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Embarcadero Freeway Removal
The Embarcadero Freeway was a double-decker viaduct built through the Embarcadero — San Francisco’s historic eastern waterfront. A product of the freeway construction spree of the Eisenhower era, it was erected in 1958 despite significant public resistance. For three decades, it funneled heavy traffic from the Bay Bridge into and around the city.
In 1986, San Francisco became engaged in debate over the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway. Opponents, who won the dispute, argued that its removal would cause gridlock . While it seemed the discussion was over and the freeway there to stay, the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 damaged the freeway, re-opening the debate. As the freeway was closed due to these damages and gridlock did not become a problem, opponents’ specious arguments against highway removal proved to have no merit (see also Induced Traffic ). So, in 1991, the Embarcadero Freeway was removed.
History
San Francisco’s Embarcadero (from the Spanish embarcar – to embark) is a waterfront region
along the scenic San Francisco Bay. It is crowned by a Beaux-Arts landmark – the Ferry Building. In the early twentieth century, the Ferry Building bustled with arriving and embarking ferry passengers – the only way one could travel across the bay to Oakland and Berkeley. The foot traffic through the Embarcadero and its plazas during this period was second only to Charing Cross Station in London. A pedestrian footbridge connected the Embarcadero to Market Street, the city’s main line [1]. Cable cars, and eventually streetcars, also offered service to the terminal.
After the completion of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, ferry ridership waned. In the 1950’s, the Ferry Building was given over to shipping offices and subjected to “insensitive remodeling” that destroyed the character of the terminal’s open nave [2].
Freeway Built
Embarcadero Freeway was built in 1958 as part of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s plan to modernize automobile transportation and create an interstate highway system. Eisenhower
believed that such corridors — high-speed, unobstructed and well-connected— were essential to national defense during an emergency. The national security argument trumped concerns about aesthetics or neighborhood character (even though San Francisco’s freeways would become notoriously gridlocked). The Embarcadero Freeway was a gloomy, two-tiered behemoth that separated the city from its own waterfront and blighted the entire area. Like most freeways, it had less charm than a penitentiary.
People railed against the concrete structure as soon as it was completed. Famed San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen called for its removal. The Embarcadero Freeway was supposed to connect the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge, but in 1959 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed Resolution 49-59, which prevented further construction over selected areas.
Other Freeway Plans Derailed
Anyone who has ever traveled to San Francisco might notice that, unlike other American cities, few freeways cut through the urban core. Motorists cannot reach the Golden Gate Bridge by freeway; they must use boulevards or side streets.
Early activists blocked plans to criss-cross the entire city with raised, 8-lane freeways. Seven of ten cross-city freeway projects were canceled, including the Western freeway that was to connect interstate 280 to the Golden Gate Bridge. Thanks to community activism, some were only partially built, such as the Central Freeway and the Embarcadero Freeway itself.
Removal Process
For decades, activists fought for the removal of the freeway and faced particularly strong opposition from Chinatown businesses, who feared they would lose customers.
It took an earthquake to set the process in motion: the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
damaged the Embarcadero Freeway and forced its closure.
Opponents argued that removal would cause a traffic nightmare. However, traffic adjusted after the freeway closure and opponents lost their only argument for repairing the structure. Moreover, it was clear that these raised structures were a hazard in seismically-active California; the world had witnessed the collapse of both the Bay Bridge and the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle noted that the freeway would still be standing were it not for the quake: “The damage caused by the earthquake made it impossible for the city to leave things the way they were. Something had to happen. And it did” [3].
The freeway was demolished in 1991, and “instead of a shoreline cloaked in concrete, San Francisco savors the glory of a wide-open waterfront” [3].
Even though public pressure alone would not have brought the freeway down, it still played a key role. In other parts of the Bay Area, similar viaducts were repaired rather than removed because there was no organized community opposition to the retrofits.
Restoring the Embarcadero
The area remained blighted for years after the freeway demolition, but revitalization plans eventually led to a 3-fold jump in property values and a swath of new mixed-use developments [4].
