Junipero Serra Freeway
Length: 1 mile (San Francisco), 52 miles (entire route)
Routing in SF: SF County Line north to 19th Avenue/Junipero Serra Boulevard
intersection (planned to follow Junipero Serra Boulevard, West Portal Avenue,
Laguna Honda Boulevard and 7th Avenue)
Construction: 1953-1959
Route Numbering: CA 1 (1953-), I-280 (1955?-1968)
The Junipero Serra Freeway's existing portion in The City is San Francisco's most overlooked and engimatic highway. Although never finished due to the 1959 Freeway Revolt, its style as the main gateway for Peninsula-Marin travel is truly ironic, especially because many of its features are unique to this highway.
Originally planned to extend northward via Junipero Serra Boulevard and through the Laguna Honda area into the proposed major CA 1/I-80 interchange, this routing never received any major protestations, but was canceled because of terrain and displacement concerns. Of what is constructed, several substandard interchanges remain.
The first interchange on the Junipero Serra Freeway in San Francisco is Alemany Boulevard. A miniature of the massive I-405/5 interchange "Y" interchange in Santa Ana, it was originally designed as a connector between US 101 (which ran on Alemany Boulevard a mile east of this interchange) and CA 1/I-280, and certainly is underpowered compared to the much larger Y south of the County Line in Daly City which splits CA 1 and I-280 now. However, strangely enough, Alemany Boulevard has a northbound ramp to the Freeway, Palmetto Avenue.
The small and aging flyover of Alemany Boulevard is complete with 1950s style "mission guardrail" and connects directly to the C/D lane for the John Daly Boulevard exit. This almost certainly (but not definitively) proves that I-280 was intended to continue northward, rather than east on the Southern Freeway (as it does now).
The second and final interchange on this stub freeway, Brotherhood Way, is a very congested cloverleaf with two ramps missing, as Brotherhood is a connector to Alemany and therefore could be considered one route. Loop ramps here have very tight radii, and stop signs, substandard even for the 1950s. The bridge over Brotherhood was unusually shaped, and does not have a very high clearance; it may be the only one of its kind left in the entire state.
From the County Line north, the entire freeway, including the interstate-standards portion between the Line and Alemany Boulevard, contains a sidewalk which connects to 19th and Junipero Serra Boulevard.
Sources: personal experience, kurumi.com, 1967 Rand McNally Texaco atlas, Cahighways.org.
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