![Julian CA SR 78 & 79](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Julian_CA_SR_78_%26_79.JPG)
State Route 79 (SR 79) is a state highway in the
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...
of
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. The route begins at
Interstate 8
Interstate 8 (I-8) is an Interstate Highway in the southwestern United States. It runs from the southern edge of Mission Bay at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard in San Diego, California, almost at the Pacific Ocean, to the junction with I-10, ...
(I-8) in
San Diego County
San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...
, continuing north through the town of
Cuyamaca into
Julian. After passing through
Warner Springs, the route crosses into
Riverside County
Riverside County is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most populous county in California and the 10th-most populous in the Unit ...
, serving the cities of
Temecula
Temecula (; es, Temécula, ; Luiseño: ''Temeekunga'') is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States. The city had a population of 110,003 as of the 2020 census and was incorporated on December 1, 1989. The city is a t ...
and
Murrieta
Murrieta is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States. The population of Murrieta was 110,949 as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Murrieta experienced a 133.7% population increase between 2000 and 2010, ma ...
. SR 79 ends at
I-10
Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost cross-country highway in the American Interstate Highway System. I-10 is the fourth-longest Interstate in the United States at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. This freeway is part of the originally pl ...
in
Beaumont
Beaumont may refer to:
Places Canada
* Beaumont, Alberta
* Beaumont, Quebec
England
* Beaumont, Cumbria
* Beaumont, Essex
** Beaumont Cut, a canal closed in the 1930s
* Beaumont Street, Oxford
France (communes)
* Beaumont, Ardèche
* ...
.
Route description
SR 79 begins at
I-8, about east of San Diego. The road runs along
Old Highway 80 in the town of
Descanso Descanso may refer to:
* Descanso (roadside memorial)
* ''Descanso'' (spider), a genus of jumping spider
* Descanso, California, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Descanso, Santa Catarina, a town and municipality in Brazil
* Des ...
, until splitting to the north at a T intersection. The route then traverses
Cuyamaca and
Cuyamaca Rancho State Park
Cuyamaca Rancho State Park is a state park in Southern California, United States, located east of San Diego in the Cuyamaca and Laguna Mountains of the Peninsular Ranges. The park's feature pine, fir, and oak forests, with meadows and streams ...
on its way north. This portion of the route is very serpentine, with
hairpin turns
A hairpin turn (also hairpin bend or hairpin corner) is a bend in a road with a very acute inner angle, making it necessary for an oncoming vehicle to turn about 180° to continue on the road. It is named for its resemblance to a bent metal hai ...
, as it follows the contours of the land by moving laterally, rather than up-and-down or via cuts.
It then overlaps
SR 78 between
Santa Ysabel and
Julian, a distance of about . At Julian, both routes join at a T intersection just south of town, thus requiring a turn to stay on SR 79, and turn at an intersection in the northern portion of downtown. At Santa Ysabel, SR 79 comes to a T intersection with SR 78 running east–west. SR 79 continues northwest, meeting the eastern terminus of
SR 76 near
Lake Henshaw
Lake Henshaw is a reservoir in San Diego County, California
at the southeast base of Palomar Mountain, approximately northeast of San Diego, California and southeast of Los Angeles.
The lake covers approximately and holds of water when full ...
at the settlement of Morettis and passing through
Warner Springs before crossing into Riverside County. SR 79 then meets the western terminus of
SR 371 before going through
Aguanga.
It then passes
Vail Lake
Vail Lake is a large reservoir in western Riverside County, southern California.
Geography
It is located on Temecula Creek, in the Butterfield Valley, south of Oak Mountain, of the Black Hills, in the Santa Margarita River watershed. It is app ...
and parallels
Temecula Creek
Temecula Creek, formerly known as the Temecula River, runs U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 16, 2011 through southern Riverside County, California, United States, pas ...
as it approaches the Temecula city limits,
where it becomes a city-maintained road}.
It overlaps
I-15 for about three miles through Temecula. The ramps connecting SR 79 to I-15 are the first and third ramps northbound (second and fourth southbound) of those located between the Riverside/San Diego county line and the I-15/
I-215 Interstate 215 is the designation for several Interstate Highways in the United States, all of which are related to Interstate 15 (I-15):
* Interstate 215 (California), a regional Interstate bypass for I-15 and a connection to I-10 that serves the ...
junction. In both cases, to enter SR 79 from I-15, one must head slightly east (although SR 79 is signed as a north–south highway). The southern exit from I-15 is known as Temecula Parkway. SR 79 exits from I-15 in the northern area of Temecula as Winchester Road. It then runs along the eastern city limits of
Murrieta
Murrieta is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States. The population of Murrieta was 110,949 as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Murrieta experienced a 133.7% population increase between 2000 and 2010, ma ...
before passing by the reservoir at
Diamond Valley Lake
Diamond Valley Lake is a man-made off-stream reservoir located near Hemet, California, United States. It is one of the largest reservoirs in Southern California and also one of the newest. With a capacity of , the lake nearly doubled the area's s ...
