Valley Boulevard - History

History

Several old alignments are present:

• In downtown El Monte, the old road is now Valley Mall; a new alignment has been built a block to the north.
• A road named Old Valley Boulevard exists in La Puente, where the new alignment crosses over a railroad on a bridge. The old road originally crossed near Unruh Avenue, and later moved to Hacienda Boulevard.
• The road originally crossed the railroads in western Pomona via Pomona Boulevard, present State Route 71 and 2nd Street into downtown Pomona.

The road was once known as Main Street between El Monte and La Puente and Pomona Boulevard between La Puente and Pomona. Main Street became Valley Boulevard between 1933 and 1942, and Pomona Boulevard was renamed (except for the old section in Pomona) by 1959.

When U.S. Route 60 was first extended to Los Angeles ca. 1932, it ran along Valley Boulevard. The new alignment (Ramona Boulevard and Garvey Avenue, now partly the San Bernardino Freeway) was built ca. 1934, taking US 60 off Valley Boulevard. Pre-1964 Legislative Route 77 was defined in 1931 to run from downtown Los Angeles to Pomona along Valley Boulevard, and then to continue east to Riverside and south to San Diego. The part from the east city limit of Los Angeles (just east of the north end of State Route 7, now Interstate 710) to Interstate 10 in El Monte was assigned the State Route 212 number in the 1964 renumbering, and in 1965 it was removed from the state highway system.

Bus service from Downtown Los Angeles to El Monte is served by Metro Local line 76. Bus service east of El Monte is served by Metro Local line 194.