California State Route 24
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Walnutcreekoverview.jpg
California State Route 24 is a heavily-traveled east-west freeway in the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay Area of northern California between Oakland (junction Interstate 580, the MacArthur Freeway) and Walnut Creek (junction Interstate 680). It lies only in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and it is highly urban. It is a relatively old freeway, existing since at least the 1960s.
It was originally projected to lead to a never-built "Southern Crossing" of the San Francisco Bay to the south side of San Francisco. For years it largely fed the MacArthur Freeway into the Transbay Bridge toward San Francisco. It was built to the Nimitz Freeway (now Interstate 880); the north-south segment of Route 24 has since been re-numbered as Interstate 980 into which the east-west segment feeds.
Route 24 rises from near sea level in downtown Oakland past its interchange with California State Highway 13 to cross the county line through the dual Caldecott Tunnel and offers some attractive views of the mountainous terrain through which it passes. Due to the traffic jams, commuters get extended views of the scenery.
A BART train has its tracks in the median between opposing sides of the freeway.