Golden State Freeway

Interstate 5
Route information
Maintained by Caltrans
NHS	Entire route
Major junctions
South end	I-10 / US 101 in Los Angeles
Major intersections	SR 134 near Glendale SR 14 near Santa Clarita
North end	SR 99 in Lebec
Location
Country	United States
State	California
Highway system
Southern California freeways

The Golden State Freeway is a north-south freeway running through Kern County and Los Angeles County, California. Originally built as U.S. Route 99, it was re-signed as Interstate 5 in 1964.

Route description

I-5 and State Route 99 converge near the southernmost point of the San Joaquin Valley, approximately 30 miles (50 km) south of Bakersfield. At this point, the Golden State Freeway begins. It travels southward through the valley until sharply rising to cross the Tejon Pass through the Tehachapi Mountains, continuing through Grapevine Canyon. Path 26 power lines, a southern extension of Path 15, follow the freeway across the pass and onto Pyramid Lake. At one point along the treacherous route, the separated northbound and southbound lanes actually invert, with the southbound lanes being to the east of the northbound ones. The freeway continues into the Santa Clarita Valley, and then crosses Newhall Pass through the Santa Susana Mountains to enter the San Fernando Valley, and in turn, Los Angeles. Several major freeways split from the Golden State Freeway within a few miles of this point: the Foothill Freeway (I-210) near Sylmar, the San Diego Freeway (I-405) in Mission Hills, and the Hollywood Freeway (I-101 & I-170) in Sun Valley. Traveling through the cities of Burbank and Glendale, it closely follows the Los Angeles River as it skirts the Hollywood Hills. It ends at the East Los Angeles Interchange in Boyle Heights; I-5 continues thereafter as the Santa Ana Freeway.

While the former surface street portions of State Route 99 are often named the Golden State Highway or Golden State Avenue, Highway 99 itself is not called the Golden State Freeway.

Legal definition

The Golden State Freeway is Route 5 from the 5/10/60/101 Junction to Route 14, as named by the Metropolitan Transportation Engineering Board on February 28 1958. Note that the segment from State Route 14 to Highway 99 is still legally unofficial.

Earthquakes and the Golden State Freeway

The Golden State Freeway at rush hour in the San Fernando Valley

On February 9, 1971, the Sylmar earthquake destroyed a portion of the Golden State Freeway, including its interchange (then under construction) with the Antelope Valley Freeway, between the Santa Clarita and San Fernando Valleys. It was soon rebuilt with greater seismic reinforcement, but nevertheless sustained heavy damage in the January 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake (and again had to be rebuilt).

The risk of earthquake damage to the freeway remains high, as the Grapevine route crosses the notorious San Andreas Fault. The risk along this route is such that the proposed high-speed rail corridor between Los Angeles and San Francisco, originally planned to be built within the Golden State Freeway's alignment, will instead veer east into the Antelope Valley, going through the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster before traversing the more seismically stable Tehachapi Pass on its way to Bakersfield. Despite adding over 50 miles (80 km) of line to the railroad and 20 minutes to its travel time, the route change will save billions of dollars in construction costs, as Tehachapi Pass presents relatively few engineering challenges.

Exit list

Note: Except where prefixed with a letter, postmiles were measured in 1964, based on the alignment as it existed at that time, and do not necessarily reflect current mileage. The numbers reset at county lines; the start and end postmiles in each county are given in the county column.

