California State Route 47 - Route Description

Route Description

State Route 47 begins at the south end of the Harbor Freeway (I-110) in the Los Angeles neighborhood of San Pedro and heads east to the Vincent Thomas Bridge, with only one interchange - at Harbor Boulevard - before the 1963 suspension bridge over the main channel of Los Angeles Harbor. After coming back to ground level on Terminal Island, SR 47 becomes the locally-maintained Seaside Avenue at the interchange with Ferry Street, where there was a toll plaza until 2000. The freeway ends just beyond at Navy Way, after which the road enters Long Beach and becomes Ocean Boulevard, which was rebuilt as a freeway in 2007. However, SR 47 must exit the freeway onto its frontage roads, intersecting Henry Ford Avenue before turning north onto the Terminal Island Freeway. Ocean Boulevard leads east over the Gerald Desmond Bridge and becomes Interstate 710, with access to downtown Long Beach.

State maintenance begins again on the Terminal Island Freeway, which is also signed as State Route 103. After a partial interchange with New Dock Street, only allowing access to and from the north, SR 47 crosses the Cerritos Channel on the Schuyler Heim Bridge, a lift bridge opened in 1948. Just beyond the bridge, SR 47 leaves the freeway, which continues northeast as SR 103, onto Henry Ford Avenue, and state maintenance ends. The remainder of what is signed as SR 47, along Henry Ford Avenue and Alameda Street to the Redondo Beach Freeway (SR 91), is locally maintained. Henry Ford Avenue quickly crosses the Dominguez Channel and Anaheim Street, and merges with Alameda Street, which continues southwest into Wilmington as a local street. The part of Alameda Street rebuilt during the Alameda Corridor project begins here, and the roadway passes under all cross streets - Pacific Coast Highway (SR 1), Sepulveda Boulevard, 223rd Street (at the San Diego Freeway/I-405 interchange), Carson Street, Del Amo Boulevard, and Artesia Boulevard (at the Redondo Beach Freeway/SR 91 interchange) - with two-way connector ramps. The one major at-grade intersection here is the split with Santa Fe Avenue north of Del Amo Boulevard, just south of the underpass where Alameda Street moves from the east to the west side of the rail line. (Before the corridor was built, the crossover was further south, at Dominguez Street, halfway between Carson Street and Del Amo Boulevard.)

North of Artesia Boulevard, the rail line descends into the 10-mile (16 km) Mid-Corridor Trench, with two streets straddling it at ground level: Alameda Street to the west and a local frontage road to the east. All cross streets are thus grade-separated from the rail line while intersecting the streets at grade, except for Rosecrans Avenue, which bridges over all three. Crossings along this segment include the Century Freeway (I-105, no access), Imperial Highway, Firestone Boulevard (former SR 42), and Slauson Avenue. Just south of 25th Street, the rail line curves northeast out of the trench, and the two roadways join to become a single Alameda Street, which soon interchanges with the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10), at the north end of what is legislated as Route 47. The street continues north through the east side of downtown Los Angeles, crossing the Santa Ana Freeway (US 101) just west of Union Station, and ending soon after at Elmyra Street, where it becomes Spring Street. In addition, it also passes the Little Tokyo/Arts District, Union, and Chinatown stations; all of which are served by the LACMTA Gold Line, and the Union Station is also served by the Red and Purple lines, as well as Metrolink and Amtrak.