Road to rebirth? S.F.'s post-freeway Octavia may be a model Visitors from other cities come to see result of tearing down S.F. freeway

Urban designer Elizabeth Macdonald (left) shows Octavia Boulevard to representatives from other cities. Urban designer Elizabeth Macdonald (left) shows Octavia Boulevard to representatives from other cities. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 32 Caption Close Road to rebirth? S.F.'s post-freeway Octavia may be a model 1 / 32 Back to Gallery

On a typical weekday, thousands of drivers navigate Octavia Boulevard on their way to and from San Francisco's Central Freeway.

The thickly landscaped five blocks of Hayes Valley that conclude with a small park attracted a different group last week: 11 visitors from the eastern half of the United States who wanted to see what happens when a double-deck roadway is erased from the map.

"This boulevard is beautiful, in my opinion," said Jessica Knox of New Orleans, where there's talk of removing a 1.6-mile stretch of Interstate 10 that cuts through a largely African American neighborhood. "You can't even tell a freeway was here."

The group was organized by the Congress for the New Urbanism, a Chicago planning advocacy organization. Executive director John Norquist has made freeway removal a priority, and he saw the Bay Area as a showcase to drive home the point that turning back the clock can be beneficial.

"It helps when people see physically, with your own eyes, that you can take down a freeway and life goes on," said Norquist, who was also showing the group the Embarcadero, as well as Oakland's Mandela Parkway. "In fact, life gets better."

Octavia Boulevard opened in 2005, nearly 16 years after the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged pillars supporting the elevated concrete roadway erected in 1959. The ramps extending across Hayes Street to Gough and Franklin streets, which never reopened, were dismantled in 1992. But the connection that crossed Market Street to Oak and Fell streets remained in place until 2003, with four elections along the way to decide whether it should stay or go.

The current design

Now the freeway touches down at Market Street before shifting to a boulevard with two lanes of traffic on either side of a median filled by thick poplars. On either side, there's an additional lane for local traffic, set apart from the central lanes by elms and shrubs to buffer the adjacent blocks from the commuter slog.

The visitors from New Orleans and Syracuse, N.Y., were greeted by Elizabeth Macdonald, an associate professor at UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design. Her firm, Jacobs Macdonald: Cityworks, designed the boulevard with the city's Department of Public Works.

"One of the big issues we faced was the transition of the freeway to the city," Macdonald said. "Touching down at Market Street has some issues."

Indeed, the central lanes are jammed for much of the day and cause backups on Page and Oak streets. But visitors were more interested in the soft landscape and the new housing on parcels returned to the city when the freeway came down.

Two officials from the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Ken Rich and Robin Havens, discussed that aspect of Octavia's renaissance.

They explained how sales of the 22 parcels of leftover land are expected to generate more than $55 million - money that went to construct the boulevard and fund other transportation improvements close by. Roughly 1,000 apartments and condominiums will be created, with 50 percent reserved for lower-income families.

"The city is committed to preserving diversity here as best it can," Rich said. "The face of the community is changing."

Rarefied retail

Today's Hayes Valley is far different than in the decades when the Central Freeway loomed: A mix of races and classes with pockets of blight has evolved into a bastion of rarefied retail. When Rich said that new condominiums nearby are selling for upward of $1,000 per square foot, one guest gasped and muttered "Jesus!" under her breath.

"These are the issues being brought up to us," said Knox, president of the Historic Faubourg Treme Association in New Orleans. "We would gain back property that could be repurposed in wonderful ways. The question is whether the natives, the people now there, would be able to stay."