OAKLAND — Constructed as a highway to a bridge that was never built, Interstate 980 in Oakland served as the final segment of freeway to ensnare West Oakland and choke the neighborhood off from downtown — but now, one national urban planning nonprofit is calling for it to be removed.

The Congress for the New Urbanism on Monday released a report highlighting I-980 on its “top 10” list of urban freeways across the country that they say serve as a blight to the communities they bisect. The call echoes those of local advocacy groups, as well as the city of Oakland, which is studying the freeway’s conversion to a boulevard as part of its $2.35 million downtown specific plan. The plan will create guidelines for future development in the heart of the city.

Completed in 1985, the roughly two-mile stretch of freeway runs from its intersection with Interstate 880 near Jack London Square to its nexus with Highway 24 near the I-580 interchange, blanketing more than 40 city blocks. As in many communities across the country, the construction of urban freeways devastated West Oakland, severing neighborhoods, isolating communities and plunging the neighborhood into several decades of decline. But some social justice advocates have mixed views about whether removing the freeway now would heal the economic wounds of decades past.

The impetus for the freeway first emerged in 1927, when engineers identified a number of routes for a possible bridge connecting the East Bay to San Francisco, according to Connect Oakland, a group that formed in 2014 to advocate for the freeway’s removal. Although planners ultimately chose the current alignment, which knits West Oakland to Yerba Buena Island and San Francisco, planners began considering a second crossing almost as soon as the Bay Bridge opened.

By 1948, municipal leaders were mulling a second transbay crossing connecting Castro and Grove streets in Oakland with Army Street in San Francisco. The idea was to build a connection from the Grove-Shafter Freeway, known today as Highway 24, with a new bridge.

That bridge never materialized. But calls to construct a freeway in Oakland emerged anew in the wake of Oakland’s City Center urban renewal project, despite backlash from residents and business owners whose properties were slated for demolition. In the end, Oakland removed 503 homes, 22 businesses, four churches and 155 trees to make way for a speedier connection to downtown, according to Connect Oakland.

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Today, however, the highway is underutilized, reaching only 41.9 percent capacity at its peak, with average levels much lower, according to a UC Berkeley study of the corridor. Connect Oakland, along with the city of Oakland, proposes removing the freeway to its intersection with Grand Avenue, where traffic volumes peak at just over 27 percent of the roadway’s intended capacity.

The freeway carries no freight traffic and does little to augment the regional freeway network, the Congress for the New Urbanism said in its report. Downtown Oakland Association Executive Director Steve Snider likened the sunken freeway to a “huge moat,” disrupting the flow of foot traffic to downtown businesses.

“Anything we can do to sew back the urban fabric would be a good thing,” Snider said. “I would love to claim back valuable real estate for affordable housing or other creative reuses.”

Transforming the freeway into a boulevard could net the city 17 new acres of publicly-controlled land, creating a dozen connections between West Oakland and downtown where there are currently five. Removing the freeway would remove a barrier to Jack London Square, better connecting that neighborhood with both downtown and West Oakland, said Chris Sensenig, the founder of Connect Oakland.

“It also puts in higher-use land on either side of the freeway, because (the land) in proximity to the freeway has not been invested in over the last 50 years,” Sensenig said. “And, it also creates a new gateway into Oakland.”

Like urban planners of the past, city officials see the corridor as a possible route for a second transbay tube crossing for BART, Caltrain and high-speed rail, Sensenig said. The below-grade route could be built at the same time the freeway is converted into a boulevard, or, because that project is likely decades away, it could create a space underground for the transit lines, when and if that project comes to fruition. BART included funds in its $3.5 billion bond measure, which voters approved in November, for a possible study of a second transbay tube, an idea that has germinated in regional transportation circles for decades.

“I wouldn’t call it a long shot,” Sensenig said of the second tube. “It will happen. The question is when.”

But some social justice advocates are questioning the timing of the proposal to convert the freeway. It’s no coincidence, said Bob Allen of the social justice organization Urban Habitat, that proposals to reclaim real estate in Oakland are coming at a time when developers are eager to reap the profits of suddenly-valuable downtown parcels.

“These communities have lived with a really high degree of environmental injustice and environmental racism,” Allen said. “Now, there is a movement to tear down a freeway when there is really intense gentrification and displacement.”

At its Feb. 7 meeting, the Oakland City Council will consider a $200,000 contract with I-SEED, to create a social equity strategy for the city’s downtown specific plan, which includes a proposal to remove the freeway. The consultant will be tasked with not only identifying disparities in housing, jobs and other factors, but also creating a guide for city officials to allocate resources in ways that seek to close gaps in opportunities, rather than widen them, said Edward Manasse, a strategic planning manager with the city.

For several West Oakland residents who remember the old double-decked Cypress Freeway before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake leveled it, the idea of removing another elevated speedway in the neighborhood is a welcome one. Ellen Wyrick Parkinson fought hard to keep Caltrans from rebuilding the elevated viaduct, a successful fight that resulted in its conversion to the Mandela Parkway and greenway.

“It increased the traffic, it increased the pollution, it did a lot of things,” she said of the Cypress Freeway. “We’ve had our share of freeways, and we really don’t need more freeways coming through our community.”