Monterey Highway | |
![]() Welcome sign to San Martin on Monterey Road | |
Maintained by | Cities of San Jose, Morgan Hill, San Martin, and Gilroy; county of Santa Clara |
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Length | 29.2 mi (47.0 km) [1] |
South end | ![]() |
Major junctions | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
North end | ![]() |
Monterey Road is a major Silicon Valley thoroughfare that runs from Gilroy north to San Jose, California, in Santa Clara County. It follows the historic route of El Camino Real and is an old alignment of U.S. Route 101.
Monterey Road begins in the southern outskirts of Gilroy, running parallel west of US 101. It runs through Downtown Gilroy and intersects with SR 152. The road then heads northwest through the towns of San Martin and Morgan Hill. Much of this segment runs parallel to the Union Pacific Coast Line. Monterey Road north of Morgan Hill is an outdated and rugged road; it has little changed since US 101 was realigned. [2] The road then heads into the suburbs of San Jose intersecting SR 85 with no direct access to SR 85. After intersecting County Route G10 (CR G10), Monterey Road then heads northwest away from US 101 towards Downtown San Jose. This section from CR G10 to its northern terminus was SR 82 until 2013 when a length of SR 82 was relinquished to the City of San Jose, intersecting CR G21 (Capitol Expressway). Shortly before entering Downtown San Jose, Monterey Road ends at CR G8 (Alma Avenue) and continues northwest as First Street. [1]
The road was established as a stage coach route circa 1856, and paralleled a railroad line built in the late 1860s. [3] It was part of the main road connecting San Jose to Monterey, [4] and incorporated parts of the historic route of El Camino Real connecting California's missions. [3] [5] The towns of Gilroy and Morgan Hill sprang up as coach stops along it. [4] In one incident in July 1873, notorious highwayman Tiburcio Vásquez robbed Twenty-One Mile House, a hostel named for its location 21 miles from San Jose along the road, in what is now Morgan Hill. [6]
The Northern California black walnut trees seen along this highway were planted by horticulturist Horace G. Keesling of San Jose. While passing this way by camp wagon on a summer day in 1900, Keesling could find no road-side tree offering shade to relieve his sweltering family and horses, and he resolved to "plant shade" at his own costs. This resulted in a 30-mile row of trees on each side of Monterey Road from San Jose to Gilroy, a project that Keesling, assisted by his son Hayes Keesling, finished in 1911. Except for stretches where urban growth and modern highway construction have required removal, these trees still provide the shade that Horace wanted. There is a plaque that is hard to access located on the west side of Monterey Highway (next to the train tracks) in San Jose. 0.5 (one-half) mile south of Capitol Expressway, or 0.34 mile south of Senter Road, or 0.16 mile north of Skyway Drive.
The road became part of the state highway system in the early 1900s and, eventually, it became incorporated into U.S. Route 101 (US 101). [4] By the 1970s, as an expressway with only three lanes (for both directions combined) [2] and high volumes of traffic, it had so many traffic accidents that it became known as "blood alley". [4] [7] [8]
In 1973, the section from Monterey Road's southern terminus to Cochrane Road in Morgan Hill was realigned to a 6-lane freeway to the east, and in 1984, US 101 was realigned to a freeway to the east from Cochrane Road to County Route G10 (CR G10). These two realignments restored Monterey Road as a separate road again. [4] Monterey Road continues to exist as a six-lane arterial road within San Jose and as a four-lane highway continuing to Gilroy, [9] and is used as an alternative route to the freeway for commuters. [10]
Monterey Road north of CR G10 was once part of State Route 82 (SR 82), a route that was once US 101 before US 101 was realigned to the Bayshore Highway (now the Bayshore Freeway) to the east in the 1940s. [11] In 2013, a section of SR 82 was relinquished and given to the city of San Jose. [12]
The City of San Jose plans to reconstruct the 9.6-mile (15.4 km) segment of Monterey Road from Keyes Street to Metcalf Road as a boulevard with bus lanes, protected bike lanes, sidewalks, and crosswalks at intersections. On February 28, 2023, it received a $2 million grant from the United States Department of Transportation's Reconnecting Communities Pilot program, which is funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to conduct a design study. [13] [14]
According to City of San Jose data, more traffic fatalities have occurred along Monterey Road than on any other street in San Jose. There were four traffic fatalities between 2017 and 2021 and 42 deaths and severe injuries between 2019 and March 2022. The high rate of accidents is blamed on the lack of a median between the road's six lanes of traffic, which encourages vehicles to go as fast as 50 miles per hour (80 km/h). There are no sidewalks and few crossings at major intersections, even though it runs directly alongside Union Pacific Railroad tracks that serve Caltrain and are planned to serve California High-Speed Rail in the future. [13] [14]
The entire street is in Santa Clara County.
