Historic US highway endpoints in San Francisco, CA

Highway	Approx. time period
US 40	1934-1966
US 50	1935-1971

Research credits: Chris Elbert; Dan Moraseski. Photo credits: Andy Field; Alex Nitzman; George R. Stewart; Mike Wiley; Mapjack

When the US routes were originally commissioned in 1926, San Francisco was served by US 101, but not by any east-west route. The west end of US 40 was across San Francisco Bay, in Oakland. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge had not yet been built, but there was ferry service between Oakland and San Francisco, so it's unclear to me why US 40 ended in Oakland at first, instead of extending to San Fran via ferry (many other highways of that era included ferry segments). Construction on the Bridge began in 1933, so perhaps that's why in 1934 the US 40 designation was extended across the bay to SF. And the following year, US 50 was extended to Oakland, where it joined with US 40 across to SF. From the ferry landing there, the routes were directed onto Market Street. They followed that southwest to a common endpoint at US 101:

Mapjack, 2008

That's looking southwest on Market - this was the first San Francisco endpoint of US 40/50. US 101 came from the left on 10th Street, angled off to the right on Fell Street, but then after one block turned right on Van Ness Avenue. The shot below is looking east on Fell:

Mapjack, 2008

That was southbound US 101, which continued on 10th (along the right side of the building at the center of the photo). To the left of the building on Market was the west beginning of US 40/50. Even though the map below was made after the Bay Bridge had been built, it still clearly shows the route that US 40/50 used to follow, via the ferry and Market St:

Gousha, c. 1947

The Market St endpoint lasted only a couple years at the most, because the Bay Bridge was opened to traffic in 1936, and at that time US 40/50 traffic was directed to it (instead of to the ferry docks). Originally the roadway was elevated past 4th Street, but west of there traffic coming into the city dropped down to the surface, aligned with Harrison Street:

Gousha, c. 1947

US 40/50 still terminated at 10th at the junction with US 101, but Harrison is about four blocks south of Market. Below is an historic photo of that endpoint:

That was taken by George R. Stewart (probably in 1949 or 1950), and published in his 1953 book U.S. 40: Cross Section of the United States of America (Riverside Press, Cambridge MA). At far right you can see the "End" marker (below is a close-up)...

...and slightly left of center, there are two more highway signs, which I've enlarged below:

At right is a "California US 101" marker, although the shape of the shield itself looks like it might have been a little unorthodox (but then again, maybe that's just because the photo and the printing caused some distortion of objects at that distance). On the left are destinations both ways along US 101. The cities indicated by the left (or south) arrow, I believe, are:

San Mateo - 18
San Jose - 47
Los Angeles - 441 (I questioned that at first, because my atlas says it's 381 miles, but Laurence Maller pointed out what should've been obvious: 441 is the correct mileage if you follow US 101 all the way.)
The arrow to the right says "Civic Center".

Some of Mr. Stewart's comments on his page containing that photo are relevant to the purpose of this website, and are thus reproduced below:

"U.S. 40 ends in San Francisco, on Harrison Street at the corner of Tenth.

After the beauty of fields and forests, after the grandeur of mountain and desert, after the dignity and power of the city as seen from the Bay Bridge itself - here, after three thousand miles, in full anticlimax, is the end, in a scene that is devoid of beauty or grandeur or power. Even the sign announcing the end of the two great highways is slightly knocked askew.

Others, before, have noted the anomaly, and have commented upon the irony of a great highway that crosses the whole of the United States, to end at a junk yard. To be a little more charitable, and also more accurate, we may at least say that U.S. 40 ends, characteristically, at a service-station, or even two service-stations.

Or, we may also say, it ends from the highway-planners' point of view, where it meets U.S. 101, as the sign here shows. This in itself may be considered no bad ending, for U.S. 101, a Canada-to-Mexico route, is another great highway.

By being carried only a few miles farther, over already paved streets, U.S. 40 could be made to end at some magnificent location overlooking the Golden Gate and the Pacific Ocean. The trascontinental tourist could thus be made to feel that he had been brought to a climactic ending. By being carried only a half mile to the north, the highway could end at the Civic Center, in a scene of considerable urban grandeur.

Yet perhaps the present end is the most fitting of all. U.S. 40 is no swank boulevard, no plush parkway. If there is a romance about it, this is the romance of the modern world, busy with its own affairs. U.S. 40 is the thoroughfare of a hundred thousand trucks and buses, and of a million undistinguished coupes and sedans, convertibles, and station-wagons - driven east, driven west - for business or for pleasure, twenty-four hours a day, in a seven-day week. Most of all, U.S. 40 is a working road, and when it dead-ends into U.S. 101, its job is finished. Why should we seek an artificial climax? Work done, why should such a road - or a man - make heroic gestures? End - U.S. 40."

Stewart's book is full of the same kind of musings and observations from all the way across the country - made all the more fascinating when you consider the timeframe during which it was written and compare that to the way things are today. If you're interested in this sort of thing, I recommend it enthusiastically. Anyway, the photo below was taken looking the same direction as the one above, but is much more recent:

Wiley, 2000

That's what this old endpoint of US 40/50 looks like now (note that the yellow, white, and brown buildings are all visible in the historic photo above). The green sign in the middleground (mounted on the signal mast) directs drivers to the route that once ran along 10th - it says "US 101 south; San Jose: left 2 lanes". Harrison is one-way westbound, so the west beginning of US 40/50 was one block to the left, on Harrison's eastbound counterpart: Bryant Street. The photo below was taken looking south on 10th at Bryant:

Mapjack, 2008

That was southbound US 101, which at the time continued straight ahead, but is now routed along the Central Skyway (an overpass for which is visible in the distance, and the road angling to the left is an on-ramp). US 40/50 began to the left on Bryant. The shot below was taken looking the opposite direction:

Mapjack, 2008

That was northbound US 101, and US 40/50 began to the right. I'm told US 40 and US 50 were routed along this one-way pair until about 1954 (which would've been one year after Stewart's book was printed). Presumably that was when the freeway coming off the Bay Bridge (now known as the James Lick Skyway, or I-80) was extended to the new US 101 (which in turn had been moved off Portero Avenue and onto the Bayshore Freeway). Below is a series of photos from westbound I-80...

Field, Aug. 2003

...although this freeway was built a few years before there was such a thing as I-80, so it was originally signed as US 40/50. As you can see on the map above, originally traffic had no option other than to drop down to Harrison at 5th, a movement represented now by the left-hand exit shown above. (Incidentally, that's not really US 101, but it is the shortest way to get there - if not the fastest, depending on Skyway traffic.) The freeway ahead is the extension built in 1954. When that happened, US 40/50 was extended along with it, probably ending at the next exit, shown below:

Field, Aug. 2003

Northbound US 101 would've been to the right, while ahead was southbound US 101... that is, until the Central Freeway was built in 1959, and US 101 was rerouted onto it. Then US 40/50 would've ended at the same place where I-80 ends today: at its interchange with US 101:

Field, Aug. 2003

Below is one more perspective - this is heading north on US 101, or the Bayshore Frwy:

Field/Nitzman, Nov. 2004

Despite the signage, US 101 actually continues to the left here via the Central Frwy. I-80 begins to the right, and that was the final west beginning of US 40/50 before those designations were truncated out of the city.