Interstate 880 Auxiliary route of the Interstate Highway System
Nimitz Freeway Defined by S&HC § 625, maintained by Caltrans
Length:	45.698 mi1 (73.544 km)
History:	1930s as a state highway, 1983-84 as an interstate [1]
South end:	I-280 / SR 17 in San Jose
Major junctions:	US 101 in San Jose SR 84 in Fremont SR 92 in Hayward Interstate 238 in San Leandro Interstate 980 near Alameda
North end:	I-80 / I-580 in Oakland
State highways in California (list - pre-1964) < I-805 SR 905 > History - Unconstructed - Deleted - Freeway - Scenic

Interstate 880 (I-880) is an interstate highway in the San Francisco Bay Area connecting San Jose and Oakland, running parallel to the southeastern shore of San Francisco Bay. For most of its route, I-880 is officially known as the Nimitz Freeway after World War II admiral Chester Nimitz, who retired to the Bay Area. It is nicknamed "The Nasty Nimitz" due to its rush hour traffic levels².

This route is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System³.

Route description

The southern terminus of I-880 is at its interchange with Interstate 280 and State Route 17 in San Jose. From there, it heads roughly northeast past the San Jose International Airport to U.S. Route 101. The Nimitz Freeway then turns north, running parallel to the southeastern shore of San Francisco Bay, connecting the cities of Milpitas, Fremont, Newark, Union City, Hayward, and San Leandro before reaching Oakland. The northern terminus of I-880 is in Oakland at the junction with Interstate 80 and Interstate 580 (known as the MacArthur Maze), near the eastern approach of the Bay Bridge.

The Nimitz Freeway is Route 880 from Route 101 to Route 80, as named by Senate Concurrent Resolution 23, Chapter 84 in 1958.⁴

History

The state legislature added the proposed San Jose-Richmond East Shore Highway to the state highway system in 1933, and it became an extension of the previously short (San Rafael to the bay) Legislative Route 69,⁵⁶ and part of Sign Route 13 (soon changed to 17) in 1934.⁷ From San Jose, this route temporarily followed existing Legislative Route 5 (present Oakland Road, Main Street, Milpitas Boulevard, and Warm Springs Boulevard) to SR 21 at Warm Springs, and then continued along existing county roads and city streets,⁸ now known as Fremont Boulevard, Alvarado Boulevard, Hesperian Boulevard, Lewelling Boulevard, Washington Avenue, 14th Street, 44th Avenue, 12th Street, 14th Avenue, 8th Street, and 7th Street, into downtown Oakland. It then turned north at Cypress Street (now Mandela Parkway), passing through the Bay Bridge Distribution Structure and following a newly constructed alignment (signed as US 40) to El Cerrito.⁹¹⁰

The first short piece of the new Eastshore Freeway opened to traffic on July 22, 1949, connecting Oak Street downtown with 23rd Avenue.¹¹¹² It was extended to 98th Avenue on June 1, 1950,¹³ Lewelling Boulevard on June 13, 1952,¹⁴ and Jackson Street (SR 92) on June 5, 1953.¹⁵ At the San Jose end, the overlap with Route 5 between Bayshore Highway (US 101) and Warm Springs was bypassed on July 2, 1954.¹⁶ Within Oakland, the double-decker Cypress Street Viaduct opened on June 11, 1957, connecting the freeway with the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge.¹⁷ The Oakland segment was extended south to Fremont Boulevard at Beard Road on November 14, 1957,¹⁸ and the gap was filled on November 24, 1958,¹⁹ soon after the state legislature named the highway after Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz.²⁰ (The short spur to Route 5 at Warm Springs (now SR 262) remained in the state highway system as a branch of Route 69.²¹) As these sections opened, Sign Route 17 (and Legislative Route 69) was moved from its old surface routing, which mostly became local streets. Other than Route 5 south of Warm Springs, the portion from San Leandro into Oakland was also kept as part of Route 105 (now SR 185).²²

State Route 17

Main article: State Route 17

Prior to 1984, the route known as I-880 used to be part of State Route 17. SR 17 used to run from Santa Cruz all the way though San Jose, Oakland; and then continued north via the Eastshore Freeway (Interstate 80) through Richmond to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and San Rafael.

In 1984 the segment of SR 17 from Interstate 280 in San Jose to the MacArthur Maze in Oakland was renumbered as I-880, and the portion of SR 17 from the MacArthur Maze to San Rafael was renumbered as part of I-580.

Nimitz Freeway

In 1947, construction commenced on a freeway to replace the street routing of SR 17 through the East Bay. The new freeway was named the "Eastshore Freeway", and with the subsequent addition of a freeway to replace the Eastshore Highway north of the MacArthur Maze in the mid 1950s, it ran, appropriately, almost the entire length of the east shore of San Francisco Bay. In 1958, the portion south of the MacArthur Maze was re-named the Nimitz Freeway in honor of WWII Admiral Nimitz, while the portion to the north retained the name Eastshore Freeway.

Historic Business U.S. Route 50

The northern portion of I-880 was designated Business U.S. Route 50 for a time between the I-80 interchange and downtown Oakland.

Original routing of I-880 in Sacramento

See also: Interstate 80 Business (Sacramento, California)

From 1971 to 1983, Interstate 880 was also the route designation for the Beltline Freeway, the northern bypass freeway for the Sacramento area. This freeway begins in West Sacramento as a fork from the original Interstate 80, continues northeast over the Sacramento River to its interchange with Interstate 5, continues east through the communities of North Sacramento and Del Paso Heights and ends at an interchange with the Roseville Freeway Interstate 80. Watt Avenue, and the now designated Capital City Freeway (which was originally I-80 continuing southwest directly into downtown Sacramento).

Cypress Viaduct Loma Prieta earthquake 1989

Portion of the collapsed Cypress Viaduct in Oakland.

A large double-decker section in Oakland, known as the Cypress Street Viaduct, collapsed during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, causing 42 deaths. This was the greatest loss of life caused by that earthquake. Rebuilding the affected section of the freeway took nearly a decade, due to environmental impact concerns, the feeling that the freeway divided the neighborhood, and design considerations. The freeway reopened in 1997 on a new route parallel to railroad tracks around the outskirts of West Oakland.

Although only about three miles (5 km) in length, the replacement freeway cost over $1.2 billion, for several reasons: it crossed over and under the elevated BART line to San Francisco; it squeezed between a post office, the West Oakland BART station, the Port of Oakland, a rail yard, and a sewage treatment plant; it occupied an entirely new right-of-way, which required the acquisition of large amounts of valuable industrial real estate near the Port of Oakland; and of course, it had to be earthquake-proof.

The former path of the structure, Cypress Street, was renamed Mandela Parkway, and the median where the freeway stood became a landscaped linear park.²³

Flood plains

Several aspects of the I-880 facility have been constructed in designated floodplains such as the 1990 interchange improvements at Dixon Landing Road. In that case the Federal Highway Administration was required to make a finding that there was no feasible alternative to the new ramp system as designed. In that same study, the FHWA produced an analysis to support the fact that adequate wetlands mitigation had been designed into the improvement project.²⁴

Sound barriers

Due to high sound levels generated from this highway and the relatively dense urban development in the highway corridor, Caltrans has conducted numerous studies to retrofit the right-of-way with noise barriers. This activity has occurred in Oakland, San Leandro, Hayward, Newark and Fremont. For example in the 1989 widening of I-880 in parts of Newark and Fremont, scientific studies were conducted to determine the need for sound walls and to design optimum heights to achieve Federal noise standards.²⁵

Gasoline Tanker Accident in 2007

For more details on this topic, see MacArthur Maze.

On Sunday, April 29, 2007, a gasoline tanker overturned and caught fire on the connector between westbound I-80 and southbound I-880 on the MacArthur Maze interchange. The fire caused major damage to both this connector and one directly above (eastbound I-80 onto eastbound I-580). The overpass was replaced and re-opened 27 days later. The governor declared it as a State of emergency and all public transportation was free on the first commute day.²⁶

Exit list

Note: Except where prefixed with a letter, postmiles were measured in 1964, based on the alignment as it existed at that time, and do not necessarily reflect current mileage. The numbers reset at county lines; the start and end postmiles in each county are given in the county column.

