State Route 111 is a state highway in the U.S. state of California. It is the main north-south route and retail corridor through the Coachella Valley, a part of the Colorado Desert in the southeastern corner of the state and a famous resort destination. It also runs through the Imperial Valley, and along the eastern shore of the Salton Sea. Its southern terminus is at the U.S.–Mexico border crossing in Calexico, and its northern terminus is at Interstate 10 at Whitewater.
Route description
SR 111 begins in Calexico at the international border where it meets with Avenida Cristóbal Colón in Mexicali before it intersects with SR 98. It then intersects with SR 86 in Heber. As SR 111 continues north through Imperial County, it enters El Centro. There, it intersects with Interstate 8, which runs east to Yuma and west to San Diego, before passing through the agricultural communities of Holtville, Brawley, Calipatria and Niland. A nearly length of the highway dotted with date and citrus groves follows both the old Southern Pacific "Sunset Route" and the eastern shore of the Salton Sea. Though some small settlements and a California state park line the shore, the area is eerily empty due to the sea's rapidly declining water quality. The small town of North Shore is all but abandoned as a tourist destination, though more than 3,400 residents were counted at the 2010 census. SR 111 enters the southeast corner of the Coachella Valley as a two-lane highway. It used to run concurrently with SR 86 in Coachella, but SR 86 has since been moved to a newer expressway alignment, which was formerly named SR 86S. SR 111 continues northwest as a major arterial road, four lanes or wider, through Indio, La Quinta, Indian Wells, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, and Cathedral City. As it approaches this area, the northbound traffic is on Indian Canyon Road, and the southbound is on Palm Canyon Road. An alternate Route runs on Gene Autry Trail while mainline SR 111 continues west on Vista Chino Drive. Continuing west from Cathedral City, the highway enters Palm Springs, then swings north and then west to bypass downtown, while SR 111 Business passes through the congested downtown area. The highway widens from an arterial road to a divided expressway as it exits Palm Springs just northwest of San Rafael Drive. It ends at an interchange with I-10 near the foot of San Jacinto Peak, just east of the San Gorgonio Pass. SR 111 is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System and the portions south of SR 78, and in the city of Indio are part of the National Highway System, a network of highways that are considered essential to the country's economy, defense, and mobility by the Federal Highway Administration. SR 111 is eligible to be included in the State Scenic Highway System, but it is not officially designated as a scenic highway by the California Department of Transportation.
History
SR 111 was first proposed in the early 1930s due to the area's growth bought on by the Southern Pacific Railroad. A 1993 rerouting of the highway takes drivers away from the historic center of Palm Springs, but meets with its original alignment as Business Route 111 a few miles further south. The northern terminus was so busy in the 1950s before the construction of the freeway that visitors returning home to Los Angeles might have waited as long as two hours to make the left turn on the two-lane road that was once multiplexed as US Highways60, 70 and 99. In 1995, Caltrans was allowed to relinquish any portion of Route 111 through a city for that city to maintain. The legislature opted to make the act an "urgency statute", effective immediately, so that the local governments could improve traffic bottlenecks along the route as soon as possible. The legislative definition of the route was amended in 1996 to exclude the portions in Rancho Mirage and Cathedral City, which had both been relinquished. Cathedral City completed a pedestrian-friendly redesign in 1998. The stretch through Rancho Mirage has the Coachella Valley's only synchronized traffic lights; they are set to 45 mph. A 2003 law did not change the route, but clarified that the former highway through those cities could not be taken back by the state, and repealed the section added in 1995 allowing relinquishment to any city. Subsequently, in 2005, the legislature allowed relinquishment within Indian Wells, Indio, and Palm Desert, subject to the same conditions, and to the condition that the cities must maintain signs for the route. La Quinta was added to the list of eligible cities in 2007. As of late 2007, none of these four cities have taken over maintenance of Route 111. In November 2005, signs on Verbenia Avenue at the highway's northern terminus and along Interstate 10 were replaced to reflect the street's name change to "Haugen-Lehmann Way", honoring two Riverside County sheriff's deputies gunned down by a sniper on that street in 1997. In a similar move in December 2005, the stretch of SR 111 through La Quinta was named the "Deputy Bruce Lee Memorial Highway". Lee was a Riverside County deputy sheriff in the city for many years and was killed in 2003 during an altercation with a mentally disturbed suspect. The suspect was able to take Lee's baton during the altercation and used it to bludgeon the officer. After being Imperial Avenue in Calexico, the road is known as the Imperial Pioneers Expressway and the Victor Veysey Expressway in Imperial County. Several parts of the route are at or under sea level, similar to SR 86 outside of Brawley.
