As the result of freeway revolts in San Francisco in the 1950s , a direct freeway connection through the city to the Golden Gate Bridge has never been built . The Central Freeway was completed to extend from the Bayshore Freeway to Turk Street in 1959 , before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to remove the remainder of the Central Freeway and most other proposed freeways from the city 's highway plan . For decades , southbound traffic on US 101 flowed on the one-way Turk Street from Van Ness Avenue to the Central Freeway , while northbound traffic used the parallel Golden Gate Avenue . After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the structure , the segment of the Central Freeway north of Market Street was replaced with the surface-level Octavia Boulevard ; traffic on US 101 was then eventually re-routed to exit south of that at Mission Street/South Van Ness Avenue . With no direct freeway along US 101 through the City of San Francisco , the old US 101E/I - 880/I - 580 route remains as a faster bypass through the Bay Area
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
U.S. Route 101 in California