A stretch of Central California highway notorious as a “Blood Alley” — and the site of James Dean’s fatal crash — has been revamped with a new interchange.
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The flyover opened Thursday, June 12, at the intersection of highways 41 and 46 in San Luis Obispo County, the California Department of Transportation said.
Both directions of travel are being accommodated on the elevated roadway’s westbound lanes; full opening is expected in eight weeks, Caltrans said.
Until now, the intersection, known as the Cholame Y, required turning drivers to contend with fast-approaching traffic on the two-lane rural highway.
Dean was 24 when he died there on Sept. 30, 1955. He and a mechanic were driving his Porsche 550 Spyder from Hollywood to Salinas for a weekend of auto racing. As they were westbound on what was then known as Highway 466 around 5:45 p.m., an eastbound driver began to turn left onto Highway 41, and the cars collided. Dean was dead on arrival at a Paso Robles hospital.
His last movies, “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Giant,” were released posthumously, cementing his status as a charismatic icon of rebellion.
The fence at the Cholame Y became a shrine, bearing mementos from fans. There’s a more formal monument in a parking lot about a mile to the west.