S.F. Officials Want Quake-Ravaged Freeway Torn Down

SAN FRANCISCO —  After months of often bitter debate, a deeply divided Board of Supervisors voted Monday that the earthquake-ravaged Embarcadero Freeway should be torn down and replaced.

“I congratulate the board,” an exultant Mayor Art Agnos told a hastily called news conference.

He said he hopes there is enough state and federal money available to replace the controversial elevated roadway with a surface or sub-surface artery from the Bay Bridge to Chinatown and North Beach.

The Oct. 17, 1989, Loma Prieta earthquake shook up and damaged the freeway’s underpinnings so badly that the 1 1/2-mile roadway, Interstate 480, was quickly closed to all traffic--including traffic under the devastated slab.