. SR 79 continues through the community of
Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
and turns east on Florida Avenue west of
Hemet
Hemet is a city in the San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, California. It covers a total area of , about half of the valley, which it shares with the neighboring city of San Jacinto. The population was 89,833 at the 2020 census.
The foundi ...
. The section between those concurrent with
SR 74 and
Interstate 15
Interstate 15 (I-15) is a major Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the western United States, running through Southern California and the Intermountain West. I-15 begins near the Mexico–United States border, Mexican border i ...
(in Temecula, Murrieta, Winchester, and Hemet) is signed as Winchester Road.
In Hemet, SR 79 overlaps
State Route 74 (Florida Avenue), following it eastward for a few miles before heading north again through San Jacinto. SR 79 goes over a range of hills (Lambs Canyon) and ends in
Beaumont
Beaumont may refer to:
Places Canada
* Beaumont, Alberta
* Beaumont, Quebec
England
* Beaumont, Cumbria
* Beaumont, Essex
** Beaumont Cut, a canal closed in the 1930s
* Beaumont Street, Oxford
France (communes)
* Beaumont, Ardèche
* ...
at
Interstate 10
Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost cross-country highway in the American Interstate Highway System. I-10 is the fourth-longest Interstate in the United States at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. This freeway is part of the originally pl ...
.
SR 79 is part of the
California Freeway and Expressway System
The California Freeway and Expressway System is a system of existing or planned freeways and expressways in the U.S. state of California. It encompasses both State highways and federal highways in California. It is defined by Article 2 (commenci ...
,
and from the northern I-15 junction to I-10 is part of the
National Highway System,
a network of highways that are considered essential to the country's economy, defense, and mobility by the
Federal Highway Administration
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program a ...
.
It is eligible for the
State Scenic Highway System;
however, it is not a scenic highway as defined by Caltrans.
In 2012, SR 79 had an
annual average daily traffic
Annual average daily traffic, abbreviated AADT, is a measure used primarily in transportation planning, transportation engineering and retail location selection. Traditionally, it is the total volume of vehicle traffic of a highway or road for a y ...
(AADT) of 1,550 between Paso Picacho Campground and Sunrise Highway, and 30,500 at Murrieta Hot Springs Road, the latter of which was the highest AADT for the highway.
History
A
stage road went through
Oak Grove, and
stagecoach
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
es ran from 1858 to 1861 on a route from
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
to
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
and
Memphis
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Memp ...
. A ranch house,
Warner's Ranch
Warner's Ranch, near Warner Springs, California, was notable as a way station for large numbers of emigrants on the Southern Emigrant Trail from 1849 to 1861, as it was a stop on both the Gila River Trail and the Butterfield Overland Mail stag ...
, near Warner Springs was a stop on both the
San Antonio–San Diego Mail and the
Butterfield Overland Mail
Butterfield Overland Mail (officially the Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service i ...
. A railroad line to Cuyamaca was under construction by 1887, though in 1889 the project encountered problems from workers departing to work in the nearby gold mines. By 1906, the stage road ran from Temecula through Warner Springs into Santa Ysabel and
Ramona
''Ramona'' is a 1884 American novel written by Helen Hunt Jackson. Set in Southern California after the Mexican–American War, it portrays the life of a mixed-race Scottish– Native American orphan girl, who suffers racial discrimination and ...
, and regularly scheduled automobile service was to begin in 1908 between San Diego and Warner Hot Springs.
That year, at a meeting between citizens of
Oceanside and
Escondido, each city proposed that a road from it to Warner Springs be constructed; the roads would meet somewhere in the
San Luis Rey River
The San Luis Rey River is a river in northern San Diego County, California.
The river's headwaters are in the Palomar Mountain Range and Cleveland National Forest, near Palomar Mountain and the Santa Rosa Mountains. The river mouth, on the Pacif ...
valley. The president of the Escondido National Bank proposed a route from Escondido to Warner Springs shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, in 1911 ''
The San Diego Union
''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868.
Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...
