Report: Oakland’s I-980 is 1 of 10 worst freeways in country

A conceptual rendering of how a boulevard might look in place of the Interstate 980 path that now separates downtown Oakland from West Oakland. A conceptual rendering of how a boulevard might look in place of the Interstate 980 path that now separates downtown Oakland from West Oakland. Photo: Kenneth Garcia, Dover, Kohl & Partners Photo: Kenneth Garcia, Dover, Kohl & Partners Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Report: Oakland’s I-980 is 1 of 10 worst freeways in country 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

Oakland’s Interstate 980, which separates West Oakland and downtown, earned a dubious distinction Monday as one of 10 urban freeways a national nonprofit planning firm has targeted for tearing down.

The project as described by the Congress for the New Urbanism in a report highlighting 10 “highways without futures,” and first proposed by a citizen-led campaign, ConnectOAKLAND, would remove the freeway and establish a ground-level boulevard in its place that would free up 21 city blocks.

Demolition of the freeway has also gained the support of Oakland’s government in recent years, including Mayor Libby Schaaf, who in the report called I-980 a “cautionary tale.”

Created as part of a proposal to build another Bay Bridge, as well as a shopping mall, the stretch of interstate has actually left a “scar across our city that separates residents from opportunity,” Schaaf and others argue.

The highway and others like it were produced in a nationwide rush in the 1980s to improve traffic flow from the center of urban areas to the outskirts — one that some argue created inequality in the urban communities suddenly bisected by such roads.

The roughly two-mile stretch of road “disproportionately affected low-income communities of color in a quest to improve commutes for affluent white suburbs,” according to the report.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley