The Embarcadero Freeway (Interstate 480, CA State Route 480)

[Lytton]

I'm quite curious about this one. It is said to be destroyed by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 and got demolished and deleted. It is replaced by The Embarcadero now, but I'm curious of old freeways, especially since it has been destroyed in the 1980s. Does anyone know what its like, and actually been on it before the earthquake occurred?

[NE2]

http://www.google.com/search?q=embarcadero%20freeway&tbm=vid

[myosh_tino]

I'm quite curious about this one. It is said to be destroyed by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 and got demolished and deleted. It is replaced by The Embarcadero now, but I'm curious of old freeways, especially since it has been destroyed in the 1980s. Does anyone know what its like, and actually been on it before the earthquake occurred?

The Embarcadero Freeway (I-480/CA-480) was torn down after being significantly damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.  The quake also claimed the double-deck portion of the Central Freeway (US 101) and the double-decked Cypress Structure (I-880) in Oakland.

The Embarcadero (the surface-level street) ran underneath the double-deck freeway so it technically wasn't a replacement for it however, the city of San Francisco and Caltrans worked together to improve and widen the Embarcadero once the freeway was torn down.

IMO, I'm glad the Embarcadero Freeway was torn down.  It was only 4-lanes wide (2 in each direction) and it effectively "walled" off the San Francisco waterfront.

[FreewayDan]

There are some videos on YouTube that show the former Embarcadero Freeway:

(1980)

(1982)

(1984)

[kkt]

I was a passenger being driven on it a bunch of times.  It was an unattractive road to be on, no to minimal shoulders and poor sight lines.  Views of the scenery were nice, especially from the upper deck, but because of the poor sight lines along the highway the driver at least couldn't enjoy them much.  Where it went around buildings it was so close it seemed like you could reach out and touch them from the catwalk.  The waterfront did become much more pleasant now that it's gone.

[Lytton]

There are some videos on YouTube that show the former Embarcadero Freeway:

(1980)

(1982)

(1984)

What the heck? I thought color cameras were rarely used in 1980. I thought it only became more common in the mid 80s. Besides, what kind of camera is that anyway?

[agentsteel53]

What the heck? I thought color cameras were rarely used in 1980. I thought it only became more common in the mid 80s. Besides, what kind of camera is that anyway?

they've been around a while.  see: Zapruder Film.

[mgk920]

What the heck? I thought color cameras were rarely used in 1980. I thought it only became more common in the mid 80s. Besides, what kind of camera is that anyway?

they've been around a while.  see: Zapruder Film.

See:

'Kodachrome'



Mike

[kkt]

What the heck? I thought color cameras were rarely used in 1980. I thought it only became more common in the mid 80s. Besides, what kind of camera is that anyway?

Dude.  Where to start?  Color film in movies goes back farther than talkies. Even a fair number of home movies by the 1950s were in color, it just cost a bit more to buy the film and have it processed.

By the 1980s, TV news crews were using luggable videocameras routinely, so no more film for them.  For a 1980s shot of the freeway, it could have gone either digital or film.

[vdeane]

Remember the ruby slippers in the Wizard of Oz?  Those were supposed to be silver... but they wanted to show off the (then new) technicolor technology!

[TheStranger]

All that Embarcadero Freeway footage makes me wonder if there was any for the Central Freeway north of Market Street, too.  I have traversed the now-demolished northbound segment from Market to Fell, but have no memories of the northernmost portion to Franklin and Turk.

[bugo]

I wish they hadn't torn it down.  I love freeways, especially interesting urban freeways.

[SimMoonXP]

I have a couple of old maps of Embarcadero Freeway/Skyway.

1965 (shown I-480 (interstate status), called Embarcadero Freeway


1967 (shown I-480 (state freeway status), called Embarcadero Skyway


Enjoy the big noticeable differents!

[Max Rockatansky]

Figured it was time to bring this topic back.

Recently on my second of two Bay Area trips I spent some time tracking down the rough alignment of the Embarcadero Freeway and drove the Embarcadero itself on my way to Hyde Street Pier.  I thought it was interesting to track some of the older maps of San Francisco and seeing the sea wall which the Embarcadero was built upon come into modern shape.  I find it interesting how many similarities the Embarcadero/Embarcadero Freeway and Alaskan Way/Alaskan Way really had in retrospect. 

https://www.gribblenation.org/2019/03/the-embarcadero-and-history-of.html

[TheStranger]

One interesting vestige of 480 is the segment of US 101 between Route 1 and Marina Boulevard, through the Presidio.  The original segment there built in 1937, Doyle Drive, was the main approach road to the Golden Gate Bridge from the Marina district and was planned as early as the 1947 Interstate proposals as part of I-480 (with various concepts on how to connect the Embarcadero Freeway segment west to Doyle, including an underwater tunnel!).

