While I was waiting on my flight tonight I did some digging online to see what interesting California Division of Highways documents I could find. I think stumbling upon the 1965 technical report titled (Golden Gate Freeway Interstate Route 480) is worth sharing. Numerous design alternatives are presented along with a ton of other information.
https://archive.org/details/technicalreportg1965cali/page/n1/mode/1up?view=theater
It is somewhat comforting that not all of it would've been built on a double-decker bridge, like the Embarcadero Freeway was; in fact, this part was to be depressed in a trench and maybe go through a tunnel. However, the waterfront area and surrounding neighborhoods would've been disrupted one way or another, which came as no surprise that the whole thing ended up being cancelled. Still, it would've made a nice freeway route from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Thanks for this. I saw this or a similar booklet once at the Alemany Antique Market ... unfortunately someone else had just purchased it. Have never seen a scan.
(However, my memory was there were larger and more extensive drawings of the tunnels underneath Telegraph and Russian hills, as if that was the preferred alternative.)
Interesting and thanks for putting it online! The timing was wrong - if the Dept. of Highways had proposed this in the 1950s, S.F. might have said yes without a second thought. The propaganda aspects do stand out - many photos of the traffic at rush hour, rather than street scenes at quieter times of day. Still an interesting piece of history.
Quote from: Henry on June 17, 2022, 01:24:08 PM
It is somewhat comforting that not all of it would've been built on a double-decker bridge, like the Embarcadero Freeway was; in fact, this part was to be depressed in a trench and maybe go through a tunnel. However, the waterfront area and surrounding neighborhoods would've been disrupted one way or another, which came as no surprise that the whole thing ended up being cancelled. Still, it would've made a nice freeway route from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge.
If you want to get from Oakland to Marin, why wouldn't you take the San Rafael Bridge (now I-580)? Like paying extra tolls, spending longer in traffic, or just like orange? :)
Blew up our existing blog the last couple days. The new version includes all the CHPW references to both the Embarcadero Freeway/Golden Gate Freeway along the Golden Gate Freeway study linked in the OP:
https://www.gribblenation.org/2019/03/the-embarcadero-and-history-of.html
Digging through the AASHTO Database I found some references to what the Division of Highways wanted assigned to the Embarcadero/Golden Gate Freeway corridors:
- Originally the Division of Highways wanted Interstate 110. There are some strange numbers that California requested for short urban routes that don't appear to be consistent in any way with the Interstate grid.
- At some point the Division of Highways wanted Interstate 380. This ended up being changed to proposed Interstate 3 which also included what would be become Interstate 280 and the never built 19th Avenue Freeway. A lot of the early proposals for Interstate Numbers by California were intended to avoid numbering duplications.
- During November 1958 the AASHTO more or less told the California State Highway Engineer that Interstate 480 was assigned to the Embarcadero/Golden Gate freeway corridors.
(This has to be one of the most productive sick days I've had in quite some time.)