'' described the future road to Descanso, and described a "branch of the highway" that went through the Valley of the Pines "which for beauty cannot be surpassed in the United States" before continuing to Julian, the beginning of the San Luis Rey River, and Oceanside. However, the next year, the county highway commissioners determined that more funding would be needed to complete the road to Warner Springs.
By November 1912, the road to Warner Springs from San Diego was completed, including the part from Santa Ysabel, which had been widened. The road south of Julian to Decanso was open by 1916, but had a narrow crossing at the Cuyamaca dam, making the trip difficult. In 1922, the
Automobile Club of Southern California
The Automobile Club of Southern California is the Southern California affiliate of the American Automobile Association (AAA) federation of motor clubs. The Auto Club was founded on December 13, 1900, in Los Angeles as one of the nation's first mo ...
noted that from Santa Ysabel to Julian, the road was in good repair, as well as from Cuyamaca to Descanso, even though the latter was a dirt road; the Julian to Cuyamaca road had "several soft spots". Seven years later, Julian residents expressed a desire to have the road from there to Descanso paved. Between Descanso and Temecula, what was to become SR 79 was defined as Route 78 in 1933.
In 1947, a contract to grade and pave part of what was known as State Sign Route 79 between Santa Ysabel and Julian was let, as paving of the highway progressed. The next year, plans were presented to realign part of the road between Julian and Cuyamaca, including one proposal to have it cross the lake. The California Chamber of Commerce made the suggestion in 1962 to convert SR 79 from Descanso to Julian to be an expressway. However, in 1968 those plans were called into question when the county planning commission recommended that the freeway be realigned away from Cuyamaca State Park, or not be built at all.
In the
1964 state highway renumbering, the highway was redefined as State Route 79, south of the junction with
SR 71; from Temecula to that junction, the route was designated as SR 71 itself. In 1974, the part between the former junction with SR 71 and I-15 was added to SR 79, and removed from SR 71.
Originally, SR 79 was routed on
Sage Road between
Hemet
Hemet is a city in the San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, California. It covers a total area of , about half of the valley, which it shares with the neighboring city of San Jacinto. The population was 89,833 at the 2020 census.
The foundi ...
and
Radec.
Following the
Cedar Fire
The Cedar Fire was a massive, highly-destructive wildfire, which burned of land in San Diego County, California, San Diego County, California, during October and November 2003. The fire's rapid growth was driven by the Santa Ana wind, causing ...
in October 2003, utility poles and wires fell down on the highway, and the Cuyamaca area was heavily damaged. The next year, part of SR 79 from the western junction of SR 78 to Engineers Road near Lake Cuyamaca was renamed the Firefighter Steven Rucker Memorial Highway, after the firefighter from
Novato
Novato ( Spanish for "Novatus") is a city in Marin County, California, in the North Bay region of the Bay Area. At the 2020 census, Novato had a population of 53,225.
History
What is now Novato was originally the site of several Coast Miwok ...
who died while volunteering to fight the wildfire in
Wynola. The City of Temecula proposed the construction of a four-lane road from State Route 79 that would bypass the city in 2005, though several obstacles to the plan, including aesthetic concerns and objections from the nearby Pechanga tribe, were noted. During the mid-2010s, the part of SR 79 through Winchester was widened to four lanes up to Domenigoni Parkway.
Future
Due to increased traffic congestion through the
San Jacinto Valley
The San Jacinto Valley is a valley located in Riverside County, in Southern California, in the Inland Empire. The valley is located at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains in the east and Santa Rosa Hills to the south with the San Gorgonio Pass ...
, there are plans to realign SR 79 to a new four-lane (eventually six-lane) limited-access expressway, spanning approximately 12 miles from East Newport Road to the southern end of the current divided highway portion at Ramona Expressway. The selected alignment would have access points at Domenigoni Parkway, Grand Avenue, SR 74 (Florida Avenue), Esplanade Avenue/Warren Road, Cottonwood Avenue, Sanderson Avenue, and Ramona Expressway, with additional grade separations at Stetson Avenue and Devonshire Avenue. An additional interchange with
Mid County Parkway is proposed upon completion of that project. However, construction on the highway realignment has not begun because the project is only partially funded.
Major intersections
See also
*
References
External links
{{commons category
California @ AARoads.com - State Route 79Caltrans: Route 79 highway conditions
079 79 may refer to:
* 79 (number)
* one of the years 79 BC, AD 79, 1979, 2079
* ''79 A.D.'', a 1962 historical epic film
* Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79, a catastrophic volcanic eruption in Italy
See also
*
* List of highways numbered
{{Num ...
State Route 079
State Route 079
Murrieta, California
Warner Springs, California