It’s getting closer. Tom and I recorded our first “teaser” episode today. Here it is for your listening pleasure. We welcome comments on the episode (and I welcome lessons on Audacity and Roxio Sound Editor (current version; I’m using 2011)), and we’re looking for a great “free” theme song. We’ll be recording a sample episode next (on Route 1), and then once we’ve finished writing about half the first season, we’ll record and start releasing a first season. You can find a full planned episode guide on our episode guide page.
Welcome to California Highways: Route by Route. This is a new podcast that celebrates and shares the contents developed for the California Highwayswebsite and the blog posts about California Highways on Gribblenation (because every highway has a story). Tom Fearer of Gribblenation and I are your hosts. We are the in the process of developing our sample episodes, plotting out the seasons, researching and writing the scripts for the first season, and recording the episodes. So watch this space. We’ll announce new episodes here, as well as publishing them on all major podcast outlets via anchor.fm.
If you would be interested in helping to cover the costs of developing these episodes, or have original music you would be willing to let us use, please contact Daniel.
In this episode, we explore numbering systems in state highways. It is the start of a four part miniseries on highway numbers in California. Specifically, this episode explores the rhymes and reason for the assigning of signed route numbers to highways with the state shield. This includes looking at the patterns in those numbers, and how the numbering system stands today after the Great Nenumbering. The subsequent episodes in the miniseries will explore the numbering system of US Highways, the numbering of and the history of California’s Interstates, and the signed county route system.
The episode also explores another numbering system on state highways: Post Miles. As opposed to sequential mileage numbers as is found in other states, California uses a system called post miles that identifies points along a highway using a combination of a county and a mile point from the southern/western county line, possibly with clarifying prefixes or suffixes. We discuss this system is good detail.
Our interview is with Andy Richardson, who retired from Caltrans as a Subject Matter Expert in Geographical Information Systems, Linear Referencing Systems, and Postmiles. Andy worked as a GIS specialist for the State of California since 1988, including Caltrans between 2001 and his retirement in 2021. In his last years at Caltrans, he implemented the Department’s current Linear Referencing System.
