State Route 3 (California 1934)

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 , 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 stretch in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and across the Golden Gate Bridge.

The highway is designated as an All-American Road. In addition to providing a scenic route to numerous attractions along the coast, the route also serves as a major thoroughfare in the Greater Los Angeles Area, the San Francisco Bay Area, and several other coastal urban areas.

SR 1 was built piecemeal in various stages, with the first section opening in the Big Sur region in the 1930s. However, portions of the route had several names and numbers over the years as more segments opened. It was not until the 1964 state highway renumbering that the entire route was officially designated as SR 1. Although SR 1 is a popular route for its scenic beauty, frequent landslides and erosion along the coast have caused several segments to be either closed for lengthy periods for repairs, or re-routed inland.

Route description

SR 1 is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, and through the Los Angeles metro area, Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco metro area 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 California State Legislature has also relinquished state control of segments within Dana Point, Newport Beach, Santa Monica, and Oxnard; those segments are now maintained by those respective municipalities.

The Big Sur section from San Luis Obispo to Carmel is an official National Scenic Byway. SR 1 is eligible to be included in the State Scenic Highway System; however, only a few stretches between Los Angeles and San Francisco have officially been designated as a scenic highway, meaning that there are substantial sections of highway passing through a "memorable landscape" with no "visual intrusions", where the potential designation has gained popular favor with the community.

The entire route is designated as a Blue Star Memorial Highway to recognize those in the United States armed forces; this designation is sponsored by the California Garden Clubs, but the organization has not erected such markers along SR 1 yet. In 1959, the legislature officially designated the segment in Southern California between Interstate 5 (I-5) in Dana Point and US 101 near Oxnard as the Pacific Coast Highway (commonly referred to as "PCH", without the definite article "the", unlike other freeway numbers in the Los Angeles area). Between US 101 at the Las Cruces junction ( south of Buellton) and US 101 in Pismo Beach, and between US 101 in San Luis Obispo and Interstate 280 in San Francisco, the legislature also designated SR 1 as the Cabrillo Highway in 1959, after the explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo who sailed along the coast line. The legislature also designated the route as the Shoreline Highway in 1957 between the Manzanita Junction near Marin City