California Highway 17 - Definition and Overview

Looking downhill from the Summit Road overpass; brake lights can be seen as cars slow down in anticipation of the tight curves ahead.

California Highway 17 is a freeway and expressway that runs between San Jose, California and Santa Cruz, California. Much of its length goes through the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the four-lane expressway twists and turns along switchbacks from the Santa Clara Valley up to a summit point and then back to sea level in Santa Cruz.

From Los Gatos to the northern terminus in San Jose, Highway 17 is a freeway with as many as eight lanes at some points. The southern portion from Scotts Valley to Santa Cruz is a four-lane freeway.

Highway 17 carries substantial commuter and vacation traffic between San Jose and Santa Cruz. Its combination of narrow shoulders, dense and high-speed traffic, sharp turns, and sudden changes in traffic speeds makes it one of the most dangerous highways in California. The cost of improving the treacherous expressway segment to modern freeway standards has been estimated to be at least $200 million.

Until 1983, Highway 17 extended from its current southern terminus at California State Route 1 in Santa Cruz through Oakland and across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to San Rafael, California. The roadway still exists; however, the section between Interstate 80 and San Rafael was renamed as an extension of Interstate 580. Additionally, Highway 17 between Interstate 280 in San Jose and the freeway's new northern terminus in Oakland was re-designated as Interstate 880 later that year.

Exits

CA-17 has Cal-NExUS numbered exits on its freeway portion. The non-freeway portion has exits and turnoffs which are not numbered. The exits are listed below. As of 2005, only one exit (23) has numbered signs, which is only numbered in the northbound direction.

References

• CalNEXUS (http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/signtech/calnexus/) report for 17N (http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/signtech/calnexus/reports/seventeennorth.htm) and 17S (http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/signtech/calnexus/reports/seventeensouth.htm)