November Bay Area Part 4; Richmond-San Rafael Bridge/I-580

Given that I was heading to the Marin Headlands from Mount Diablo I didn't think it would be a good idea to try to slog through downtown San Francisco and have to pay two bridge tolls. That being the case after finishing a route clinch of CA 24 I jumped on I-580 and headed to the northern end of San Francisco Bay to cross via the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge is a double deck truss bridge spanning 5.5 miles with a maximum clearance of 185 feet. The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge connects Richmond in Contra Costa County and San Rafael in Marin County. Construction on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge started in 1953 and was completed by 1956. The 1956 and 1957 state highway maps reflect the completion of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge on the northern end of San Francisco Bay.

1956 State Highway Map

1957 State Highway Map

Prior to 1959 the route leading to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge was part of unsigned Legislative Route Number 69 between US 101 and US 40. It wasn't until 1959 that California State Route 17 was extended over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to meet US 101. The change from an unsigned highway to CA 17 can be seen on the 1958 and 1959 State Highway Map City inserts.

1958 State Highway Map Insert

1959 State Highway Map Insert

By 1984 I-580 had been extended over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge replacing CA 17. The I-580 designation was one of many of what I consider to be questionable Interstate Designations in the Bay Area which replaced previous state highways with preexisting route continuity.

Currently the toll for crossing the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge is $5 dollars for two axle vehicles. After the tollbooths the official name for the structure the "John F McCarthy Memorial Bridge" can be observed.

The double decker structure of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge is pretty striking. It appears that the shoulder in theory could be utilized in the future for an additional lane if the need ever arose. The bridge is obviously exempt from Interstate Standards given there is not a shoulder on both sides of the roadway.

There is a decent overlook of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge in Marin County at San Quentin Point. Interesting to consider that one of the most infamous California State Prisons is literally within walking distance of the overlook.

Comments

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population. The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third