Happs, it is actually SR-1 that runs through these coastal towns. (US-101 ends at I-10 in West LA.)
It is common in the 48 states when going thru state hwys or “State Routes” as we call them in Cali to slow down and stop in towns and small cities and proceed at 25 mph until out of the town. Those small cities that you mentioned were never set up to accomodate the amount of people going thru them now. That is why I-5 runs through there. There have always been businesses on both sides of this hwy and I don’t see that changing. Widening this route would destroy some of the these businesses and the “charm” that these towns are known for.
In decades past, these towns ended well west of I-5. Since so much has been approved to be built up there since about 1980, almost all of it east of I-5, these small cities have annexed that county land on the east side and grown exponentially in population. What your esteemed leaders at the time wanted to do was increase their tax base. So now the “gridlock” you are seeing on north-south roads, which used to only happen in July and August (prime beach season) is prevalent all year around due to way too many people living there :=0
That’s exactly what your elected officials wanted and so that is what they got.
