625. Route 880 is from Route 280 in San Jose to Route 80 in Oakland.
Entire route.
Entire route. From Route 980 southward, it's called the Nimitz Freeway.
Signed as an Interstate highway.
Not long ago (barely around the early '80s), this route was once Route 17.
There are signs that still say that. Some had the Route 17 marker yanked out
of them and weren't covered over!
Great America is on Montague Expressway and then westward.
It's a family amusment park with rather weird rides and is based
on an American theme.
Jack London Square, named after the adventure author, is on
Broadway and then southward to the street's end. It features the
First and Last Chance Saloon.
The Spanish stations, as "Kurumi" mentions, christened the
route as the "ochochenta". Normally, it would be correctly spelt
as "ocho ochenta". Then there are some old timers still calling
the route as Highway 17.
As you probably may now know, a section of Route 880 was a
viaduct with four lanes for each bound. And it was one heck of
a busy freeway. But in Ocober of 1989, the Loma Prieta Earthquake,
measuring 7.1 on the Richter Scale, made the higher deck collapse
over the lower deck, killing 60 people. Caltrans has then made a
scrambling effort to reconstruct the freeway, but local opposition
has halted Caltrans from doing so.
And as you probably may not know, they have already started
construction for a Route 880 extension from Route 980 to both the
Bay Bridge toll plaza and the junction of Routes 80 and 580. In
fact, the Bay Bridge extension should be opened by now.
For more information, here's something I picked up from Scott
Kozel dealing with the replacement Route 880:
I-880 is a critical interstate freeway connecting San Jose and
the East Bay Area to San Francisco, Sacramento and the Sierra Nevada.
The Cypress Freeway Viaduct was a section of I-880 that carried between
140,000 and 160,000 vehicles per day and provided for eight lanes of
mixed-flow traffic.
On October 17, 1989, the San Francisco Bay Area was hit by the
Loma Prieta Earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale. It severely
damaged the double-decked Cypress Viaduct, completely destroying the section
of the freeway between 18th and 34th streets in Oakland.
Extensive damage to the portion between 7th and 18th streets
required its removal. Since the earthquake and the removal of this
section of I-880, the remaining freeway network consists of I-980
and portions of I-580.
The 3.5 mile replacement facility will alleviate severe congestion
at the I-580/980 and I-80/580/880 (Distribution Structure) Interchanges,
as well as ease local circulation on city streets by reducing spillover of
auto and truck traffic. The project will include the reconstruction of the
I-80/West Grand Avenue Interchange and provide a more direct link to the Bay
Bridge from the Nimitz Freeway through West Grand Avenue. The project will
also provide for improvements to Amtrak facilities.
The $900 million budget of the project, consisting mainly of
federal emergency relief funds, is divided into approximately $550 million
for construction, and $350 million for right-of-way acquisition, railroad
and utility relocation, traffic management, transit enhancement, and a number
of commitments to the City of Oakland.
The selected alternative for the replacement of the I-880 Cypress
Viaduct between the I-880/980 Interchange and I-80/580/880 Distribution
Structure is the Modified Transit/Transportation Systems Management/Freeway
Alternative in the Railroad Corridor.
This alternative includes three mixed-flow lanes in each direction to
West Grand Avenue Interchange, where the alignment splits into two
connectors. The connector to the Distribution Structure, heading to Berkeley,
will consist of two mixed-flow lanes in each direction, with a High Occupancy
Vehicle lane in the westbound direction. The western connector to the Bay
Bridge will consist of two lanes in each direction.
The new freeway swings wide around the neighborhood it used to go
through. Much of the new facility is on elevated bridge structure, through
industrial areas. Construction of the western connector to the Bay Bridge
will be completed in Spring 1997, and construction to the Distribution
Structure will be completed in Spring 1998.
Now, on July 23, 1997, at 5:04 a.m., The new Cypress Freeway between
Route 980 and Route 80 was opened to traffic. Enjoy the ride!
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