The Embarcadero Freeway

[Voyager]

Post more if you have them.

[agentsteel53]

I've seen a photo with an I-480 shield but I can't remember where it is.  Anyone got it?

[Alex]

The entire length of the Embarcadero was filmed for the 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi. There was a site with screen captures (which is not defunct) that showed a California 480 sign.

The footage of from the movie is found here without the original Philip Glass soundtrack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TIjoedyjcI

A map I recreated of an original publication showing the outlandish alternatives that were once considered for Interstate 480:



When I was first in California in 1991, I spent a month in the Bay Area. One of our drives in San Francisco took me under the closed but not demolished Embarcardero. I remember looking up at the structure and seeing a California 480 shield. It was, to quote ComputerGuy, creepy to see the unused freeway lurking above...

[SimMoonXP]

Wow, all of images are really cool but never been in that freeway in my life before...My first time been in SF was in July 1998 as old I-480 bridges are gone as plain new Embarcero Roadway, that all.

[njroadhorse]

It was a genius idea for SF, idk why they scrapped it 

[Voyager]

I hope you're kidding...It was the ugliest freeway ever built.

[mrivera1]

I believe that it was a good idea, just poor execution.  A viaduct such as that one was not appropriate for the area.

[rebel049]

Has anyone checked the archived aerial images in Google Earth 5 yet to see if the Embarcadero Freeway is shown? I've downloaded it, but have not yet had a chance to check it out. Will be looking at many historical aerial shots tonigtt after work

[Chris]

1987:

[Hellfighter]

I noticed they have a portion of it in GTA: San Andreas

[John]

What is that weird building between Mission and Howard with the ramps going into it. It can't be the Transbay Terminal.

[Voyager]

It is.

[njroadhorse]

I believe that it was a good idea, just poor execution.  A viaduct such as that one was not appropriate for the area.

exactly what I meant.  SF needed a freeway there, however it could have come in the form of large tunnelled sections

[Voyager]

Exactly, the Embarcadero now is a beautiful area to be with how landscaped and beautiful it is, but if they had done the freeway right, then the traffic problems would probably have been halved, and they still could have had their beautiful waterfront there.

[sandiaman]

I  grew  up  in San Francisco and remember the  480 as an exciting freeway ,with great views and  hair raising turns at  the begining and end.  My dad  was a fast driver, and I think he  secretly  liked driving it as much as I    did.  Too bad  SF  turned into such a woosie  city.

[Riverside Frwy]

Hmmm....judging from the map, Caltrans should've did what the Aussies did and made the entire thing underground, though it would've been expensive as hell though.

[Bickendan]

Especially in Earthquake Central.

[TheStranger]

Especially in Earthquake Central.

Of course, the Transbay Tube did much better than the Bay Bridge (and the Cypress Freeway) during Loma Prieta...

Honestly, considering SF traffic patterns, I don't know if the Embarcadero was the most important cancelled corridor (though certainly the surface streets there get plenty busy with tourist traffic now) - the lack of a north-south connection from the Presidio/Golden Gate Bridge to the north-south 101 and 280 freeways is much more pressing, though probably unlikely to be addressed in our lifetimes.

(Makes it more amazing how hard IIRC Caltrans fought for the I-80 western extension through the Panhandle, the most controversial of the proposed routes, but which really wasn't anywhere as essential.)

[Bickendan]

I think the Embarcadero was a bit more important than it appears to be, though, given the long term plans to link it to the Golden Gate Bridge -- making it the round about north-south connection.

[TheStranger]

I think the Embarcadero was a bit more important than it appears to be, though, given the long term plans to link it to the Golden Gate Bridge -- making it the round about north-south connection.

Considering that Chinatown was the one neighborhood that objected to the removal of 480, I've always been under the impression that its main purpose - even had it been completed - would be to enable easier access to the Marina District, Financial District and Fisherman's Wharf commercial/shopping/tourist areas from the bridges/freeways.  Plus there's no room to widen the James Lick Skyway portion of I-80 from US 101 to the bridge, it's already significantly overloaded as is with just the traffic to and from Oakland.  (On a commuter level, the only benefit I see would be for those in Southern Marin County to travel across to the East Bay, and vice versa.)

