I-15, Historic US 395 South - The Ontario Freeway - Fontana/Rancho Cucamonga to Temecula, CA

I-15 in California has been the only Interstate in the state to see a major realignment. Originally, I-15 would follow US 395 (and thus US 66 and 91) to San Bernardino along the Barstow Freeway to end at I-10. From there, US 395 continued south by itself along the Riverside Freeway to the Riverside Interchange, where US 395 jumped onto the Escondido Freeway and SR 91 (former US 91) continued on the Riverside Freeway. In the late 1960s, as part of an expansion of the federal Interstate System, planners conceived an idea to make the San Bernardino Interchange into a 5-way (similar to the Kellogg Interchange) and have I-15 head directly south through the hills, eventually re-joining US 395 near Moreno Valley. This was scrapped in short order, however, once the initial geology surveys came back showing the hill was composed of rather unstable sandstone and ill-suited for a freeway. The second plan was to go along the eastern out-skirts of Riverside and behind UC Riverside. This was unpopular due to it requiring the destruction of multiple apartment houses near the campus.
Around the same time, Caltrans had started construction on the new Ontario Freeway (SR 31). This freeway facilitated the building of the Devore Interchange with the Barstow Freeway (I-15/US 66/US 395) and was slated to connect Devore to Corona at SR 91 via Ontario. SR 31 would terminate at the Corona Interchange, where a new section of SR 71 would pick up and connect to the 10 miles of existing SR 71 freeway south of Corona to Lake Elsinore, where old US 395 picked up traffic to head to San Diego. The idea formulated then was to replace SR 31 and 71 with I-15. This route - while adding 6 miles on the trip from San Diego to Las Vegas - trimmed 15 miles off the trip from Los Angeles due to the removal of the backtracking that was done by first heading east to San Bernardino then back northwest to Devore.
At first, the Feds rejected the idea as it would be replacing a portion of I-15 that had already received federal money. However, once California showed that part of the portion of I-15 in question had actually started construction before the state received Interstate dollars, they went into negations. The ultimate decision was California would get it's wish to re-route I-15 all the way south to San Diego via Ontario, Corona and Lake Elsinore. In exchange, California would no longer receive or be entitled to federal Interstate dollars for the orphaned part of I-15.
Riverside and San Bernardino were not happy however, as they were being left out. The cities devised a plan to create a split route; The new highway would be I-15W and old I-15 and US 395 would become I-15E. This was just prior to the introduction of the non-chargeable system, and the feds quickly shot this idea down. After the new system was in-place, however, AASHTO accepted the plan of I-15E becoming a non-chargeable route. With the deletion of US 395 in 1974, this became Legislative Route 194, as California's system did not support suffixed routes. Old 395 from Moreno Valley to Temecula was signed as Temporary I-15E, due to it not being a freeway at the time. In 1982, as suffixed routes were being phased out, I-15E became I-215 with the sub-standard sections becoming SR 215 until they were upgraded.
Modern I-15 was completed in 1989 through the Inland Empire, with the final section opening between SR 60 in then-Mira Loma to SR 91 in Corona where a new interchange was constructed as part of the freeway project.
US 395 had two major routes south of Perris. The first went southwest towards the town of Elsinore, before jaunting southeast along with SR 71 to Temecula. This became SR 74 from Perris to Elsinore, and SR 71 traversed the segment to Temecula alone, eventually being supplemented by modern I-15. The later alignment would head southeast out of Perris before dropping straight south through Menifee to Murrieta where it rejoined the earlier alignment. That became modern I-215.
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[@ChaoticAyden99]

How does this channel only have 600 subscribers?! Well I subscribed. Great vids!😁

[@donavanjohnson409]

I really enjoyed watching this video about interstate 15 south and wow there's a town in California called Corona

[@jvargas6034]

Was The Limonite Avenue Interchange Under Construction When You Filmed This Video During The Spring Of 2019 Because It Was Completed Last Fall

[@ForgottenHwy]

Yes it was. It looked like it was almost completed.

[@juniperberry3852]

Cool man, my husband and I frequent these roads often. Maybe we’ve passed each other :) Thanks for sharing

[@funny.gon-12]

Can you upload the 215 from riverside to murrieta .

[@ForgottenHwy]

I actually no longer live in California otherwise I definitely would. :/ It’s always been a road I’ve wanted to film.

[@misaelrojas8055]

Ontario is in canada. Not here .did they do that by mistake?

[@ForgottenHwy]

This was on purpose actually. The 'founders' of the Ontario Colony were George Chaffey and his brothers who named the colony after their home province of Ontario, Canada.

[@misaelrojas8055]

@@ForgottenHwy k

[@funny.gon-12]

City's have the same names for example there is Memphis and Atlas in Tennessee and georgia respectively.