State Route 30, Part 4.
Highland Ave in Rancho Cucamonga continues as we reach Fontana.
In this part, we wrap up most of what remains in Rancho Cucamonga.
Well, all except the last one which is actually our first mile marker since 6.5 at Archibald Ave along 19th St, and our first one on Highland Ave. Unfortunately, this is also the last one we will see for now, because Fontana doesn't have any left. This does tell us however that we are on the correct path. Sometimes it does pay to drive discontinuously.
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Junction: Day Creek Blvd. The road was deviated south not for the recent shopping center development, but instead for SR 210's interchange with Day Creek Blvd. Day Creek Blvd was the the eastern terminus of the freeway in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Back then the freeway was not signed SR 210, instead opting to use SR 30 even though legislatively it was SR 210.
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As we come away from Day Creek, we quickly loose the second lane we gained just before the intersection. Highland was built up slightly like this to allow freeway traffic two turning lanes for access to these homes. Between the freeway and housing tracts, there is no room for a four lane road as we get back to original roadbed.
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If you continue on Highland Ave around the bend and make the first left (east) onto Norcia Dr, come to the T-Junction with DiCarlo Pl and go left again (north), you'll come to Mueller Ct, another left over stub. It dead ends just before East Ave. The city elected not to rebuild the connection to the other side, named Fisher Dr instead, when the 210 was built.
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Turning around and going back down DiCarlo brings us to modern Highland Ave. If you take Highland until it ends at East Ave and go north on East, there will be another stub left named Fisher Dr. Its a very quick right and is almost too close to SR 210 for comfort. This road serves little to no purpose today other then backyard access and a backroad in incase you missed the turn further south. After 1500 feet, the road curves south and has nothing to do with SR 30.
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The eastbound shoulder of SR 30 would be about where that chainlink fence is that runs E/W. SR 30 would be just above grade here, before crossing I-15 on it's overpass. The bridge just visible between the bushes ahead of us is the EB 210 to NB 15 connector. It was originally Highland Ave/SR 30's overpass over I-15.
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We head back to East Ave, go south then east on Victoria St. I-15 here marks the official city limit for Fontana and Rancho Cucamonga. Once we cross the freeway, we will be in Fontana. Notice the green out on the SR 210 East overhead sign. Couple of things I'd love to point out. Notice the 210 shoe horned into a two-digit shield. That's because it's covering SR 30's shield from when this segment was signed as SR 30. Why Caltrans didn't opt to use the three-digit shield and just put SR 30 in it is beyond me (aka forwards compatibility). When it was SR 30, the control city was listed as San Bernardino. That was changed to Redlands upon completion of the freeway (which made sense as the eastern terminus was in Redlands). Sometime around 2013, Caltrans changed it back to San Bernardino. Still no clue why they ever changed it to Redlands, even more-so they changed it back. The only hope is people read the route number and not the control city, but even that is hard to read because of the small numbering. /ocdrant
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