County	Location	Postmile	#	Destinations	Notes
Los Angeles (LA 16.88-R88.61)	Los Angeles	16.88		I-5 south (Santa Ana Freeway) – Santa Ana	Continuation beyond US 101
		16.47	134B	SR 60 east (Pomona Freeway) – Pomona	Southbound left exit and northbound entrance
		16.59	134A	Soto Street	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
		16.90	134C	Seventh Street	No southbound exit; left exit northbound
		16.90		I-10 west (Santa Monica Freeway) – Santa Monica	South end of I-10 overlap; southbound exit and northbound entrance
		17.56	135A	Fourth Street	Former SR 60
		18.06	135B	Cesar Chavez Avenue
		18.45	135C	I-10 east (San Bernardino Freeway) – San Bernardino	North end of I-10 overlap; signed as exit 135B southbound
		18.78	135C	Mission Road	No northbound exit
		19.20	136A	Main Street	Signed as exit 136 southbound; no entrance ramps
		19.73	136B	Broadway	Southbound exit is part of exit 137A
		20.44	137B	SR 110 north (Pasadena Freeway) – Pasadena	Signed as exit 137A southbound
		20.5	137A	Figueroa Street	Southbound exit is part of exit 137B; former SR 159/SR 163 north
		20.7	137B	SR 110 south (Pasadena Freeway) – Los Angeles	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
		21.94	138	Stadium Way
		22.55	139	SR 2 (Glendale Freeway) – Glendale, Echo Park	Signed as exits 139A (north) and 139B (south) northbound
		22.97	140A	Fletcher Drive	Southbound exit and northbound entrance; former SR 2
		23.66	140B	Glendale Boulevard	Signed as exit 140 northbound
		24.33	141A	Los Feliz Boulevard	Signed as exit 141 southbound
		24.60	141B	Griffith Park	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		25.78	142	Colorado Street	Former SR 134 east/SR 163 south
		26.47	144A	Zoo Drive	No southbound exit; serves Los Angeles Zoo
		26.65	144A	SR 134 east (Ventura Freeway) – Glendale, Pasadena	Signed as exit 144 southbound
		27.08	144B	SR 134 west (Ventura Freeway) – Ventura	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
	Glendale	27.84	145A	Western Avenue
	Burbank	28.43	145B	Alameda Avenue	Former SR 134 west
		29.16	146A	Olive Avenue, Verdugo Avenue – Burbank
		29.78	146B	Burbank Boulevard
		30.47	147A	Scott Road – Burbank	Signed as exit 147 southbound; no southbound entrance
		30.75	147B	Lincoln Street	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		31.23	148	Buena Vista Street
	Los Angeles	32.35	149	Hollywood Way
		33.28	150A	Glenoaks Boulevard	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		33.68	150B	Sunland Boulevard – Sun Valley	Signed as exit 150 southbound
		34.28	151	Penrose Street	No northbound entrance
		34.65- 34.99	152	Lankershim Boulevard, Tuxford Street – North Hollywood	Former SR 170
		35.94	153A	Sheldon Street
		36.36	153B	SR 170 south (Hollywood Freeway) – Hollywood	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
		36.86	153B	Branford Street	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		37.41	154	Osborne Street – Arleta
		37.96	155A	Terra Bella Street	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		38.50	155B	Van Nuys Boulevard – Pacoima	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		39.05	156A	Paxton Street	Signed as exit 156B northbound
		39.36	156B	SR 118 (Ronald Reagan Freeway)	Signed as exit 156A northbound; southbound exit to SR 118 west is via exit 156A
		39.98	157A	Brand Boulevard – San Fernando	Northbound exit and southbound entrance; former SR 118
		40.24	157B	San Fernando Mission Boulevard – San Fernando	Signed as exit 157 southbound
		41.60	158	I-405 south (San Diego Freeway) – Santa Monica	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
		42.65	159A	Roxford Street – Sylmar	Signed as exits 159A (east) and 159B (west) northbound
		R44.01	161A	I-210 east (Foothill Freeway) – Pasadena	Signed as exit 161 northbound
		R44.87	161B	Balboa Boulevard	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
		R45.58	162	SR 14 north (Antelope Valley Freeway) – Palmdale, Lancaster
	Santa Clarita	R49.03	166	Calgrove Boulevard
		R50.33	167	Lyons Avenue, Pico Canyon Road
		R51.44	168	McBean Parkway
		R52.47	169	Valencia Boulevard
		R53.57	170	Magic Mountain Parkway	Former SR 126 east
		R54.17	171	Rye Canyon Road	Southbound exit and entrance
		R55.48	172	SR 126 west – VenturaModule:Jct warning: "road" parameter is deprecated
		R56.60	173	Hasley Canyon Road – Wayside Honor Rancho
		R59.01	176A	Parker Road – Castaic	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		R59.49	176B	Lake Hughes Road – Castaic Lake Park, Castaic	Signed as exit 176 southbound
		R65.97	183	Templin Highway
		R74.45	191	Vista del Lago Road
		R77.96	195	Smokey Bear Road
	R81.49- R82.10	198A	SR 138 east – Lancaster, Palmdale	Signed as exit 199 southbound
	R81.76	198B	Quail Lake Road	Signed as exit 198 southbound
	R85.80	202	Gorman
	R88.57	205	Frazier Mountain Park Road
Kern (KER R0.00-R15.86)		1.61	207	Lebec
		5.02	210	Fort Tejon
		10.15	215	Grapevine
		13.52	219	Laval Road	Signed as exits 219A (east) and 219B (west)
		R15.86		I-5 north – San Francisco, Sacramento	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		R15.86	221	SR 99 north – Bakersfield, Fresno	Northbound exit and southbound entrance