Central Freeway

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Coordinates: 37°46′12″N 122°25′15″W / 37.77, -122.42083

Central Freeway
Maintained by Caltrans
Length:	1.2 mi[1] (1.9 km)
Formed:	1959[2]
South end:	I-80 / US 101
North end:	Octavia Boulevard
State highways in California (list - pre-1964) County routes in California (list) History - Unconstructed - Deleted - Freeway - Scenic

The Central Freeway is a roughly one-mile (1.5 km) elevated freeway in San Francisco, California, United States, connecting the Bayshore/James Lick Freeway (US 101 and I-80) with the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Most of the freeway is part of US 101, which exits at Mission Street on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. The freeway once extended north to Turk Street, and was proposed to form part of a complete loop around downtown (along with the Embarcadero Freeway), but was partially damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and has been replaced with the surface-level Octavia Boulevard north of Market Street.

Contents 1 Route description 2 History 3 Exit list 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Route description

The Central Freeway begins at a directional "Y" interchange at the west end of Interstate 80 in the South of Market neighborhood, and travels west above Division Street and 13th Street. This interchange also includes access between the Bayshore Freeway, which carries US 101 to the south, and the one-way pair of 9th and 10th Streets. As it approaches the end, US 101 exits onto Mission Street to access Van Ness Avenue, which it follows north to Lombard Street and the Golden Gate Bridge. The remainder of the freeway is signed as exit 434B from US 101, and comes to the surface at Market Street and Octavia Boulevard, the latter continuing north to Oak and Fell Streets, a one-way pair west to Golden Gate Park.^[3] No traffic from Market Street is allowed to turn onto the freeway, but traffic from the freeway may turn right onto Market. The first opportunity for traffic that instead continues onto the boulevard to leave it is east on Page Street.^[4]

Beyond Fell Street, the freeway curved northeast, with the northbound (lower) side ending at a ramp to Golden Gate Avenue and Franklin Street, and the southbound (upper) level touching down to the northwest at Turk and Gough Streets. This land remains mainly undeveloped, filled mostly by parking lots.^{[3][update needed]}

[edit] History

The 1948 Transportation Plan for San Francisco, prepared by De Leuw, Cather and Company, included the Central Freeway. This elevated roadway would begin at the Bayshore Freeway - the approach to the Oakland Bay Bridge - near Division Street and head west and north around the periphery of downtown San Francisco. This portion would include junctions with the Mission Freeway (south and southwest along Mission Street to Daly City) at the southwest corner and the Panhandle Freeway (west through the Panhandle into Golden Gate Park) along the west side. After swinging northeast and back north to the east side of Van Ness Avenue, a pair of ramps would split to the east, taking downtown traffic to and from the one-way pair of Bush and Pine Streets. At Clay Street, the freeway would descend to meet the rising terrain, ending at Broadway just east of Van Ness Avenue as a depressed roadway. A short tunnel would curve northwest to a portal in Van Ness Avenue north of Broadway, taking traffic onto Van Ness Avenue towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Along with the Embarcadero and Broadway Tunnel, which were listed for rebuilding as ground-level expressways rather than the freeway (Embarcadero Freeway) that was later partially built and demolished, the Central Freeway would have provided a full traffic distributor loop around downtown.^[5]

The route was also included in the 1955 city master plan, by then extending north beyond the former Broadway terminus to the proposed Golden Gate Freeway near Lombard Street.^[6] The first piece, connecting the Bayshore Freeway with Mission Street, opened March 1, 1955^[7], at about the same time as the Bayshore. The part of the Central Freeway to the one-way pair of Golden Gate Avenue and Turk Street opened in April, 1959,^[8][9] and became part of U.S. Route 101 (and Legislative Route 2) via this one-way pair to the old route on Van Ness Avenue.^[10] In January of that year, as one of the opening events in the freeway revolts, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed Resolution 45-59, removing the remainder of the Central Freeway and most other proposed freeways from the city's highway plan.^[11] Interstate 80, which had been assigned to the Central Freeway southeast of the proposed Panhandle Freeway, was truncated by the Federal Highway Administration in August 1965 and by the state in 1968.^{[citation needed]}

The freeway created urban blight in the Hayes Valley neighborhood that it passed through. In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the northern part of the elevated roadway, and in 1992 Caltrans removed the freeway north of Fell Street. That year the Board of Supervisors banned any new freeway construction north of Market Street; a city task force recommended its replacement with a surface boulevard in 1995. Caltrans closed the double-deck freeway north of Mission Street for rebuilding in late 1996; despite predictions to the contrary, no traffic jams developed.^{[citation needed]} A fight began between residents of western San Francisco, who favored the Caltrans plan to rebuild it, and Hayes Valley locals, supported by Mayor Willie Brown. Caltrans reopened the northbound (lower) deck to Fell Street in 1997, and several initiatives were passed to remove the lower deck. The final compromise took a two-way freeway down to ground level at Market Street, where Octavia Boulevard - a widened Octavia Street on the former freeway right-of-way - would continue to Fell Street.^[12] The completed project opened on September 9, 2005, and has been seen generally as a success.^[13][8] However, the South of Market neighborhood actually got a wider freeway, closer to ground level, in the space where the double-decked road had been.^[14]

[edit] Exit list

Mile[1]	#	Destinations	Notes
0.0	433B	I-80 east – Bay Bridge, Oakland	Signed as exit 433 southbound
0.5	433C	Ninth Street - Civic Center	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
1.0		US 101 north / Mission Street – Golden Gate Bridge	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
1.0	434A	Duboce Avenue	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
1.2		Market Street	At-grade intersection; only right turns onto Market allowed
1.2	434B	Octavia Boulevard to Fell Street	Continuation beyond Market Street
Former continuation beyond Mission Street/Duboce Avenue
		Fell Street	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		Golden Gate Avenue, Franklin Street	Northbound exit and southbound entrance

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Timeline: A look back at Octavia St. and the Central Freeway
• California Highways: US 101