Talk:Alemany Maze

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[edit] Importance of Article

When I used to travel in San Francisco, I always heard this maze in the traffic reports but did not have a reference to it other than the reporter saying the "Alemany Maze to 280 is" blah, blah, blah. It is on the list of requested photos for our WP:CAL project and linked to California State Route 82.

This interchange is very well known to San Franciscan residents trying to escape gridlock on the freeways leading into and out of the city and this article is probably one of the few that explains online how the name originated. Ronbo76 03:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Can it be merged onto another article? - Zepheus <ツィフィアス> 22:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Freeway interchanges like this one are often very important markers for travel, traffic reports, etc., as well as often being major bottlenecks for transportation and sources of gridlock. Most major freeway intersections in California have articles (see Category:Road interchanges in California, although most are better articles than this one (especially El Toro Y and East Los Angeles Interchange).
What are some of the things that could be added to improve the article?
  1. Photos (Flikr search?)
  2. Map
  3. Some history of the intersection
    1. Some background: community opposition, effects on the local community, etc.
  4. Gridlock mitigation efforts by CalTrans and local governments
  5. Info on any notable accidents, etc.
I don't know the area at all, so some San Francisco Bay area editors will have to help improve this article so it would survive an Articles for deletion nomination. In its current form, I doubt that the article would survive AFD.
Also: Some of the road geeks at California Highway WikiProject might be able to help.
A Google search isn't very helpful. Are there alternative names for the same interchange? Also, a search of some of the Bay area alternative weekly newspapers might be helpful (whatever is the Bay area equivalent of the LA Weekly or Village Voice). BlankVerse 03:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
The KCBS (AM) traffic reporters (and other area stations) use maze as a shortcut for all the interchanges that connect to the major freeways leading into and out of SF. There is even another shortcut listed here as the MacArthur Maze and that article describes almost exactly in the first paragraph what I am trying to discern here. They have maze shortcuts for the Coldicot Tunnel, Golden Gate bridge connectors and each of the bridges leading in the south part of the SF penisula.
This street and maze take their name from Archbishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany who was the first archbishop of San Francisco. I probably should have mentioned this in conversation above but was strapped for time earlier. There is something else about this "maze" that is historic that escapes me. I remember one traffic reporter waxing long on a report about the area but it escapes me right now. Ronbo76 04:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
FYI - The equivalent papers would probably be the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the SF Weekly. - Zepheus <ツィフィアス> 19:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Source added

If you search for Alemany Maze, you should find find three references to the Alemany Maze. In addition, if you search for Alemany, you will find an entry where it states:

  • "In 1938, the Bayshore Blvd from San Francisco to San Jose became US 101, and Alemany Bl - San Jose Ave - El Camino Real becamse(sic) US 101A. From Bayshore Blvd & Alemany, US 101 continued on Bayshore Blvd., Potrero Ave., 10th St., Fell St., Van Ness Ave., Lombard St., and Richardson Blvd. to the Golden Gate Bridge. There evidently was a lot of infighting as to whether the El Camino or Bayshore would be US 101" making it part of US 101A, a bypass hyway (around the SFO International Airport just southeast of this junction).
  • "In 1940, Alemany Blvd., San Jose Ave., and El Camino Real became US 101, while Bayshore Blvd. became Bypass US 101. The old US 101 and Bypass 101 rejoined in southern San Francisco" which means it was a bypass road until I-280 was completed.

Later down the article reads about Alemany Blvd.:

  • In 1964, I-280 was routed on the 19th Avenue corridor (the north extension of the Junipero Serra Freeway, including the current freeway stub south of Font Boulevard); Route 1 was routed on the Southern Freeway between the current Route 1/I-280 split and Route 82 was routed on the Southern Freeway on the old US 101 portion (which includes Alemany Boulevard) as well as San Jose Avenue, Mission Street (in Daly City and Colma) and El Camino Real (from Colma south) and also on the Southern Freeway between Army Street (the planned junction with Route 87) and the Alemany Maze (Southern/Bayshore junction). US 101 was moved from the El Camino/Southern routing to the Bayshore/Lick (former Bypass US 101) routing from San Jose (the current Route 82/US 101 split) to the Alemany Maze" - first references to the maze.
  • (Talking about old alignments of US 101) Bayshore Boulevard, Airport Boulevard, and South Airport Boulevard from Alemany Boulevard in San Francisco (near the Alemany Maze interchange of I-280/US 101, formerly Route 82/US 101 and before that, US 101/Bypass US 101) to San Bruno Avenue in San Bruno near the San Francisco International Airport, passing through the Bayshore district of Daly City, Brisbane, and South San Francisco. (Bayshore Boulevard between Army Street and Alemany Boulevard was mainline US 101, though it may have been US 101A when that existed on the Peninsula.)

