Route Description
State Route 46 begins at SR 1 southeast of Cambria, about one mile (2 km) from the Pacific Ocean. It heads east as the Eric Seastrand Highway across the Santa Lucia Range on a relatively straight roadway built in the 1970s, bypassing the steep, curvy Santa Rosa Creek Road. After passing near a few wineries, this first segment ends at US 101 north of Templeton, where SR 46 turns north, overlapping the US 101 freeway through the valley formed by the Salinas River to central Paso Robles. Immediately after splitting from US 101, SR 46 crosses the Salinas River, passing near the Paso Robles Municipal Airport, and then heads east through a hilly area with several wineries and the community of Whitley Gardens. It then runs partially alongside the Estrella River to a merge with SR 41 near Shandon and a rest area. There, it turns northeast, following Cholame Creek through Cholame Pass between the Cholame Hills and Temblor Range to the settlement of Cholame and the split with SR 41. After crossing into Kern County, the highway continues to rise as it heads east up the Antelope Grade to a summit near Bluestone Ridge before descending through Polonio Pass into the Antelope Valley, an arm of the San Joaquin Valley.
The two-lane stretch from Paso Robles to Cholame was once known as "Blood Alley" for the large number of crashes, mainly head-on collisions, among the high volume of commuters, truckers, and tourists. Between 2000 and 2010, a total of 38 people have died. The junction at the east end of this portion, at the SR 41 split, is named after actor James Dean, who was killed in a car accident on this site on September 30, 1955. The intersection is now marked as the James Dean Memorial Junction. The junction was officially dedicated as the James Dean Memorial Junction on September 30, 2005, as part of the State of California's official commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Dean's death. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) carried out an interim safety project in December 1995, mandating daytime headlights and installing thermoplastic striping and rumble strips. Present plans are to widen the road to a four-lane divided expressway.
Once it enters the San Joaquin Valley, SR 46, known as the Paso Robles Highway, follows an almost perfectly straight eastward alignment, crossing SR 33 at Blackwells Corner, passing through the Lost Hills Oil Field, and intersecting I-5 about two miles (3 km) past Lost Hills and the crossing of the California Aqueduct. SR 46 then passes through the Semitropic Oil Field about seven miles west of Wasco. SR 46 and SR 43 overlap for a short distance in the city of Wasco, and then SR 46 passes over Calloway Canal and Friant Canal before it ends at SR 99 in Famoso. The county-maintained Famoso Road continues east across SR 65 and into the Sierra Nevada foothills.
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