News:

The AARoads Wiki is live! Come check it out!

Main Menu

Interstate 380

Started by Max Rockatansky, February 11, 2019, 10:59:57 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Max Rockatansky

Time to start spinning off these recent photos into blog posts...

The first Bay Area Highway I tackled this weekend was I-380 in an absolute downpour.  I-380 was first conceived as a State Highway in the 1940s known as LRN 229 and was renumbered to LRN 186 during the 1964 Highway Renumbering.  The corridor became part of the Interstate system in the late 1960s but the route was never built to full scale west of I-280 to CA 1 in Pacifica.  Interestingly I-380 keeps coming up in recent highway proposals for a new bridge over San Francisco Bay. 

https://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2019/02/interstate-380.html

Edit:  Might as well throw the photo album as well:

https://flic.kr/s/aHskNqTWdX


skluth

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 11, 2019, 10:59:57 PM
Time to start spinning off these recent photos into blog posts...

The first Bay Area Highway I tackled this weekend was I-380 in an absolute downpour.  I-380 was first conceived as a State Highway in the 1940s known as LRN 229 and was renumbered to LRN 186 during the 1964 Highway Renumbering.  The corridor became part of the Interstate system in the late 1960s but the route was never built to full scale west of I-280 to CA 1 in Pacifica.  Interestingly I-380 keeps coming up in recent highway proposals for a new bridge over San Francisco Bay. 

https://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2019/02/interstate-380.html

Edit:  Might as well throw the photo album as well:

https://flic.kr/s/aHskNqTWdX

It's cool that you can see there once were plans to complete the I-380 west of I-280 by looking at the never-used bridges at the interchange. Maybe they can get a new cross-bay bridge by adding a BART connector down the center.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: skluth on February 12, 2019, 03:33:49 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 11, 2019, 10:59:57 PM
Time to start spinning off these recent photos into blog posts...

The first Bay Area Highway I tackled this weekend was I-380 in an absolute downpour.  I-380 was first conceived as a State Highway in the 1940s known as LRN 229 and was renumbered to LRN 186 during the 1964 Highway Renumbering.  The corridor became part of the Interstate system in the late 1960s but the route was never built to full scale west of I-280 to CA 1 in Pacifica.  Interestingly I-380 keeps coming up in recent highway proposals for a new bridge over San Francisco Bay. 

https://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2019/02/interstate-380.html

Edit:  Might as well throw the photo album as well:

https://flic.kr/s/aHskNqTWdX

It's cool that you can see there once were plans to complete the I-380 west of I-280 by looking at the never-used bridges at the interchange. Maybe they can get a new cross-bay bridge by adding a BART connector down the center.

I'll try to get a couple pictures of the unused interchange this coming weekend but it wasn't in the cards with all that damn rain.  I find a lot of irony in that I-380 as some slim chance at a future extension but in the opposite direction.

The Ghostbuster

I doubt that Interstate 380 will be extended in either direction anytime soon, if ever. I personally think any new bridge across the Bay will be shot down by protests, NIMBYs, and funding issues.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: The Ghostbuster on February 13, 2019, 02:44:07 PM
I doubt that Interstate 380 will be extended in either direction anytime soon, if ever. I personally think any new bridge across the Bay will be shot down by protests, NIMBYs, and funding issues.

The good news is at minimum the western approach to a bridge structure is up against airport property.  But to your point I agree it likely will never happen. Infrasture in general for California has essentially been a no-go since the 1970s when the Pacifica extension was cancelled.

Bobby5280

I think California's economy will have to take a beating and the state will have to undergo a significant population exodus before the obstructionist attitudes on new bridges and highways will change.

Even though the state pioneered some of the modern, high end methods of highway building a bunch of its roads look like hell, such as the 101 near I-380 and SF Int'l Airport. California has some of the most trashy looking, deteriorated freeway signs in the nation. If they can't bother to clean up the appearance of what they have it's clear they don't want to build anything new unless they're forced into it.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: Bobby5280 on February 14, 2019, 10:37:33 AM
I think California's economy will have to take a beating and the state will have to undergo a significant population exodus before the obstructionist attitudes on new bridges and highways will change.

Even though the state pioneered some of the modern, high end methods of highway building a bunch of its roads look like hell, such as the 101 near I-380 and SF Int'l Airport. California has some of the most trashy looking, deteriorated freeway signs in the nation. If they can't bother to clean up the appearance of what they have it's clear they don't want to build anything new unless they're forced into it.

