Did You Know - 'The' SoCali Edition

This Is Why People In Southern California Say 'The' In Front Of Freeway Names

People insist on adding the definite article “the” in front of major freeways. Turns out, it’s not just some baseless regional slang, there’s a decent amount of history behind it.

Southern California’s affinity for “the + numerical freeway name” (“the 405,” “the 110,” and “the 5”) starts way back with the fact that it was an early adapter of a freeway system, according to this 2015 story on KCET. Today, we know Los Angeles as a haven of driving and car culture—because it has been exactly that for the past few decades.

Much of Los Angeles city planning in the 1920s and 1930s centered around the population’s love of cars and driving—and the traffic that resulted in it. Traffic choking the boulevards. Traffic choking the streets. There needed to be a solution for the city that devoted so much of its transportation solutions to personal vehicles.

(Jalopnik.com)