State Route 160 (SR 160) is a state highway in the U.S. state of California consisting of two sections. The longer, southern section is a scenic highway through the alluvial plain of the Sacramento River, linking SR 4 in Antioch with Sacramento via the Antioch Bridge. The northern section, separated from the southern by Sacramento city streets, is the North Sacramento Freeway, running from the 16th Street Bridge over the American River to Interstate 80 Business towards Roseville.
This northern section was erroneously deleted from the definition in the Streets and Highways Code in 2003 when the relinquished portion through downtown Sacramento was removed; the segment was restored in a 2010 amendment to the code. Although it is no longer officially part of the state highway system, some maps may still mark the relinquished portion of SR 160 as continuous through the city.
Route description
Route 160 is defined in section 460, subsection (a), of the California Streets and Highways Code:
Route 160 is from: (1) Route 4 near Antioch to the southern city limits of Sacramento. (2) The American River in the City of Sacramento to Route 51.
While control of the segment of Route 160 in Sacramento between the southern city limits and the American River was relinquished by the state to the city, subdivision (b) further mandates that the city must still "maintain signs directing motorists to the continuation of Route 160".
State Route 160 begins in eastern Antioch at SR 4 as a four-lane freeway. After two interchanges, SR 160 becomes a two-lane expressway and rises onto the Antioch Bridge over the San Joaquin River. It cuts north across the center of Sherman Island as a two-lane surface road, reaching the Sacramento River on the opposite shore. From there to Sacramento, SR 160 remains near the river, first following the east levee over the 1949 Three Mile Slough Bridge, a lift bridge, across the Three Mile Slough and past Brannan Island State Recreation Area. SR 160 intersects with SR 12 near Rio Vista, right before SR 12 crosses the Sacramento River via the Rio Vista Bridge. After passing Isleton, SR 160 crosses the Sacramento River on the Isleton Bridge, a bascule bridge built in 1923, and runs along the west shore on Grand Island, where it meets the east end of SR 220. The Walnut Grove Bridge carries SR 160 and CR J11 east concurrently across the river to Walnut Grove, and, at the north end of the island, SR 160 crosses the 1924 Steamboat Slough Bridge onto Sutter Island and then the 1923 Paintersville Bridge across the Sacramento River to the mainland, both bascule bridges.Google Maps street maps and USGS topographic maps, accessed December 2007 via ACME Mapper
On the mainland, SR 160 once again runs atop the east levee, now west of I-5. The final bridge over the river is the Freeport Bridge, which carries CR E9 to the west levee, where it turns south to return to SR 160 at the west end of the Paintersville Bridge. About beyond the Freeport Bridge, SR 160 leaves the levee, enters the city of Sacramento, where the southern portion of SR 160 ends and state maintenance and control ends. It then passes under I-5 and enters into a more suburban landscape. Here the former SR 160 is known as Freeport Boulevard, a major surface road that passes the Sacramento Executive Airport and Sacramento City College. Freeport Boulevard turns to the northwest at about 4th Avenue. It was formerly a one-way pair with 21st Street with Freeport Boulevard heading one-way southbound and 21st heading one-way northbound. The city converted these streets back to two-way streets for traffic calming purposes in 2008. After a short distance on Broadway, former SR 160 turns north on the one-way pair of 15th (southbound) and 16th (northbound) Streets and enters downtown Sacramento after an interchange with US 50.
15th and 16th Streets lead traffic north past the east side of the State Capitol grounds, which lie between L and N Streets. At F Street, the path of southbound former SR 160 turned west for three blocks on F street before turning north again on 12th Street; both 12th and 16th Streets pass under the Union Pacific Railroad's Martinez Subdivision, where B Street would be, in four-lane subways, but 15th Street meets a dead-end after its intersection with C Street. 12th Street remains a one-way southbound roadway while the two-way SacRT light rail occupies its east side. 12th Street turns northeast at North B Street, and the two directions of former SR 160 come together at Richards Boulevard, just south of the 16th Street Bridge over the American River and the south end of the state-maintained North Sacramento Freeway. The light rail, which crosses the river between the two directions of SR 160, soon leaves at the Del Paso Boulevard interchange as the four-lane freeway turns east, ending at the Capital City Freeway (Interstate 80 Business) at Arden Way, near Arden Fair Mall.
The northern portion is also part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, and so is the piece south of SR 12 near Rio Vista, though only the southernmost piece of SR 12 in Antioch is built to freeway standards. The northern and southern pieces south of SR 12 are also 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 entire southern portion from SR 4 to Sacramento is eligible to be included in the State Scenic Highway System and is officially designated as a scenic highway by the California Department of Transportation, meaning that it is a substantial section of highway passing through a "memorable landscape" with no "visual intrusions", where the potential designation has gained popular favor with the community.
