»In which the new is old again

A story about urban archaeology in San Francisco contrasts with a story about the rebuilding of the Central Freeway ("Octavia Boulevard", the Road That Goes Nowhere).

Other now-inland shipwrecks serve as interesting obstacles for public works projects. The new Municipal Railway tunnel extension that takes baseball fans out to SBC park goes right through the hull of The Rome, a ship's remains underground at the intersection of Market Street and the Embarcadero along the waterfront."

I am embarrassed to have voted for the Octavia Boulevard project, partly because it has turned out so poorly, and partly because at the time I was mostly excited that the Central Freeway would disappear. I was wrong about the intention of Octavia Boulevard: it misses the opportunity to provide a clear, continuous surface-grade thoroughfare from south of Market Street to Geary Boulevard. Although this route is indirectly available through Gough and Frankling streets, these do not permit seamless travel from the freeway to Geary, which is something essential to moving private auto traffic to those highly residential neighbourhoods along Geary. Octavia Boulevard and the Market Street off-ramp also turn out to be strangely pedestrian- and bicycle-unfriendly: a freeway offramp touches down exactly where many pedestrians and cyclists will be walking. I cannot imagine that will be a fun intersection to negotiate during rush-hour, with cars choking the southeast corner of the off-ramp in order to turn right on to Market St (will this even be permissible? If so, chalk up another design oddity).
On the other hand, I imagine that Flippers is looking forward to a boom in its business. It sits neatly at the end of the Octavia Freeway, at a t-intersection where drivers wishing to continue on Octavia need to dog-leg to the north or turn on to Hayes Street.