It well may be that Interstate 980 should stay the way it is, a partly submerged and relatively little-used freeway that cuts through central Oakland.

The vision of community advocates that the asphalt moat could be replaced by a landscaped boulevard connecting downtown to residential West Oakland — lined with a diverse mix of housing, perhaps with BART underneath — might be a naive mirage.

But the only way to find out is to conduct a serious study. And not in isolation, but as part of a larger regional focus on two simple questions: How will those of us living and working in the Bay Area get from point A to point B in the decades to come? And how do we thread new pathways, or rethink old ones, through places where the ways people live and work continue to evolve?

I’m more than ever convinced of this after sorting through the e-mail sent my way in response to last week’s piece on the merits of exploring what I called “addition by subtraction” — doing away with the 40-year-old stretch of freeway between Interstates 880 and 580, with the traffic instead navigating a new grid of city streets. This is the cause of a small group of planning advocates called Connect Oakland, and they’ve caught the interest of Mayor Libby Schaaf and her administration.

The idea takes cues from San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, where the Central Freeway was rolled back after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the neighborhood has blossomed. Then there’s the local twist: I-980 was created expressly to connect to a second Bay Bridge. Which never got built. So perhaps this route could serve as the approach to a second BART tunnel instead.

For many readers, though, it’s madness to even think about scuttling one of the few Bay Area freeways that doesn’t seem to be in a state of perpetual gridlock.

“The Bay Area still suffers from congested roadways,” wrote Joe Pereira of Newark. “These people do not realize that time on the roads equals congestion, smog and lost time with families.”

The flip side is, why stop there?

Back to Gallery Time to rethink I-980, spur that cuts through heart of... 3 1 of 3 Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle 2 of 3 Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle 3 of 3 Photo: Connect Oakland, Dover, Kohl & Partners





“I want to see the entire 280 freeway in San Francisco converted to a grand boulevard as well,” was the call from Dan Weaver of San Francisco. “The freeway driving mentality does not fit urban life. The raw concrete of a freeway cutting through our neighborhoods denigrates them.”

On a quite different track, Richmond’s Christopher Flynn pointed out that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission studied the idea of an additional east-west bridge in the early 2000s at the behest of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Back then it was estimated that such a connection between Hayward and San Bruno would have a price tag of at least $8 billion, Flynn concedes, but costs “are always less today than tomorrow.” More to the point, he argued, “for redundancy and enhancement of both BART and vehicle traffic, the entire greater Bay Area needs the Southern Crossing.”

Back in Oakland, several readers suggested that the best update to I-980 and its surroundings would be to leave the freeway underground and put a deck on top. Like the Big Dig in Boston — though presumably not a project that would come in a decade behind schedule.

Berkeley attorney Antonio Rossmann touted this as a way to get the ground-level virtues while avoiding a fight over unplugging I-980, which he described as “an important connector — for example, for the entire Highway 24 corridor to gain fast access to Oakland airport” from Contra Costa County. “Pushing the boulevard alone is a guaranteed loser. ... The boulevard concept deserves to win!”

There’s a common thread to all these reactions: We’re tired of the status quo.

BART and roadways are more crowded than ever and at hours where crowds once were unknown. The same goes for such systems as Muni and Caltrain.

Bicycles are the mode of choice as never before, yet bike lanes often lead to peril. A neighborhood’s Walk Score is as important as the quality of its schools.

I suspect that’s why Oakland’s political decision-makers are intrigued. They grasp that a boulevard seems like a change that could pay benefits on various fronts, mending a gash while still being an easily navigated path from east to west. And, as regional politicians get serious about looking into an expansion of BART, this could be a route that makes sense without being off the charts in terms of price.

The only way we’ll know, and be able to assess large changes in context, is to take a holistic approach. Study the regional needs with everything on the table. That’s the opposite of the above comments: We’re all frustrated with the current infrastructure, so we all want more of whatever it is that we like best.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission recently launched what it calls a “core capacity transit study,” aimed at finding ways to take what we have and make the existing pieces work more smoothly. It’s a good start. But we can’t just fine-tune the status quo. We need to be open to the unexpected — and not rely on earthquakes to nudge us to action.

Place appears on Wednesdays. John King is the San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic. E-mail: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron