As Big Fix crews continue their $37 million repair in the downtown bowl known as the Interstate 5 "boat section," more than a few people have asked:
Wasn't that freeway supposed to be built in Yolo County? The short answer: Yes, at least it appeared headed that way.
So, how did it end up in Sacramento, buried in mud below water level, separating downtown from the river and Old Sacramento?
Some historians say it's Macy's doing. In 1960, store executives made it known they were willing to build a megastore downtown – but only if the city got a freeway.
"Without freeways, we wouldn't have come into Sacramento," Macy's E.L. Malloy acknowledged when the store was built in 1963.
City leaders, excited by the prospect of a big Manhattan or San Francisco-style store, made sure Macy's got what it wanted.
But that's just a slice of the story. For the bigger picture, we need to step back decades.
Sacramento was born and grew up on the river. But, after the Great Depression, Sacramento's West End had become a Skid Row of flophouses, bars and liquor stores, including the areas now known as Old Sacramento and Capitol Mall.
Then came the can-do, postwar 1950s.
California was building a superhighway through the west side of the Central Valley – the Westside Freeway – to give long-distance trucks and travelers a less-congested alternative to Highway 99.
The freeway was envisioned to cut through Yolo County.
At the same time, Sacramento downtown leaders, sick of losing ground to modern suburbs, were drawing up plans to fix their decrepit downtown by knocking down blocks of decaying buildings and replacing them with new stores, restaurants and living spaces.
They needed something big to get it going. Macy's was a key catalyst. But city documents and Bee files indicate Sacramento leaders saw the freeway as the really big fish.
It prompted one of the great debates in modern Sacramento history.
The Bee and historic preservationists argued a downtown freeway would destroy too much of the city's heritage, including the "Big Four" building on K Street, where the transcontinental railroad was planned and The Bee was born. That block now is a tunnel under the freeway with a mural depicting city history. A replica of the Big Four building was built elsewhere in Old Sacramento.
But a freeway on the Yolo side would have complications, too, requiring locally financed connector roads and bridges into downtown.
State officials suggested an elevated freeway right along the river in Sacramento. But, local leaders complained that it would stand in front of the Tower Bridge, Sacramento's main entrance, and ruin the view to the state Capitol.
City consultants suggested dipping the freeway beneath Capitol Avenue.
That prompted a prophetic response from the state public works director: A sunken freeway is not feasible, he said. It would leak.
They built it anyway. It had to curve toward the river to avoid endangering the Crocker Art Museum – which cracked anyway during freeway construction – then it had to curve again to leave room for the Old Sacramento historic district.
Interstate 5 opened here in 1970. Whether it did more good or harm, we leave to others.
One thing turned out to be true: It leaked, practically from day one, state records show.
That's why Big Fix rehab crews are out there today.
E-mail your transportation concerns to backseat@sacbee.com or call The Bee's Tony Bizjak at (916) 321-1059.