For good or bad mass transit is in vogue big time over Roads the last couple decades here in California.  That said the High Speed Rail even got a recently announced roll back.  How that will impact other infrastructure is unknown but I suspect that it likely doesn't bode well.  At minimum the SB1 road improvement funds weren't repealed which is sign for optimism.  Oddly I didn't see a ton of District 4 SB1 construction zones in the Bay Area when I visiting. 

sparker

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 14, 2019, 10:55:35 AM
Quote from: Bobby5280 on February 14, 2019, 10:37:33 AM
I think California's economy will have to take a beating and the state will have to undergo a significant population exodus before the obstructionist attitudes on new bridges and highways will change.

Even though the state pioneered some of the modern, high end methods of highway building a bunch of its roads look like hell, such as the 101 near I-380 and SF Int'l Airport. California has some of the most trashy looking, deteriorated freeway signs in the nation. If they can't bother to clean up the appearance of what they have it's clear they don't want to build anything new unless they're forced into it.

For good or bad mass transit is in vogue big time over Roads the last couple decades here in California.  That said the High Speed Rail even got a recently announced roll back.  How that will impact other infrastructure is unknown but I suspect that it likely doesn't bode well.  At minimum the SB1 road improvement funds weren't repealed which is sign for optimism.  Oddly I didn't see a ton of District 4 SB1 construction zones in the Bay Area when I visiting. 

That's because there aren't that many active projects here; there are some SB1 signs on I-880 heading north through Fremont and extending up toward San Leandro, where some projects (including lengthy segments of continuous median-based freeway lighting, normally not a Caltrans idiom) are just finishing up in that freeway's widening (mostly with slip lanes) effort.  But over New Years' when I was visiting SoCal, I noticed quite a few SB1-signed projects; the most prominent of which was a revamping of US 101 ramps (and a couple of new interchanges) as well as repaving from Camp Roberts south to Paso Robles (this in District 5).  So they're out there; it's just a matter of chance -- and routing -- whether one runs across them or not.   

Bobby5280

#8
Quote from: Max RockatanskyFor good or bad mass transit is in vogue big time over Roads the last couple decades here in California.  That said the High Speed Rail even got a recently announced roll back.  How that will impact other infrastructure is unknown but I suspect that it likely doesn't bode well.

There's nothing cheap about mass transit either. Mass transit rail is extremely costly, even if much of it is built at-grade with few elevated structures or buried/tunneled segments. For all the people who promote mass transit rail as some kind of miracle for urban life style I can't help but wonder if these same people spend any significant time at all commuting by rail. I did it for 5 years in New York City (commuting by bus, ferry and subway) and the experience was not all fabulous. Commuting via mass transit had lots of drawbacks.

Riding the subway isn't ultimately much different than riding the bus. And there's nothing romantic about riding the bus. A subway or light rail train is just a bigger vehicle carrying even more people. You're all packed into the same space, breathing the same air. Not everybody has the same standards in personal hygiene or manners. These issues are what makes taking a cab, using a car service or even driving your own vehicle into work far more attractive. You're in your own space with some sense of privacy and you're not having to breathe someone else's farts. While mass transit development may be in vogue in California I guarantee most people there still prefer driving their cars and prefer the sense of independence it gives them.

Here in Lawton all we can afford to have is a modest bus system. It doesn't run 24 hours a day either. Its business model is getting more and more eroded by Ãœber and Lyft. The nice thing about those car services is they run from your door step to your destination. You're not going to be freezing your butt off having to wait around at a bus stop. And you're not walking significant distances to & from a bus stop, exposed to the weather while hoofing it.

bing101

Quote from: Bobby5280 on February 14, 2019, 10:37:33 AM
I think California's economy will have to take a beating and the state will have to undergo a significant population exodus before the obstructionist attitudes on new bridges and highways will change.

Even though the state pioneered some of the modern, high end methods of highway building a bunch of its roads look like hell, such as the 101 near I-380 and SF Int'l Airport. California has some of the most trashy looking, deteriorated freeway signs in the nation. If they can't bother to clean up the appearance of what they have it's clear they don't want to build anything new unless they're forced into it.

At this point other parts of California was in the process of changing their freeway signs in some areas though it depends on which district you are in.



Opinions expressed here on belong solely to the poster and do not represent or reflect the opinions or beliefs of AARoads, its creators and/or associates.