Eastshore Freeway

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The Eastshore Freeway

The Eastshore Freeway is a segment of Interstate Highways 80 and 580 which runs along the northeast shoreline of San Francisco Bay in northern California. It begins at the Carquinez Bridge and ends at the MacArthur Maze interchange just east of the western end of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

The Eastshore Freeway was created in the mid 1950s (construction commenced in 1954) by re-engineering the Eastshore Highway, a thoroughfare constructed in the 1930s as one of the approaches to the Bay Bridge and designated as part of U.S. Highway 40. The Eastshore Highway began in El Cerrito at an intersection with San Pablo Avenue at Hill Street between Potrero Avenue and Cutting Blvd., adjacent to the location today of the El Cerrito Del Norte station of BART. It was not a freeway in that access was at intersections with adjoining streets rather than by ramps. The Eastshore Highway ran from El Cerrito to the Bay Bridge along the same routing as today's freeway, although it was much narrower. A causeway was constructed for this purpose by filling in part of the mudflats along the bayshore. In the stretch from University to Ashby Avenues in Berkeley, this resulted in the creation of an artificial lagoon which was developed by the WPA in the late 1930s as "Aquatic Park".

The frontage road along the east side of today's Eastshore Freeway between Buchanan Street in Albany and Hearst Avenue in Berkeley retains the name "Eastshore Highway". The terminal segment of the old Eastshore Highway in El Cerrito between Potrero and San Pablo Avenues is today named "Eastshore Blvd.".

Originally, the name "Eastshore Freeway" applied also to what is today known as the "Nimitz Freeway" (I-880), thus stretching the entire length of the east shore of San Francisco Bay. Until the late 1960s, it was also designated as part of State Highway 17 together with the Nimitz.

The Eastshore Freeway has been officially re-named the "Kent D. Pursel Memorial Freeway", but is hardly recognized as such by the public. The maps of the California State Automobile Association (CSAA), for instance, still show the name "Eastshore Freeway".