Editing Central Freeway (section)

===Plans and original freeway===
[[File:1948 San Francisco trafficways plan.jpg|thumb|Map from the 1948 Transportation Plan for San Francisco (downtown at the bottom)]]
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]]&nbsp;– the approach to the [[San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge]]&nbsp;– 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, California|Daly City]]) at the southwest corner and the Panhandle Freeway (west through the [[Panhandle (San Francisco)|Panhandle]] into [[Golden Gate Park]]) along the west side. After swinging northeast and back north to the east side of [[Van Ness Avenue]] (continuing as a double-decked structure between Van  Ness Ave. and [[Polk Street]]), 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 (San Francisco)|Broadway]] just east of Van Ness Avenue as a single level [[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 (San Francisco)|Embarcadero]] and [[Broadway Tunnel (San Francisco)|Broadway Tunnel]], which were listed for rebuilding as ground-level [[Limited-access road|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.<ref>{{cite book | author=De Leuw, Cather and Company | title=A Report to the City Planning Commission on a Transportation Plan for San Francisco | year=1948 | oclc=7431642}}</ref>

[[File:Central Freeway map.png|thumb|Map of the Central Freeway (red and purple)]]

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 (San Francisco)|Lombard Street]].<ref>Transportation Section of the Master Plan of the City and County of San Francisco, 1955, OCLC 51930208 ([http://www.cahighways.org/maps-sf-fwy.html map with route numbers added])</ref> The first piece, connecting the [[Bayshore Freeway]] with [[Mission Street]], opened March 1, 1955,<ref>California Highway and Public Works, March–April, 1955</ref> 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,<ref name=success>John King, [[San Francisco Chronicle]], [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/03/BAG4VNBUJM1.DTL An urban success story: Octavia Boulevard an asset to post-Central Freeway area], January 3, 2007</ref><ref>California Highways and Public Works, March–April, 1960</ref> and became part of [[U.S. Route 101 in California|U.S. Route 101]] (and [[Legislative Route 2 (California pre-1964)|Legislative Route 2]]) via this one-way pair to the old route on Van Ness Avenue.<ref>[[California Highway Transportation Agency]], [http://www.cahighways.org/maps/1963sf.jpg map of San Francisco], 1963</ref> 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.<ref>Tillo E. Kuhn, Public Enterprise Economics and Transport Problems, [[University of California Press]], 1962, p. 200</ref> [[Interstate 80 in California|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|date=November 2007}}

There was a plan promulgated in February 1962 to relieve traffic congestion on the [[Golden Gate Bridge]] by constructing a "San Francisco-Tiburon Bridge" from Van Ness Ave. at [[Aquatic Park Historic District|Aquatic Park]] in San Francisco north across the [[Golden Gate Strait]] to [[Tiburon, California|Tiburon]] to connect with the [[U.S. Route 101 in California#San Francisco Bay Area|Redwood Highway]], which would have been anchored on [[Angel Island (California)|Angel Island]].  Had this bridge actually been constructed, it would have probably been eventually necessary to construct the proposed northern section of the Central Freeway from Turk Street north to Aquatic Park in order to adequately funnel traffic to it.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20061108162631/http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/news_events/bridge/up012.html Proposed Tiburon Bridge:]</ref>

[[File:Octavia-Blvd-San-Francisco-rr.png|thumb|left]]