own the libs, etc. A lot of the infrastructure for the train is now built, if they stopped it, it would cost a lot to take down.

Probably should have instituted some provisions to fast track it and make it harder or costlier to sue. But they get wider highways in places I don't want to be for any length of time. While a 70 year old road that brings in plenty of economic activity and needs a serious upgrade and vital for fire control, etc. gets ignored.