Throwback Thursday | Infamous Off-Ramp at Fair Oaks

Throwback Thursday is written and produced by Rick Thomas

PHOTO: South Pasadena Police Department | SouthPasadenan.com | Fatality at the Fair Oaks Avenue off-ramp, South Pasadena (1944)

The maximum speed limit for Arroyo Seco Parkway was 45 mph when it opened on December 30, 1940. Taking the Fair Oaks Avenue exit in South Pasadena was easily manageable – even when the off-ramp was backed up with vehicles.

Soon after its completion, however, the Arroyo Seco Parkway was dubbed the “Arroyo Speedway” due to speeding vehicles. When rounding the curve at high speed from Pasadena, the off-ramp materialized suddenly becoming a blind exit ramp for many motorists. Stopped vehicles in the inner lane trying to exit the Arroyo Seco created a particularly hazardous condition.

To avoid collisions at the infamous South Pasadena off-ramp, the Fair Oaks exit was relocated further up the Arroyo Seco Parkway (before the Raymond Hill curve), and is permanently rerouted to arrive at Fair Oaks Avenue alongside the original off-ramp.

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PHOTO: Pomona Public Library | SouthPasadenan.com | Fair Oaks off-ramp at the “Raymond Hill Curve” Arroyo Seco Parkway, South Pasadena (1942)
PHOTO: Rick Thomas | SouthPasadenan.com | 75 years later – Fair Oaks off-ramp at the “Raymond Hill Curve” Arroyo Seco Parkway, South Pasadena (2018)
PHOTO: Rick Thomas | SouthPasadenan.com | Off-ramp at Fair Oaks, South Pasadena (2018)

Today, the off-ramp is fenced off on Fair Oaks Avenue in South Pasadena.

PHOTO: Rick Thomas | SouthPasadenan.com | Off-ramp at Fair Oaks, South Pasadena (2018)

The original concrete off-ramp is still visible behind the fence.


Rick Thomas
Author Rick Thomas is the former museum curator and vice-chair of education for the South Pasadena Preservation Foundation. He served on the South Pasadena Natural Resources Commission, helping to maintain a strict policy protecting the city’s great old-growth trees. Using touchstone photographs from his own collection—one of the San Gabriel Valley’s largest accumulations of historical images and artifacts—as well as national, state, and local historical archives, Thomas provides a window to his city’s past and an understanding of why its preservation is so important.