Legislative Route 68 (California pre-1964)
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The Bayshore Freeway is a part of
U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal Roa ...
(US 101) in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. It runs along the west shore of the
San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...
, connecting San Jose with San Francisco. Within the city of San Francisco, the freeway is also known as James Lick Freeway, named after the California philanthropist. The road was originally built as a surface road, the Bayshore Highway, and later upgraded to freeway standards. Before 1964, it was mostly marked as U.S. Route 101 Bypass, with US 101 using the present State Route 82 ( El Camino Real).


Route description

The Bayshore Freeway begins at the Blossom Hill Road interchange on US 101. The freeway curves north and northwest, bypassing downtown San Jose to the east, and then curves west-northwest, crossing
I-880 Interstate 880 may refer to: *Interstate 880 (California), an auxiliary Interstate Highway that travels from San Jose to Oakland, California ** Interstate 880 (California 1964–1981), a former auxiliary Interstate Highway in Sacramento, Calif ...
and State Route 87, the latter just north of the San Jose International Airport. The portion of the highway from San Jose to
South San Francisco South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is colloquially known as "South City". The population was 66,105 at the 2020 census. ...
is relatively straight and flat, running near the west edge of the
San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...
. Junctions here include SR 237 in
Sunnyvale Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County in the U.S. state of California. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the north ...
, SR 85 in Mountain View, SR 84 in Menlo Park and Redwood City, SR 92 in San Mateo, and the
San Francisco International Airport San Francisco International Airport is an international airport in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County, south of Downtown San Francisco. It has flights to points throughout North America and is a major gateway to Europe, the Middle E ...
and I-380 in
San Bruno San Bruno (Spanish for " St. Bruno") is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, incorporated in 1914. The population was 43,908 at the 2020 United States Census. The city is between South San Francisco and Millbrae, adjacent to Sa ...
. In South San Francisco, the freeway curves northeast around
San Bruno Mountain San Bruno Mountain is horst fault block mountain located in northern San Mateo County, California; with some northern slopes crossing over into southern San Francisco, it is also surrounded by San Francisco Bay and the cities of Brisbane, Colma ...
, crossing its east edge at Sierra Point, and then heads north on a
causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet Tra ...
across the former Candlestick Cove to the San Francisco city line. Google Maps street maps and USGS topographic maps, accessed January 2008 vi
ACME Mapper
/ref> In San Francisco, where the road is also known as the ''James Lick Freeway'', it continues north-northwesterly between Bayview Park and McLaren Park, and crosses I-280 at the
Alemany Maze Alemany Maze is the name given to the interchange between the James Lick Freeway (U.S. Route 101, US 101) and the John F. Foran Freeway ( Interstate 280, I-280) in the city of San Francisco. An alternative name for this highway feature is ...
. There it curves north-northeasterly around
Bernal Heights Bernal Heights ( ) is a residential neighborhood in southeastern San Francisco, California. The prominent Bernal Heights hill overlooks the San Francisco skyline and features a microwave transmission tower. The nearby Sutro Tower can be seen from ...
and then northwest around Potrero Hill, meeting the
Central Freeway 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 ...
at the border between the Mission District and South of Market. The Bayshore Freeway ends at the intersection of US 101 and
Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one o ...
, which, although signed as Interstate 80, is not officially Interstate 80 until the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The freeway that goes from US 101 to the Bay Bridge that is signed as I-80 but not officially I-80 is called the ''San Francisco Skyway''.


