The Alemany Maze is an
interchange
Interchange may refer to:
Transport
* Interchange (road), a collection of ramps, exits, and entrances between two or more highways
* Interchange (freight rail), the transfer of freight cars between railroad companies
* Interchange station, a rai ...
between the
James Lick Freeway
James may refer to:
People
* James (given name)
* James (surname)
* James (musician), aka Faruq Mahfuz Anam James, (born 1964), Bollywood musician
* James, brother of Jesus
* King James (disambiguation), various kings named James
* Prince James ...
(
U.S. Route 101
U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It is part of the United States Numbered Highway Syst ...
) and the John F. Foran Freeway (
Interstate 280) in the city of
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
. Alternative names for this highway feature are Alemany Interchange and The Spaghetti Bowl.
History
The Alemany Maze gets its name from
Alemany Boulevard
Alemany Boulevard is a northeast–southwest street in San Francisco, California, United States.
Description
It starts at Bayshore Boulevard near the Alemany Maze (the intersection of Interstate 280 and U.S. 101). The eastbound and we ...
, which is named for
Joseph Sadoc Alemany
Joseph Sadoc Alemany, O.P. ( Catalan: ''Josep Sadoc Alemany i Conill''; July 3, 1814 – April 14, 1888) was a Spanish Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of San Francisco from 1853 to 1884. He previously served as the first Bishop of M ...
, who in 1853 became the first Archbishop of San Francisco.
The Alemany Maze is an interchange that originally controlled the separation of traffic travelling between the James Lick Freeway, Bayshore Boulevard, and Alemany Boulevard. The former
US 101 Bypass, which followed Bayshore Boulevard to the south, separated from the old US 101 alignment at the Maze. The Alemany Boulevard routing of US 101 was eventually replaced by the construction of the Southern Freeway, later renamed the John Foran Freeway. The bridge leading US 101 over Alemany Boulevard (at a section called Alemany Circle) was constructed in 1950 and renewed in 2020.
The routing of US 101 was shifted to the Bayshore Freeway in 1964, with the former US 101 freeway becoming renumbered as part of I-280.
According to
SFGate, "Alemany" is pronounced "al-UH-mainy" locally.
Maze features
The most notable features of the Alemany Maze are the double-deck ramps to and from US 101 from the south and the double-deck portion of I-280 northeast of the interchange. Although overall a north–south freeway, I-280 actually runs east–west through the interchange. The word ''maze'' refers to the series of interchanges necessary for a vehicle to maneuver in order to navigate their way from a multi-lane freeway to a narrower distribution structure of lanes which funnel to connector
exit ramp
In the field of road transport, an interchange (American English) or a grade-separated junction (British English) is a road junction that uses grade separations to allow for the movement of traffic between two or more roadways or highways, using ...
s, similar to the better known
MacArthur Maze
The MacArthur Maze (or more simply the Maze; formally, the East Bay Distribution Structure) is a large freeway interchange in Oakland, California. It splits traffic coming off the east end of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge into three fre ...
. Traffic reporters use these words combined with the Alemany Maze to indicate its
bottleneck
Bottleneck may refer to:
* the narrowed portion (neck) of a bottle
Science and technology
* Bottleneck (engineering), where the performance of an entire system is limited by a single component
* Bottleneck (network), in a communication network
* ...
status.
The San Francisco Chronicle has described it as "a spaghetti tangle of freeway" which "
ke a tentacled octopus
..stretches north to the Bay Bridge and south to Daly City and San Francisco International Airport, with prongs swooshing in every direction".
In spite of its size and complexity, like the MacArthur Maze, it does not allow full freedom of movement: drivers approaching the interchange in the southbound direction on either highway cannot directly access the northbound direction of the other highway.
See also
*
*
*
MacArthur Maze
The MacArthur Maze (or more simply the Maze; formally, the East Bay Distribution Structure) is a large freeway interchange in Oakland, California. It splits traffic coming off the east end of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge into three fre ...
*
Joe Colla Interchange
References
{{Reflist, 30em
External links
''US-101 Deck Replacement April-May 2020''Timelapse video showing the Alemany Maze up close from various angles, published by
Caltrans
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is an Executive (government), executive department of the U.S. state of California. The department is part of the Government of California#State agencies, cabinet-level California State Tran ...
as part of th
documentationof a 2020 project to reconstruct parts of the structure
Road interchanges in California
Roads in San Francisco
San Francisco Bay Area freeways
Buildings and structures in San Francisco
U.S. Route 101