Grove-Shafter College 1967

Description:
Aerial photograph showing construction of the Grove-Shafter Freeway (Highway 24) and the Rockridge BART Station (looking southerly), which extends across College Avenue, Rockridge district, Oakland, Calif. Shafter Avenue, now angled slightly eastward and re-aligned to meet Keith Avenue, is seen in the center of photograph.

Date of Document:
15-Aug-69

Document Author:
Russ Reed

Geographic Location:
College Avenue and Shafter Avenue, Oakland, Calif.

Context:
The Grove-Shafter Freeway what we now know as the combined Highway 24/I-980, was on the state s Division of Highway s drawing board beginning in the 1940s. At a public meeting convened by the state at Oakland Technical High School in December 1956, numerous possible routes for the freeway were presented. Eventually a route was chosen, one that allowed for the Bay Area Rapid Transit s (BART) proposed Concord line to be constructed along the middle of the new freeway as it passed through the Temescal and Rockridge neighborhoods, and on elevated tracks along Grove Street on the Richmond line. Hundreds of residences along the route and dozens of commercial buildings in the Grove Street, Telegraph Avenue and 55th Street, and College Avenue and Shafter Avenue business districts were demolished in Temescal and Rockridge to prepare the right-of-way for the new highway and BART. Perhaps the greatest beneficiaries of these ambitious transit projects (aside from the building trades and real estate industry) were those commuting to San Francisco from the new, post-World War II suburbs in Contra Costa County (the Caldecott Tunnel s third bore was completed in 1964) and southern Alameda County. This corresponded to the regional view held by the Division of Highways and the BART District Board that prioritized the needs of the Easy Bay s mushrooming suburban populations over those of older urban communities. The first leg of Highway 24, from the I-580 interchange to 51st Street in Temescal, opened in July 1969. The segment from 51st Street to Golden Gate Avenue in Rockridge opened in December 1969. BART s first segment to open, in September 1972, ran from the Fremont and West MacArthur stations. The West MacArthur to Richmond segment opened in January 1973. The West MacArthur to Concord segment opened in May 1973.