History


Initial construction

Before the Dumbarton and San Mateo-Hayward Bridges were built across the
San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...
in the 1920s, San Francisco was bottled up at the north end of a long peninsula, with driving south on El Camino Real towards San Jose as the only reasonable alternative to the ferries for crossing the bay. The first of several highways built as an alternate to El Camino Real was the Skyline Boulevard, which was added to the state highway system in 1919. A second route, the Bay Shore Highway (Route 68), became a state highway in 1923, but only from the San Francisco city limits into San Mateo County, where the Dumbarton Bridge would begin. Just prior to the start of construction on the Dumbarton Bridge, San Francisco Supervisor
Richard J. Welch Richard Joseph Welch (February 13, 1869 – September 10, 1949) was an American county clerk and politician. He sat in the United States House of Representatives for 12 terms from 1926 to 1949, serving a district in San Francisco, California. B ...
noted that the Bay Shore Highway would need to be built all the way to San Jose as an escape valve for the additional traffic that the bridge would attract.Mel Scott, The San Francisco Bay Area: A Metropolis in Perspective, University of California Press, 1959, pp. 174, 183, 209-210, 215 Groundbreaking ceremonies were held in South San Francisco for the Bayshore Highway on September 11, 1924. The route used a right-of-way that was wide with a four-lane undivided highway wide. The state legislature extended the highway in 1925, defining it to run from near the intersection of Army Street (
Cesar Chavez Street Cesar Chavez Street (formerly Army Street) is an east–west street in San Francisco, California, United States. The street was renamed in 1995 in honor of American labor leader and Latino American civil rights activist, Cesar Chavez. It ...
) and San Bruno Avenue in San Francisco to a point in San Jose. The governor approved the bill with the stipulation that only the portion between the city limits of San Francisco and San Jose would be a state highway. Construction between
South San Francisco South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is colloquially known as "South City". The population was 66,105 at the 2020 census. ...
and Burlingame had begun by 1924, funded by a $500,000 contribution from San Francisco, and was completed in 1928. A disconnected segment north of San Mateo was built by the state at the same time. It was not until February 1929 that the road was fully
paved Pavement may refer to: * Pavement (architecture), an outdoor floor or superficial surface covering * Road surface, the durable surfacing of roads and walkways ** Asphalt concrete, a common form of road surface * Sidewalk or pavement, a walkway alo ...
between San Francisco and Burlingame, and on October 20, 1929 the new highway was officially dedicated to San Mateo,Lawrence Kinnaird, History of the Greater San Francisco Bay Region,
Lewis Historical Publishing Company Edward Gardner Lewis (March 4, 1869 – August 10, 1950) was an American magazine publisher, land development promoter, and political activist. He was the founder of two planned communities that are now cities: University City, Missouri, and Atasc ...
, 1966, pp. 243-245
several months after the connecting San Mateo-Hayward Bridge opened (at what is now Third Avenue). Even then, motorists had to wait until May 7, 1931 to reach Jefferson Avenue in Redwood City (near the west end of the four-year-old Dumbarton Bridge). The roadway was extended to Oregon Avenue in Palo Alto in mid-1932,
Lawrence Station Road There are 21 routes assigned to the "G" zone of the California Route Marker Program, which designates county routes in California. The "G" zone includes county highways in Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz c ...
in mid-1933, and to Lafayette Street near Santa Clara, across the Guadalupe River from San Jose, by 1934. The final piece to Oakland Road (13th Street) in San Jose, which was then the main road - Legislative Route 5 and Sign Route 17 - between San Jose and
Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
, Division of Highways
San Jose
1944
was dedicated on June 12, 1937, over ten years after the Dumbarton Bridge opened in January 1927. Although the highway was designed and built to what were, at the time, high standards, with a 100-foot (30 m) wide right-of-way in most places, it was accident-prone because it lacked a
median barrier A Jersey barrier, Jersey wall, or Jersey bump is a modular concrete or plastic barrier employed to separate lanes of traffic. It is designed to minimize vehicle damage in cases of incidental contact while still preventing vehicle crossovers resu ...
. One segment of the so-called "Bloody Bayshore" was "Boneyard Hill", a steep grade through the Visitacion Valley near the San Francisco city line, running past a bone meal plant. Causes of the crashes included turning conflicts at intersections, and speeding drivers crossing the
centerline Center line, centre line or centerline may refer to: Sports * Center line, marked in red on an ice hockey rink * Centre line (football), a set of positions on an Australian rules football field * Centerline, a line that separates the service cou ...
to use the oncoming lanes as a passing lane.Matt Bowling, Palo Alto Daily News
Then and Now: The 'Bloody Bayshore'
May 20, 2007 (Archived fro
the original
on June 21, 2008)
The roadway was entirely
at-grade At-grade may refer to: * At-grade intersection, a crossing between roads on the same level * Road junction *Level crossing, where a road or path crosses a railway on the same level * Diamond crossing, where two railway tracks cross * At-grade railwa ...
except for crossings of rail lines. It generally followed the present alignment of the Bayshore Freeway, but deviated in several places: Old Bayshore Highway in San Jose, Veterans Boulevard in Redwood City, Bayshore Highway in Burlingame, a destroyed section of road through
San Francisco International Airport San Francisco International Airport is an international airport in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County, south of Downtown San Francisco. It has flights to points throughout North America and is a major gateway to Europe, the Middle E ...
, and Airport and Bayshore Boulevards from
South San Francisco South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is colloquially known as "South City". The population was 66,105 at the 2020 census. ...
through Brisbane into San Francisco. Within that city, the new highway continued three miles (5 km) along the present Bay Shore Boulevard to Army (Cesar Chavez) Street and Potrero Avenue. United States Geological Survey
San Jose (1942)

Palo Alto (1940)

Hayward (1942)