Location | mi [1] | km | Destinations | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gilroy | 0.0 | 0.0 | ![]() Bolsa Road | Grade-separated interchange; southern end of Monterey Road; roadway continues as Bolsa Road; exit 355 | |
2.0 | 3.2 | ![]() ![]() | Southern end of SR 152 concurrency | ||
2.4 | 3.9 | ![]() ![]() | Northern end of SR 152 concurrency | ||
San Martin | 7.3 | 11.7 | San Martin Avenue | ||
Morgan Hill | 9.5 | 15.3 | Butterfield Boulevard, Watsonville Road | ||
10.0 | 16.1 | Tennant Avenue, West Edmundson Avenue | |||
11.0 | 17.7 | Dunne Avenue | |||
12.6 | 20.3 | Cochrane Road | Former US 101 | ||
San Jose | 18.2 | 29.3 | Bailey Avenue | Grade-separated interchange | |
22.2 | 35.7 | Bernal Road | Grade-separated interchange; to SR 85 | ||
23.3 | 37.5 | ![]() | Grade-separated interchange; former SR 82 | ||
24.8 | 39.9 | Branham Lane | |||
25.9 | 41.7 | ![]() | Grade-separated interchange | ||
28.1 | 45.2 | Tully Road, Curtner Avenue | |||
29.2 | 47.0 | ![]() South 1st Street | Northern end of Monterey Road; roadway continues as 1st Street | ||
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi
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U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It travels for over 1,500 miles (2,400 km), primarily along the Pacific Ocean, and is also known by various names, including El Camino Real in parts of California, the Oregon Coast Highway, and the Olympic Highway in Washington. Despite its three-digit number, normally used for spur routes, US 101 is classified as a major route in the United States Numbered Highway System.
State Route 1 (SR 1) is a major north–south state highway that runs along most of the Pacific coastline of the U.S. state of California. At 656 miles (1,056 km), it is the longest state route in California, and the second-longest in the US after Montana Highway 200. SR 1 has several portions designated as either Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), Cabrillo Highway, Shoreline Highway, or Coast Highway. Its southern terminus is at Interstate 5 (I-5) near Dana Point in Orange County and its northern terminus is at U.S. Route 101 (US 101) near Leggett in Mendocino County. SR 1 also at times runs concurrently with US 101, most notably through a 54-mile (87 km) stretch in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Interstate 680 (I-680) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway in Northern California. It curves around the eastern cities of the San Francisco Bay Area from San Jose to I-80 at Fairfield, bypassing cities along the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay such as Oakland and Richmond while serving others more inland such as Pleasanton and Concord.
Interstate 280 (I-280) is a 57.22-mile-long (92.09 km) major north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It runs from I-680 and US Route 101 (US 101) in San Jose to King and 5th streets in San Francisco, running just to the west of the larger cities of San Francisco Peninsula for most of its route.
The Bayshore Freeway is a part of U.S. Route 101 in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. It runs along the west shore of the San Francisco Bay, connecting San Jose with San Francisco. Within the city of San Francisco, the freeway is also known as James Lick Freeway, named after the California philanthropist. The road was originally built as a surface road, the Bayshore Highway, and later upgraded to freeway standards. Before 1964, it was mostly marked as U.S. Route 101 Bypass, with US 101 using the present State Route 82.
State Route 85 is a state highway which connects the cities of southern San Jose and Mountain View in the U.S. State of California. The highway intersects with major highways such as I-280, SR 17, and SR 87. The route serves as a bypass of U.S. Route 101 in the Santa Clara Valley area, running through the foothill cities of Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino, roughly paralleling the Santa Cruz Mountains up to its interchange with I-280.