History
In the late 1910s, Sacramento County improved the county road along the levee of the Sacramento River between Sacramento and Rio Vista, which crossed the river twice on free ferries near Paintersville and Isleton.Ben Blow, California Highways: A Descriptive Record of Road Development by the State and by Such Counties as Have Paved Highways, 1920 (Archive.org or Google Books), pp. 206-208 A toll ferry across the San Joaquin River connected Sherman Island, south of Rio Vista, with Antioch, where drivers could head west through the Broadway Tunnel to reach the San Francisco Bay, but the road between Rio Vista and the ferry was poorly paved.Oakland Tribune, October 16, 1925: "There are three ferries between Antioch and Sacramento of which only one is a pay ferry, and the fare is 75 cents for the automobile and 15 cents for each passenger. With the exception of about on the Sherman island road, the route is paved all the way."Oakland Tribune, River Road Scenery is Interesting, November 9, 1919: "Upon reaching the Sherman Island terminus of the Antioch ferry, poor road confronts the motorist..." In 1922, the Victory Highway Association selected this "Netherlands Route", though locally promoted as the "Netherlands of America", for the Victory Highway west of Sacramento, as it was both shorter than the Lincoln Highway route via Stockton and more scenic. In particular, the river district would "impress [the motorist] with the enormous productive resources of this state as well as supply him with an unmatched scenic drive", and the Broadway Tunnel approach to the bay would bring him "over the Victory Highway to the end of his journey in such a fashion that he will never forget the view spread before him as he first comes into sight of the San Francisco Bay region".Oakland Tribune, "Netherlands Route" Selected as Victory Highway Path into Oakland, September 17, 1922
Two bascule bridges—the Paintersville Bridge and Isleton Bridge—replaced the free ferries in 1923, and are of a type patented by Joseph B. Strauss, who went on to design the Golden Gate Bridge.Erin Hallissy, San Francisco Chronicle, Kings of Swing, July 4, 2004, p. A1Sacramento Bee, Raising the Standard, August 7, 2000, p. B1 Local businessmen Aven Hanford and Oscar Klatt replaced the toll ferry with the tolled Antioch Bridge in mid-1926,Oakland Tribune, Antioch Bridge Opening, June 17, 1926California Department of Transportation, Toll Bridge Home > Bridges, accessed December 2007 almost a year before they opened the larger Carquinez Bridge to the west.Oakland Tribune, Carquinez Bridge Opened Early to Frustrate Suit, May 19, 1927 The counties of Contra Costa and Sacramento organized a joint highway district in November 1925 to fund an improvement of the northern approach from Rio Vista;Journal of the Senate, Legislature of the State of California, 1942, p. 54 the concrete highway was completed in July 1927, creating a fully paved continuous route between Sacramento and the Bay Area.Oakland Tribune, Completion of Victory Road, July 31, 1927
The legislature added this road to the state highway system in 1933, and it became part of Legislative Route 11, which had stretched east from Sacramento along US 50.: "Walnut Creek-Stockton Road near Antioch to Sacramento.": "Route 11 is from Route 75 near Antioch to the Nevada State line near Lake Tahoe via Sacramento, Folsom, Placerville and Sportsman's Hall." This part of Route 11 was not assigned a sign route number in 1934, but, by 1937, when the new Broadway Low Level Tunnel opened, it was part of Sign Route 24. That route had initially begun at Woodland and traveled northeast and east through the Feather River Canyon, and was extended southeast from Woodland along Sign Route 16 to Sacramento and then south and west via Antioch to the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge approach in Berkeley.Fresno Bee, New Bay Area Tunnel is Modern Traffic Unit, December 15, 1937H.M. Gousha Company, San Francisco and Vicinity , 1941 The California Freeway and Expressway System was formed in 1959, and included in the planned upgrades was the road between Antioch and Rio Vista. (North of Rio Vista, the present SR 84 was also part of the system.): "Route 11 from Route 75 to Route 53." The entire length was included in the State Scenic Highway System in 1963.: "Route 11 from: (a) Route 75 near Antioch to Sacramento..." In the 1964 renumbering, the Antioch-Sacramento roadway was split between two routes: Route 84 from Antioch to SR 12 near Rio Vista, and Route 160 from SR 12 to Sacramento.: "Route 160 is from Route 84 near Rio Vista to Route 80 near North Sacramento via Sacramento." However, the entire route was marked as SR 160, and in 1981 the legislative definition was changed to reflect so.: "Route 160 is from: (a) Route 4 near Antioch to Route 12 near Rio Vista. (b) Route 12 near Rio Vista to Route 51 via Sacramento."