Redlands Daily Facts from Redlands, California • Page 9

Barstow-Needles highway realigned for 67 miles SCENIC Swinging on an easy curve over this, fill, freeway lets driver see spectacular hills. DAILY FACTS, Redlands, Calif. especially dramatic when viewed in late afternoon light. Saturday, April 14,1973 -9 FREE FLOWING About one vehicle in 20 on Route 40 is a truck. Passing will be easy on new link because road, being straight, has long sight distances; also, there are no ups-and-downs at wash beds.

Cholla cactus and bushes that require minimum moisture scatter the desert floor. FOUR LANES New link has four lanes, sometimes separated by a quarter mile, avoiding natural features instead of cutting through. Route passes through three desert ranges and skirts high Providence mountains. All photos by California Division of Highways. Opened on Friday the Thirteenth, this realignment of Interstate 40 shortens the Barstow-Needles distance by 10 miles.

Thie cut-off, 67 miles long, replaces Old Route 66, a two-lane road that winds and dips. Passing is often difficult or impossible on U.S. 66 because of trucks and auto-trailer combinations. In 1963 a plan was announced to relocate both the highway and the Santa Fe by using atomic blasts to cut a deep trench through the Bristol mountains. The Atomic Energy Commission could not meet the proposed schedule.

The freeway work was done, on a modified route, with conventional explosives. The railroad remains on the old route. Redlanders will have to experiment to find if they prefer the shorter route to Needles via Twentynine Palms and Amboy. Those who do will not be using the new cutoff. The cutoff passes through isolated desert.

At least temporarily, no gasoline will be purchasable for 100 miles (Ludlow to Needles). Highway Patrol cars have been equipped with pumps to transfer gas directly from their tanks to those of stranded motorists. Commercial service is expected at two way-points in six months. Exceptional care was taken to protect the sensitive desert environment. Extra large culverts were installed at several locations to allow Bighorn sheep easy passage.

Some runoff water will be channeled into 10,000 gallon storage tanks; controlled-flow drinkers will serve Bighorns and livestock. STATE PARK Mitchell Caverns, which has stalagmites and stalactites, has been reached from Essex on U.S. via 23-mile road. Freeway will shorten access road distance to 16 miles. Picnic and headquarters area of Mitchell, at of Providence mountains, shown here..