The city rebuilt the Embarcadero as a tree-lined boulevard that blends alternative modes of transportation, including a perfect pedestrian promenade, a bicycle corridor and a popular streetcar line that runs to tourist destinations like Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. Plaques in middle of road mark the location where freeway columns once stood.
The open layout also provides easy access to the refurbished Ferry Building, which reopened in 2003 as a center for gourmet and natural foods. After a 4-year restoration process, the
nave of the building was carefully returned close to its original form: “a classic turn-of-the-century transit hall with the dramatic industrial dimensions favored at the time” [2]. Private retail spaces, mainly selling food, fill the now-famous indoor marketplace.
A new public plaza in front of the building is the site of the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays. (Not to be confused with the permanent food vendors inside the Ferry Building).
Ferry service is expected to expand in the coming decades, as San Francisco continues to invest in alternative modes of transportation.
A new neighborhood, Rincon Hill, emerged between the Embarcadero and the south end of Market Street. Even though the top of the hill anchors the Bay Bridge, removal of the freeway made this a desirable location for development again. Further housing and retail spaces were added in the new South Beach neighborhood just south of Rincon Hill, as well as the professional ballpark, AT&T Park (formerly SBC Park, formerly Pacific Bell Park), which sits right up against the bay.
The Central Embarcadero Piers Historic District sits just north of the Ferry Building and consists of Piers 1, 1.5, 3, and 5, which are also historical landmarks for trade and transport. In 2001, the city began a project to preserve the maritime character of and enhance public access to this historic waterfront [5].
Another Freeway Down
A large section of the Central Freeway, another structure damaged in the 1989 earthquake, was finally demolished after a long battle that ended in 1999 [6]. The new surface corridor -- Octavia Boulevard -- can carry a high volume of cars, but innovative traffic calming measures create a large buffer zone along each side of the street. Thanks to numerous planted medians, pedestrians and bicyclists are sheltered from cars, and the street is easy to cross. In addition, the sidewalk is far removed from traffic, so much so that sidewalk cafes have sprung up in the area. Residential buildings are also protected from the street. This is in sharp contrast to Division Street, which sits below the remaining section of the Central Freeway:
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| Division St. with the Central Freeway above | Octavia Blvd. from the ramp where the Central Freeway now touches down |
Lessons
Freeways generate traffic; they do not relieve it. San Francisco’s Bay Bridge and freeway system have been notoriously snarled with traffic. The best traffic solution is to replace freeways with transportation alternatives, wherever possible.
Feeder streets and onramps/offramps become “traffic sewers”. Get rid of the freeway, and these streets become quiet and pleasant again.
Freeways are ugly and obstructive. They lead to “depressed land values, increases in crime and urban decay” [4]. Cities can thrive without freeways.
ALSO ON THE LIVABLE STREETS NETWORK
REFERENCES
Each source is referred to by the same number every time it is cited. Please keep citation style consistent.
[1] Embarcadero. Wikipedia.
[2] Ferry Building Marketplace. History and Renovation.
[3] 15 seconds that changed San Francisco. San Francisco Chronicle. October 17 2004.
[4] San Francisco, CA: Embarcadero Freeway. Removing Freeways, Restoring Cities. The Preservation Institute.
[5] Central Embarcadero Historic District. Wikipedia.
[6] Central Freeway. Removing Freeways, Restoring Cities. The Preservation Institute.
PICTURE REFERENCES
Pictures are cited in the order they appear above. Please keep citation style consistent.
[1] Streetfilms.
[2] The Ferry Building before freeway construction. Courtesy The Port of San Francisco.
[3] The Embarcadero Freeway. Geo Images Project. Berkeley Department of Geography. Courtesy G. Donald Bain.
[4] Embarcadero Freeway Demolition. Geo Images Project. Berkeley Department of Geography. Courtesy G. Donald Bain.
[5] The Ferry Building Marketplace. Mike Willis on Flickr.
FURTHER READING
- "San Francisco, CA: Embarcadero Freeway." The Preservation Institute.
- Siegel, Charles. Removing Urban Freeways. Planetizen. March 19, 2007.
- Design Notebook: A Waterfront Palace of Produce. The New York Times. January 23, 2003.
- The Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture
