Western Freeway
Western Freeway
Length: About 2 Miles
Planned Routing in SF: Fell/Oak Street (Panhandle) Corridor to CA 1 at Golden
Gate Park
Proposed: 1951, 1959, 1998
Route Numbering: I-80 (1956-1968), CA 241 (1968-1972)
The Western Freeway was the most controversial of all proposed limited-access highways in San Francisco. Planned as an attempt to ease access to the Sunset and Richmond Districts, as well as to Golden Gate Park, activists successfully prevented construction from ever occuring in order to save the Park itself.
Originally proposed in 1951 as part of the grandiose Trafficways plan, the original concept for the route was to have split into a "tuning fork" loop around the Park, roughly where Fulton Street and Lincoln Way are. However, when this proved impractical, a revised 1959 plan had I-80 terminating in Golden Gate Park itself, which would be the fatal mistake of the urban planners. For Golden Gate Park was the key to the Freeway Revolt, bringing its own significance to the fight quite by accident. Other buildings stand in the way of any potential highway between Fell and Oak, though, including a DMV office and the Panhandle Park.
The fight to stop the Western Freeway is much more well documented here. By 1965, a 6-5 vote stopped any actual construction, but the route remained on the books well into the 1970s as CA 241, a number now used for the Eastern Transportation Corridor-Foothill toll road in Orange County. What's left of the Western are the (semi-infamous) Fell/Oak ramps off the Central Freeway; this is the current end point of the Central.
In 1998, the road was resurrected as a proposed tunnel through the hilliest (and densest) portion, immediately after the Fell/Oak exit off the Central; there has not been much word on the Western in recent months though.
Sources: cahighways.org, bikesummer.org, kurumi.com, personal experience.
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