County	Location	Postmile 12728	#29	Destinations	Notes
Santa Clara (SCL 0.00-10.50)	San Jose	0.00	1A	SR 17 south – Santa Cruz	Continuation beyond I-280
		0.00	1B	I-280 - San Francisco, Downtown San Jose	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
		0.41	1C	Stevens Creek Boulevard, West San Carlos Street	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
		1.25	1D	Bascom Avenue – Santa Clara	Signed as exits 1A (south) and 1B (north) northbound
		2.08	2	SR 82 (The Alameda) – Santa Clara
		2.67	3	Coleman Avenue – Mineta San Jose International Airport
		3.57	4A	First Street – Downtown San Jose
		4.08	4	US 101 (Bayshore Freeway) – Los Angeles, San Francisco	Signed as exits 4B (south) and 4C (north)
		4.28	4D	Gish Road	Southbound exit is part of exit 4C
		5.34	5	Brokaw Road
		6.71	7	CR G4/Montague Expressway
	Milpitas	7.69	8A	Great Mall Parkway, Tasman Drive
		8.42	8B	SR 237 (Calaveras Boulevard) / McCarthy Boulevard – Mountain View, Milpitas	Signed as exits 8B (east) and 8C (west) southbound
		10.41	10	Dixon Landing Road
Alameda (ALA R0.00-R35.47)	Fremont	2.28	12	SR 262 east to I-680/Warren Avenue, Mission Blvd - Sacramento
		3.25	13B	Fremont Boulevard South, Cushing Parkway
		4.71	15	Auto Mall Parkway
		6.24	16	Stevenson Boulevard
		7.19	17	Mowry Avenue – Central Fremont
		8.84	19	SR 84 east (Thornton Avenue) – Central Newark	South end of SR 84 overlap
		10.30	21	SR 84 west (Decoto Road) – Dumbarton Bridge	North end of SR 84 overlap
	Union City	11.40	22	Fremont Boulevard North, Alvarado Boulevard
		13.05	23	Alvarado Niles Road
		13.67	24	Whipple Road, Dyer Street
	Hayward	14.54	25	Industrial Parkway	Northbound exit is via exit 24
		15.65	26	Tennyson Road
		16.70	27	SR 92 (Jackson Street) – San Mateo Bridge
		17.60	28	Winton Avenue
		18.35	29	A Street – San Lorenzo
	San Lorenzo	20.16	30	Hesperian Boulevard	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		20.32	30	Lewelling Boulevard – San Lorenzo	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
	San Leandro	20.68	31A	I-238 east to I-580 - Castro Valley, Stockton	Signed as exit 31 southbound
		20.82	31B	Washington Avenue	Southbound exit is part of exit 31
		22.84	33	Marina Boulevard	Signed as exits 33A (east) and 33B (west)
		23.64	34	Davis Street (SR 112)
	Oakland	24.77	35	98th Avenue – Oakland International Airport
		25.50	36	Hegenberger Road – Oakland Coliseum, Oakland International Airport
		26.61	37	66th Avenue, Zhone Way – Oakland Coliseum
		27.71	38	High Street – Alameda (SR 77)
		28.24- 28.69	39A	29th Avenue, Fruitvale Avenue – Alameda
		28.93	39B	23rd Avenue – Alameda
		29.80- 30.38	40	Embarcadero, Fifth Avenue, 16th Avenue	No northbound entrance
		31.09	41A	Oak Street, Lakeside Drive	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		31.2		Jackson Street	Northbound entrance only
		31.6	41B	Broadway – Downtown Oakland (SR 61)	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		31.68	42A	I-980 east (Grove Shafter Freeway) to SR 24 - Walnut Creek	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		32.1	42B	Market Street – Harbor Terminal	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		R32.79	42	Broadway – Alameda (SR 61)	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
		R33.27- R34.70	44	7th Street, West Grand Avenue
		R34.18	46A	I-80 west (Bay Bridge) - San Francisco	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
		R35.47	46B	I-80 east (Eastshore Freeway) / I-580 west - San Rafael, Sacramento	Northbound exit and southbound entrance

References

External links

• AA Roads - I-880 Guide
• The October 17, 1989, Loma Prieta, California, Earthquake—Selected Photographs - U.S. Geological Survey
  • Oakland Cypress Viaduct
• Cypress Street Viaduct includes map of old MacArthur Maze with old U.S. Route 40/U.S. Route 50 designations
• Cypress Viaduct Reconstruction from Federal Highway Administration

v • d • e Auxiliary routes of Interstate 80 California: 180 (former) • 280 • 380 • 480 (former) • 580 • 680 • 780 • 880 • 880 (former) • 980 — Nevada: 580 (unsigned) — Wyoming: 180 — Nebraska: 180 • 280 (former) • 480 • 580 (former) • 680 — Iowa: 280 • 380 • 480 • 680 — Illinois: 180 • 280 — Ohio: 280 • 480 • 680 — Pennsylvania: 180 • 180 (former) • 280 (former) • 380 • 480 (former) • 680 (former) — New Jersey: 280 • 680 (former)