State Route 152 is a state highway that runs from east to west near the middle of the U.S. state of California from State Route 1 in Watsonville to State Route 99 southeast of Merced. Its western portion provides access to and from Interstate 5 toward Southern California for motorists in or near Gilroy and San Jose.
State Route 87, known as the Guadalupe Freeway or referred to by the locals as Highway 87, is a north–south state highway in San Jose, California, United States. Before being upgraded to a freeway, it was Guadalupe Parkway.
State Route 237 is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs from El Camino Real in Mountain View to Interstate 680 in Milpitas. Known as the Southbay Freeway for most of its length, SR 237 runs south of the San Francisco Bay, connecting the East Bay to the Peninsula.
State Route 82 is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs from Interstate 880 (I-880) in San Jose to I-280 in San Francisco following the San Francisco Peninsula. It is the spinal arterial road of the peninsula and runs parallel to the nearby Caltrain line along much of the route. For much of its length, the highway is named El Camino Real and formed part of the historic El Camino Real mission trail. It passes through and near the historic downtowns of many Peninsula cities, including Burlingame, San Mateo, Redwood City, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale, and through some of the most walkable and transit-oriented neighborhoods in the region.
State Route 2 (SR 2) is a state highway in the U.S. state of California. It connects the Los Angeles Basin with the San Gabriel Mountains and the Victor Valley in the Mojave Desert. The highway's southwestern end is at the intersection of Centinela Avenue at the Santa Monica-Los Angeles border and its northeastern end is at SR 138 east of Wrightwood. The SR 2 is divided into four segments, and it briefly runs concurrently with U.S. Route 101 (US 101) and Interstate 210 (I-210). The southwestern section of SR 2 runs along a segment of the east–west Santa Monica Boulevard, an old routing of US 66, to US 101 in East Hollywood; the second section runs along segments of both the north–south Alvarado Street and Glendale Boulevard in Echo Park; the third section to I-210 in Glendale is known as the north–south Glendale Freeway; and the northeastern portion from I-210 in La Cañada Flintridge to SR 138 is designated as the Angeles Crest Highway.
State Route 84 is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that consists of two unconnected segments, one in the San Francisco Bay Area and the other primarily in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta area.
State Route 299 is an east–west state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs across the northern part of the state. At 305.777 miles (492.100 km), it is the third longest California state route, after Route 1 and Route 99, and the longest east-west route. Route 299's western terminus is at US 101 at the northern edge of Arcata, and its eastern terminus is at the Nevada state line at a point east of Cedarville. Between Arcata and Redding, Route 299 intersects with State Route 96, and is briefly co-signed with State Route 3. In Redding, it intersects with State Route 273, State Route 44, and Interstate 5. East of Redding, it intersects with State Route 89, and a section is co-signed with State Route 139 before reaching Alturas. It is then co-signed with U.S. Route 395 northeast of Alturas, and then runs east through Cedarville and to the border with Nevada. A ghost town, Vya, Nevada, can be reached via this route, which after the border becomes a dirt road, which was formerly Nevada State Route 8A. The segment of SR 299 between Arcata and Redding is the Trinity Scenic Byway, a National Forest Scenic Byway.
State Route 25 is a state highway in the U.S. state of California between State Route 198 in Monterey County and U.S. Route 101 in Santa Clara south of Gilroy. For most of its length, SR 25 runs through the center of San Benito County.
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Monterey Road in downtown Morgan Hill is a portion of [El Camino Real].
This latter section is called Monterey Road but the local residents have another name for it—'Blood Alley'. During the past three years it has had three times as many fatalities as the statewide average of four-lane divided highways.
In 2003 the highway was widened by an extra lane in each direction. Big difference but the road still congests: more traffic. For an alternative: Monterey Road, four-lanes: it parallels the freeway.
Route 68 is the Bayshore Highway from San Francisco to Route 2 near Ford Road south of San Jose.
Section 382: Route (SR) 82 is from Route (I) 880 in San Jose to Route (Interstate) 280 in San Francisco. The relinquished former portion of Route 82 within the City of San Jose is not a state highway ... for the relinquished former portion of SR 82, the City of San Jose shall maintain within its jurisdiction signs directing motorists to the continuation of Route 82 and shall ensure the continuity of traffic flow on the relinquished former portion of SR 82. The city may apply to the department for approval of a business route designation.