San Mateo (1939)
, an
San Francisco (1942)
(scale 1:62500)
When the Bayshore Highway was completed in 1937,
U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal Roa ...
signs were moved to it from El Camino Real, and El Camino became U.S. Route 101 Alternate. Businesses along El Camino created the El Camino Real Association to protest the move and resulting loss of business, and by 1939 the main route had been moved back, with the Bayshore Highway becoming U.S. Route 101 Bypass. The two routes split in San Jose at the junction of First and Second Streets near Keyes Street, with the El Camino route mostly following the present SR 82 and the Bayshore route using locally maintained Second, Reed, and Fourth Streets to reach the state-maintained Bayshore Highway. In San Francisco, they rejoined at the present location of the
Alemany Maze Alemany Maze is the name given to the interchange between the James Lick Freeway (U.S. Route 101, US 101) and the John F. Foran Freeway ( Interstate 280, I-280) in the city of San Francisco. An alternative name for this highway feature is ...
, with the El Camino route following Alemany Boulevard from near the city line; from there US 101 continued north on Bay Shore Boulevard, Potrero Avenue, and 10th and Fell Streets to Van Ness Avenue, meeting the Bay Bridge approach ( US 40/ US 50) at Bryant and Harrison Streets. The Bryant/Harrison one-way pair was added to Route 68 (which already included the bridge) in 1937 and removed in 1947 along with the bridge; in 1961 the new freeway approach became part of Route 68, which was extended back over the bridge to
Route 5 Route 5, or Highway 5, may refer to routes in the following countries: International * AH5, Asian Highway 5 * European route E05 * European route E005 Argentina * National Route 5 (Argentina), National Route 5 Australia New South Wales * ...
at its Oakland landfall. Construction of an extension to Route 115 (Santa Clara Street, now SR 130) at 30th Street in San Jose began in 1939, and was completed by late 1940. As with the portion between Fourth and 13th Streets, it was not marked as a numbered route. The state legislature authorized an extension beyond San Jose back to El Camino Real near Ford Road in 1947,: "Route 68 is the Bayshore Highway from San Francisco to Route 2 near Ford Road south of San Jose." which was already under construction, and was completed that year. California Department of Transportation
Index to California Highways and Public Works
1937-1967, June 1997, pp. 104, 107, 109
This was the first segment built with interchanges, and included a
median barrier A Jersey barrier, Jersey wall, or Jersey bump is a modular concrete or plastic barrier employed to separate lanes of traffic. It is designed to minimize vehicle damage in cases of incidental contact while still preventing vehicle crossovers resu ...
. Despite this, most crossings were
at-grade At-grade may refer to: * At-grade intersection, a crossing between roads on the same level * Road junction *Level crossing, where a road or path crosses a railway on the same level * Diamond crossing, where two railway tracks cross * At-grade railwa ...
; only the two ends at Route 115 (Santa Clara Street) and regular US 101 included bridges, the former a diamond interchange and the latter a simple split with additional access to Ford Road. It also crossed over Coyote Road, though with no access, just south of the Coyote Creek bridge. The original 1947 bridge over Coyote Road remains, though widened in 1990, and is one of the oldest road-road
grade separation In civil engineering (more specifically highway engineering), grade separation is a method of aligning a junction of two or more surface transport axes at different heights (grades) so that they will not disrupt the traffic flow on other tran ...
s on the present freeway.


