1965 photo showing the proposed Foothill Freeway route (dotted line), which was never built. The Cal State Hayward campus is visible on the right. In 1959 Hayward leaders won a battle with Pleasanton to get a Cal State college campus. They also asked for a freeway to reach the campus, and in 1961 the state agreed. The state proposed a freeway from Castro Valley to Fremont, and from the San Mateo Bridge to I-580 in Castro Valley, with an interchange in the Hayward foothills. The Department of Highways (now Caltrans) began to buy properties along the route until 1971 when a group of homeowners, backed by environmental groups, sued to stop the project. A federal district judge halted further project activity until Caltrans addressed concerns relating to housing, roads through parks, and Environmental Impact Reports. The project then lay moribund during the Jerry Brown years, 1974 - 1982. In 1986, voters approved the Measure B transportation tax, which included $110 million for a scaled-down version of the Hayward project. It authorized a six-lane freeway and expressway along Foothill and Mission boulevards from Interstate 580 to Industrial Boulevard. Planners, however, later proposed a 5.3-mile-long bypass project with a different alignment, and controversy over the project reignited. The project was continuously dogged by opposition from environmentalists and other groups for decades, racking up costs. Ultimately, in the mid-2000s CalTrans and city leaders were forced to abandon even the scaled-back bypass concept. Some locals claim that the decision by Cal State Hayward to change its name around this same time was in retaliation for the promised freeway never being built. In 2010, still faced with crippling gridlock in downtown Hayward, CalTrans and city leaders reconfigured the downtown streets to accommodate the traffic volume, which by then averaged 100,000 vehicles per day. CalTrans began selling the 400+ properties along the old freeway route, in some cases back to the families who had been renting them. #hayward #ilovehayward #downtownhayward #haywardloop
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 18:52:09 +0000
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