When the 1964 renumbering occurred, the Doyle Drive segment of US 101/LRN 2 became legislatively part of Route 480!  Even after 480 was downgraded from Interstate to state route ca. 1968, Doyle remained legislatively as 480, as well as the east-west part of 101 through surface streets (Richardson Avenue and Lombard Street).

Only in 1991 when 480 was completely removed from the books, was Doyle/Richardson/Lombard officially readded to the legislatively definition of 101, even though all of that had remained continuously signed as such since 1937!!

The most ironic part then is that when Doyle Drive was then replaced ca. 2013-2015 with the modern Presidio Parkway freeway (which also reconfigured the mainline to link directly to Richardson/US 101 rather than into Marina Boulevard, a movement that was to have been incorporated into 480), this now means the newest limited-access road within San Francisco's borders is actually a one-time segment of 480!

[Max Rockatansky]

What fascinates me is looking at the original projected route of LRN 224 was that it looked like was planned to go straight through Telegraph Hiill and Russian Hill.  I can only assume some nutty giant tunnel or gargantuan cut was what the Division of Highways had in mind. 

[GaryA]

I only drove the Embarcadero Freeway a couple of times, but it always struck me as not much more than a long offramp -- overbuilt for what it was at the time, and I realize now was it way underbuilt if it had ever become part of a connection to the Golden Gate bridge.

[skluth]

I only drove the Embarcadero Freeway a couple of times, but it always struck me as not much more than a long offramp -- overbuilt for what it was at the time, and I realize now was it way underbuilt if it had ever become part of a connection to the Golden Gate bridge.

I remember seeing it back in the mid-70's, but I was only walking in SF (took BART from my aunt's home in the East Bay) so I was never on it. It was ugly and disliked. I believe you are correct in that it would have needed expansion had it connected to the Golden Gate Bridge. But since they never connected it, the cost-benefit analysis favors it not being there.

[ClassicHasClass]

There's a nice clip of it in Koyaanitsqatsi. Pretty sure there's a CA 480 shield in it too.

[sparker]

The Embarcadero Freeway was one of the "fugliest" pieces of roadway in S.F. -- and probably the entire state -- but during its 32-year tenure, even its truncated self was quite useful for those of us living elsewhere in the metro but seeking to head to S.F. for an "evening out on the town".  It deposited one at the corner of Broadway and Battery -- a block and a half from my historic (and still present) dining destination of Hunan Restaurant on Sansome, a half-block north of Broadway.   At the time myself and my friends were making weekend trips into the city (most of the '80's), it was actually easy to find a street parking spot in that part of town; leave the car (but take your valuables!), have dinner, and bar-hop through North Beach, invariably ending up down at the Pier 23 jazz club  -- all within a few 3-wood shots of that butt-ugly freeway stub.  But after it fell down, none of us actually missed it that much -- just took an extra 5-10 minutes from the Skyway to our destination area -- no big whoop!  And I'll be the first to acknowledge that the city did a bang-up job with the former dingy under-the-freeway Embarcadero area; deploying rail transit along the Embarcadero was the best idea anyone in city transit had come up with in decades!  Don't get up there as often as I used to -- but it still can't be beat for a special-circumstance trip.     

[bing101]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RpG2pPwaxE

[Max Rockatansky]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RpG2pPwaxE

Damn that's a throwback. 

[Northcoast707]

Hi Lytton:  I hope this helps: the initial construction of the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco began in mid 1955 from the Bay Bridge - San Francisco Skyway (I-80, then US 40 & 50) just past 4th St. to about 1st St. It then was extended to above Beale St., with on/off ramps at Mission St. between Beale & Main Sts., opening in January, 1957.  Construction of the main portion along the Embarcadero was delayed for several months during 1956, but picked up again in early 1957, with construction commencing at both ends (above Beale St. and from Broadway @ Sansome Sts.). The main building of the structure above the Embarcadero went on through 1957 to early 1959, and the entire structure was completed in Apr., 1959.  Later, in 1965, an on/off ramp was added to it connecting to Front St. @ Clay & Washington Sts. - this opened in Aug., 1965.  (I can still hear the sound of the pile drivers of '57 in my head!)

[hotdogPi]

Unfortunately, Lytton last logged in in 2015.