Mt Wilson Toll Road Update
Reprinted from a Cybercast News Service article 7-19-08
MOUNT WILSON (CNS) -The historic Mount Wilson Toll Road will be rebuilt
to allow fire trucks and hikers renewed access to the steep mountains above
Pasadena, it was reported today.
A $1.48 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency has
been accepted by the Pasadena City Council, and reconstruction of the old dirt
road will begin in October and finish by April of next year, the Pasadena Star-
News reported.
Just uphill from the city’s section of construction, Los Angeles County
officials expect to have their damaged section of the old toll road reopened by August, 2009.
The dirt road has been closed to cars driven by the general public for
decades, but is a key route for fire trucks and other official vehicles in the
disaster-prone area. Hundreds of hikers also use the road on an average day,
but have had difficulties since the road collapsed down a cliff in big storms
in 2005.
One hiker told the Star-News she was surprised after hiking up the broad
road, “and then it suddenly became more like a goat trail” at the washout.
The road opened to horse and buggy traffic in 1891, and was used by cars
until 1936, when a new Mount Wilson Road was built via Altadena and the Red
Box Junction. The original toll was 25 cents per hiker and 50 cents per
horseback rider.
After 1936, the old road was pressed into service as an important fire
equipment access route, and for forestry trucks serving a tree nursery at
Henninger Flats, above Altadena.
The Star-News also reported that a $732,107 contract is likely to be
awarded to rebuild a collapsed bridge on trails in the headwaters of Arroyo
Seco, in the forest above the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. That bridge also
washed out in 2005.