This probably would qualify the maze as a historic California route but I am not the expert on that matter. Ronbo76 06:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


BTW, I use to drive in this area all the time. As a result of finding this source, I now know all the nicknames like the Waldo Tunnel, which is another maze, the reporters use. I sure wish I had known all this back then when I was stuck in traffic. Rationally as a thinking adult, these funnel points probably got their name because the cars like mice had to condense down lanes to get across bridges, tunnels, interchanges and off-ramps. If you ever cross the Bay Bridge at the MacArthur Maze, it looks like a classic maze. Maybe the WP:CAL ought to have another category for the SF mazes because it appears three that I know about exist. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ronbo76 (talk • contribs) 06:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] U.S. Route 101 is a historic route

If you read our Wiki article on 101, it reads:

  • Most of Historic 101 between Gilroy and San Francisco is still active, either signed as Business 101 or as State Route 82. The 101A bypass, however, is mostly discontinuous and is paralleled by the actual freeway, in some cases serving as an access road to the freeway.

Guess that answers my question about 101A being a historic route as it was part of 101. Ronbo76 07:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] San Francisco, CA - The "big maze" picture in words

Driving out of SF, CA there are five major mazes or funnel points (aka interchanges, a driver can take to leave the penisula (clockwise north to south):


  • US 101 across the Golden Gate Bridge;
  • I-80 across the Bay Bridge;
  • Hwy 92 across the San Mateo bridge;
  • Hwy 84 across the Dunbarton bridge;
  • US 101 circling south to Hwy 237 which connects with I-680 and points east.
That's Dumbarton Bridge (California), from I-880 in Fremont to U.S. Highway 101 through Menlo Park or East Palo Alto.--Hjal 05:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Each of these major mazes then has its own smaller funnel points or specific locally known maze that channels traffic. Based upon my research into this article, maze must have definition as applicable to roads (because it appears in highway lexicon).

Based upon the description supplied in the article, the Alemany Maze spoken about is the southern portion that occurs approximately one half mile south-southeast of where the 101 freeway crosses Alemany Blvd. The maze for the driver is to choose which interchange that will lead to the desired route of travel. The maze choices are 101 northbound, 280 eastbound, 280 westbound or to exit the freeway.

The other portion of the maze not referred to in this article would be the northern portion heading southbound. It occurs approximately a half mile north of Alemany Blvd (which became the reference point for the maze) and gives the driver all the options described above reversed as follows: 101 southbound, etc.

A reader can visualize the maze easily today by using either Google or Yahoo satellite hybrid maps zoomed in to see the directional arrows that show what is described above. Ronbo76 15:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maze has an official definition somewhere on Caltrans website

If you take a look at this article, Caltrans Facts/Information, under Maze and MacArthur Maze, you will find maze defined as:


  • "The I-80/580/880 Interchange at the east end of the Bay Bridge. We call it the distribution structure."


Distribution refers to the "transportation planning process" as per the linked article in this sentence and reflects the choices a traveller has in getting to a choice destination.

In essence, the term distrubution structure refers to the multiple lanes leading into the toll booths which narrow or funnel traffic onto the interchange leading over the Bay Bridge.

If seen from overhead, this distrubution structure would appear to be a simple one-way directional maze.

The word maze is found in other Caltrans documents searches for the term maze. Ronbo76 17:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Geolinks tag added

A geolinks tag was added that will open a Wikimapia satellite photo of Alemany Boulevard which is the reference point for the maze. Now, visitors to this page can see the maze in its northern, southern and western components. 101 cannot be accessed from 280 to the east where it begins as a surface street onramp. Too bad the photo was not taken during rush hour when traffic jams can exist back to the San Mateo bridge. You can literally crawl forward at speeds of 10 miles or less. Ronbo76 05:56, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] San Francisco Bay Area freeways

Not all article needs to be a seperate page, dont be strong about that. This page is overflow because it is mention on that article. you know why the yellow tag is on that page, that page is badly written.--Freewayguy (talk) 23:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merging is not the solution

Merrging all of this article to San Francisco Bay Area freeways was not a good solution to weaknesses of either page. At SFBa, it unbalanced the article, with a couple of paragraphs about Alemany Maze and a much shorter description of the more important MacArthur Maze, with a link to its main article. I prefer the way that the MacArthur part was set up before, if Alemany and the other major interchanges were handled the same way. It would keep SFBa from getting bloated and allow expansion of maze articles separately. Just having a linked list isn't bad either.--Hjal (talk) 17:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)