LIVERMORE

HERITAGE

GUILD

July 2000 Vol. XXIX No. 10

 

CALENDAR

Thursday, July 13 @ 7:00 p.m.

LHG Meeting, Camegie Bldg.

 

Art Under the Oaks, Alden Lane Nursery
July 15 & 16, Saturday and Sunday
11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

 

HERITAGE GUILD HAPPENINGS

The members of the Livermore Heritage Guild mourns the loss of Herbert Hagemann who passed away recently at the age of 79. He loved, lived and promoted local history. Talking with Herb about our valley was always a learning experience for us all.

 

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Excerpted from Motorland (publication of the California State Automobile Association) September 193 8

 

Livermore Pass Highway Built for Safety
New Road Eliminates Old Altamont Dangers

 

A super-highway, into which every practical safety feature has been built! Thus was the new Livermore Pass Highway in Alameda County characterized by a speaker for the California State Automobile Association at dedication exercises which marked its formal opening to traffic on August 4.

Safe not only in itself, with center traffic dividing strip between two broad lanes on either side, a clear view far ahead at all points, and overhead or underpass structures avoiding all rail or highway crossings, the Livermore Pass Highway has an important further significance. With its opening, motorists were able to give an enthusiastic cheer of "good riddance" to the old Altamont Pass Highway, narrow, winding, and notorious for years, as a traffic bottleneck and prolific source of accidents.

The Livermore Pass Highway, built at a cost of $1,207,000, extends for 8.2 miles between Greenville and Mountain House, saving nearly a mile of distance compared with the old Altamont road. The saving in travel time is relatively still greater, due to the vastly better driving conditions and lack of congestion.

Impetus to construction of the new highway was actively provided by the Automobile Association, State Chamber of Commerce, and various business and civic groups, all determined to remove the barrier of Altamont Pass to the increasingly heavy flow of traffic using this main route betwee the bay area and San Joaquin Valley.

Traffic of all classes on the Altamont Pass Highway had doubled in ten years, with a still greater degree of increase in heavy truck traffic.

In a communication to the California Highway Cornmission on April 29,1936, the Automobile Association said, in part: "What needs to be done is a complete and drastic relocation and the construction of and adequate pavement

to carry not only the traffic of today, but that of as far into the future as can now be reasonably anticipated."

Two views of the new Livermore Pass Highway and map showing its location. Center dividing strip construction with traffic flowing safely on each side is clearly shown at the top. Along, sweeping curve and railroad underpass are shown in the view to the right.

The new Livermore Pass Highway fully accords with that view, both in location and in design.

(Click map to enlarge)

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