Hollywood Freeway - History

History

Plans for the Hollywood Freeway officially began in 1924 when Los Angeles voters approved a "stop-free express highway" between Downtown Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. The first segment of the Hollywood Freeway built was a one and a half mile stretch through the Cahuenga Pass. That segment opened on June 15, 1940. It was then known as the "Cahuenga Pass Freeway." Pacific Electric Railway trolleys ran down the center of this freeway until 1952. The next section of the freeway that stretched from the San Fernando Valley to Downtown Los Angeles opened on April 16, 1954 at a cost of $55 million. The final section, north of the Ventura Freeway to the Golden State Freeway was completed in 1968.

A year after the Hollywood Freeway opened, it was used by an average of 183,000 vehicles a day, almost double the capacity it was designed to carry. Actor Bob Hope called it the "biggest parking lot in the world" in his routine.

The segment through Hollywood was the first to be built through a heavily populated area and requiring the moving or demolition of many buildings, including Rudolph Valentino's former home in Whitley Heights. The freeway was also designed to curve around KTTV Studios and Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Much of the rubble and debris from the buildings removed for the freeway's construction was dumped into Chávez Ravine, the current home to Dodger Stadium.

In 1967, the Hollywood Freeway was the first freeway in California that had ramp meters.

Near the Vermont Avenue exit, there's a seemingly over-wide center strip now filled with trees. This is where the never-built Beverly Hills Freeway was to merge with the Hollywood Freeway. Plans for the Beverly Hills Freeway were halted in the 1970s.

The Hollywood Freeway is an expansion of the original Cahuenga Parkway, a short six-lane freeway that ran through the Cahuenga Pass between Hollywood and Studio City. The Cahuenga Parkway featured Pacific Electric Railway "Red Car" tracks in its median, but by the 1950s these tracks were out of service due to radical reductions in Red Car service. The Pacific Electric right-of-way later accommodated an additional lane in each direction.

The Hollywood Freeway is Routes 101 and 170 from Route 110 (Four Level Interchange) to Route 5.

SR 170 was originally supposed to run from the I-5 interchange to I-405 near the Los Angeles International Airport as the Laurel Canyon Freeway under the Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Crescent Heights Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard alignments of today. In fact, a portion of La Cienega Blvd. alignment between Manchester Avenue and Rodeo Road was constructed to freeway standards, although it is now an expressway maintained by Los Angeles County.