Reconstruction

The Bayshore Highway through San Francisco and San Mateo counties was considered complete in 1940, at the dawn of the freeway era; that year, the California Department of Public Works announced plans to convert the Bayshore Highway into a six-lane
divided Division is one of the four basic operations of arithmetic, the ways that numbers are combined to make new numbers. The other operations are addition, subtraction, and multiplication. At an elementary level the division of two natural numb ...
freeway between San Francisco and Palo Alto. It was the first freeway planned for Northern California, and the second in the state, after the Arroyo Seco project. In general, the goals of the Bayshore Freeway project were to grade-separate the freeway from surface streets and railroad tracks to accommodate projected traffic and to reduce the rate of accidents. At the time, it was anticipated that traffic along the San Francisco Peninsula would reach the capacity of both El Camino Real and the Bayshore Highway within ten years. In addition, the accident rate along the Bayshore Highway was 2.9 per million vehicle miles, compared with the state-wide average of 1.4; current traffic on the Bayshore Highway was estimated at 30,000 vehicles per day and in 1939 alone, there were 276 accidents, resulting in 19 fatalities and 235 injuries. Twenty years later in 1959, the accident rate on the new Bayshore Freeway had dropped to 0.75 per million vehicle miles, carrying 59,000 vehicles per day. The first segment rebuilt as a modern freeway was finished in 1947, stretching from Peninsula Avenue (then called Peninsular) at the San Mateo- Burlingame line to Broadway Avenue in Burlingame, including the overpass for Peninsula. Contracts in 1948 and 1949 extended the freeway north to
South San Francisco South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is colloquially known as "South City". The population was 66,105 at the 2020 census. ...
, a distance of . This segment converted the existing two-way traffic on Bayshore Highway to a single three-lane one-way road and added a new three-lane roadway running parallel to it. The new roadway, intended for northbound traffic, was constructed east of the existing alignment, separated by a wide median, permitting a future expansion to four lanes in each direction. This six-lane freeway followed the existing highway to Broadway in Burlingame, but then took a more inland alignment past the airport at Mills Field (now SFO), and crossed the old road at South San Francisco, running just east of it to near the south end of the cut at Sierra Point. The routing had been adjusted to the west to allow an additional for airport expansion. Since this segment was being constructed on predominantly marshy land, of fill was taken from the arm of
San Bruno Mountain San Bruno Mountain is horst fault block mountain located in northern San Mateo County, California; with some northern slopes crossing over into southern San Francisco, it is also surrounded by San Francisco Bay and the cities of Brisbane, Colma ...
that extended into the water as Sierra Point; the hill was essentially levelled and the remaining fill was used for airport expansion. Construction began in San Francisco in 1950 on a segment north from Augusta to 25th at a contracted cost of $6.5 million, including the cost of the right-of-way (about half the total) and grade separations over
Alemany Alemany is a Catalan surname with the meaning of German. Notable people with the surname include: * Arnau Alemany (1948–2000), Spanish painter * Ellen Alemany (born 1955), American banker * Iván Alemany (born 1967), Spanish cyclist *Jacqueline A ...
and Army. This segment opened on June 1, 1951. Also in 1951, the state legislature renamed the portion within San Francisco after James Lick, a California pioneer and philanthropist. San Francisco construction included segments to the north, opened in 1953, and the south. The connection to the upper deck of the Bay Bridge opened in June 1955. Construction in San Francisco was completed by 1958. A new causeway across Candlestick Cove connected the completed section in South San Francisco with San Francisco and opened on July 11, 1957. Planning began in 1951, when bids were taken for an experimental causeway wide extending south from Candlestick Point; rather than pumping out soft bay mud and back-filling with sand, fill dirt would be dumped directly into the Bay to see if the mud underneath could be displaced instead. This section of the Bay had water up to deep, overlying soft mud deep, which in turn was overlying harder, compacted mud. The compacted mud was deemed sufficiently strong to support the weight of the freeway, but it was hoped that excavation of the soft mud layer could be avoided by dumping fill at a sufficient rate, later calculated to be per day. The experiment was deemed a success, and the remaining of causeway was put out for bid in 1954, awarded in 1955 to Guy F. Atkinson Co. By that time, over of fill had already been placed. Meanwhile construction had progressed south from San Mateo through San Carlos, with that segment completed in 1954, and continuing on into Redwood City (Marsh Road relocation, July 1958), Menlo Park (Willow Road Interchange, 1956), and Palo Alto (June 1958). A movement to make the four-lane undivided "Bloody Bayshore" safer all the way to San Jose began in Palo Alto. As a temporary measure, the state lowered the speed limit, installed traffic signals, closed minor crossroads, and prohibited left turns in places. The community convinced the state to extend the six-lane freeway.
MPO Productions MPO may stand for: Astronomy * Mercury Planetary Orbiter, one component of the BepiColombo mission to Mercury * ''Minor Planet Circulars Orbit Supplement'', an astronomical publication from the Minor Planet Center * Minor Planet Observer, an a ...
, Freedom of the American Road, 1955
Contracts for the projects in Santa Clara County had been awarded by 1959, and the Bayshore Freeway was completed to San Jose in 1962, officially opening on February 2 of that year. The total cost of freeway conversion was , including to acquire right-of-way. The south end of the freeway was the old El Camino Real merge near Ford Road until the early 1980s, when the South Valley Freeway was built.


Exit list


See also

* *


References


External links


Bayshore Highway
- City of South San Francisco Historical Articles {{good article San Francisco Bay Area freeways U.S. Route 101 Named freeways in California Roads in Santa Clara County, California Roads in San Mateo County, California Roads in San Francisco Transportation in San Jose, California Santa Clara, California Sunnyvale, California Mountain View, California Palo Alto, California Menlo Park, California Redwood City, California San Carlos, California San Mateo, California Burlingame, California Millbrae, California San Bruno, California South San Francisco, California Brisbane, California