The California Incline is a slanted
road
A road is a thoroughfare used primarily for movement of traffic. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. They also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads. Most modern roads are paved.
Th ...
in
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...
, connecting
Ocean Avenue with
State Route 1 (Pacific Coast Highway or PCH). It technically is the last link, the western end of California Avenue, a major east–west street in Santa Monica.
History and overview
The California Incline was originally a walkway known as Sunset Trail, which was cut through the
bluffs to provide beach access to pedestrians in 1896. A roadway structure in length was built in 1932. It is a vital street in Santa Monica, linking the PCH with Ocean Avenue and California Avenue, bisecting
Palisades Park. It begins at an intersection with Ocean Avenue and California Avenue, at the top of the Palisades, extending to the PCH at the base of the bluffs.
2015–16 reconstruction
The California Incline was identified as structurally deficient in the early 1990s. In 2007, the City of Santa Monica secured federal highway funds to replace the structure with one meeting current seismic standards.
The new bridge consists of a pile-supported reinforced concrete slab structure with a width of , an increase of over the previous structure. The project cost $17 million, with 88.5% coming from federal funds and the balance from local funds. Construction began in April 2015 and took 17 months to complete. The roadway reopened to the public on September 1, 2016. The rebuilt structure includes wider sidewalks and bicycle lanes.
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]
Popular culture
The California Incline has been featured in various films, including ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' is a 1963 American Technicolor epic comedy film in Ultra Panavision 70 produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, from a screenplay by William and Tania Rose. The film, starring Spencer Tracy with an all ...
'' (1963) and ''Knocked Up
''Knocked Up'' is a 2007 American romantic comedy film written, produced and directed by Judd Apatow, and starring Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel and Martin Starr. It follows ...
'' (2007). It was also featured in the hardboiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence o ...
crime novel ''In a Lonely Place'' (1942), written by Dorothy B. Hughes. It was also portrayed in some video games including ''Street Racing Syndicate
''Street Racing Syndicate'' is an open world racing video game developed by Eutechnyx and published by Namco Hometek on August 31, 2004, for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Windows. A separate version of the game was also released for the ...
'', '' Midnight Club II'', '' Midnight Club: LA'' (and its '' Remix version''), American Truck Simulator, and ''Grand Theft Auto V
''Grand Theft Auto V'' is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto, ''Grand Theft Auto'' series, following 2008's ''Grand Theft Auto IV'', and ...
''.
See also
* McClure Tunnel
References
{{Streets in Los Angeles
Streets in Santa Monica, California