The only freeway in the SF city limits that is slightly over capacity (and only at times) is I-280 east of US 101 to Pac Bell Park, as all three of its proposed connections (the unbuilt Southern Crossing at Army Street, the long north extension of Route 87 from San Jose to Army Street, and the connection to I-80) never came to being.  Considering the through north-south corridors (1/pre-1968 280, 101) that remain on city streets to this day, the Southern Freeway segment of 280 really seems almost out of place, a vestige of 101's routing down El Camino Real and two longer, unbuilt projects mentioned in the previous sentence.

280 was originally intended to be a complete bypass of most Peninsula communities and of downtown San Francisco - but interestingly, NOT a bypass of Downtown San Jose.  In any case, like today's I-140 in Wilmington, NC, 280 was to serve as a bypass for a US route (101) and not that of its parent (80, which was slated to end AT 280 in Golden Gate Park, had the Western Freeway been constructed).  (Now, had the 1947 submission of US 101 north of the Presidio to today's Route 37, and Route 37 east to Vallejo to the Interstate system been accepted...280 and 680 would have formed a complete beltway of the region!)  Makes me wonder how much Marin-Silicon Valley traffic has been forced into the overcrowded 580/880 (former Route 17) corridor in the decades since the cancellation of the original 280 routing...

I remember asking a teacher from my high school days about the unbuilt 280 through the Sunset and Richmond and he mentioned how local schools opposed the project on the grounds that their facilities would be demolished if the northern segment of the Junipero Serra came into existence.  I'm not sure if the Central Freeway had anywhere as much opposition as that, the Western, or the Embarcadero, though by the 1990s its truncation from Turk/Golden Gate to the current Market Street terminus was a contentious issue for some time, before the current single-decker ramps to Octavia were completed. 

Considering that 101 from Los Angeles all the way to Route 37 was submitted (but rejected) in the earliest interstate plans of 1947, I can only speculate as to whether that could have fasttracked closing the freeway gap from Turk/Golden Gate northwest to Richardson/Lombard, a moot point now.

[shoptb1]

It was a genius idea for SF, idk why they scrapped it 

I'm a huge freeway supporter, but I am really glad that SF got rid of that piece of crap freeway.  The Embarcadero is a beautiful section of the city that needs to be showcased, not hidden by an ugly monstrosity of a freeway.  I will agree that perhaps the city went overboard with their scrapping of some of the proposed freeway connections, but this is not an example of that IMHO.

[TheStranger]

What CalTrans should do is extend I-280 via tunnel under the Embarcadero. It would have exits at 3rd Street, Harrison Street, and Market Street, then it would tunnel under Washington Street and emerge onto Columbus Avenue.

Honestly, I'd love to see that (and provide a more direct route to the Bay Bridge)...I don't know if this state will ever have enough money, and if SF will ever warm up to the idea of IMPROVING road access to the city (something that they tend to be against).  A Southern Crossing - as proposed decades ago - probably would make the best use of the existing Southern Freeway east of 101.

I'm a huge freeway supporter, but I am really glad that SF got rid of that piece of crap freeway.  The Embarcadero is a beautiful section of the city that needs to be showcased, not hidden by an ugly monstrosity of a freeway.  I will agree that perhaps the city went overboard with their scrapping of some of the proposed freeway connections, but this is not an example of that IMHO.

Think of the money wasted on building (then tearing down) the Embarcadero instead of completing just one north-south link!  I forgot where I read it - somewhere, someone suggested the hypothesis that Toronto's lack of through routes comes from officials trying too hard to get everything they wanted, and I sense that happened in SF as well, especially with what in retrospect appears to be the extremely pointless Western Freeway I-80 proposal.

Now, had the 480 tube proposals been accepted - who knows how this all would have played out?  I even think I've seen a map where the 101/Central Freeway connection to 480 would have been underground as well...maybe we don't see the revolts as they were in the 1960s, but the structures' survival in Loma Prieta would be harder to assess.

I will say that there are some minor things that can be done to alleviate some of the arterial loads, i.e. having Route 1 traffic take Junipero Serra instead of 19th for a mile or two.  I like using Franklin Street (northbound only) as an alternative to the official US 101 routing (Van Ness Avenue) to get through the Western Addition area, but Franklin has steeper grades that are not recommended for trucks.