Construction
The double-decked viaduct was initially designed in 1949 by the City of Oakland as a way to ease traffic on local streets leading to the Bay Bridge, such as Cypress Street (which was California State Route 17 at the time).
The southernmost portion of the Cypress Street viaduct, which was designed as a central offramp structure exiting at Market Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets to the Eighth Street/Seventh Street on/off ramps, was the first phase of the overall project completed in October, 1955 by contractors Frederickson and Watson at a cost of $1.7 million. Construction on the second phase of the project, the double-decked viaduct portion (which started from Adeline Street in the south to the Bay Bridge Distribution Structure in the north), began in February, 1956 by contractors Grove, Wilson, Shepard and Kruge at a cost of $8.3 million, bringing the total cost of the viaduct project to $10 million. It was touted as the first double-decked viaduct when it officially opened to traffic on June 11, 1957.
Read more about this topic: Cypress Street Viaduct
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—Gus Van Sant, U.S. screenwriter and director, and Dan Yost. Bob Hughes (Matt Dillon)
“The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)