One hundred percent of tree material removed during the preconstruction activity was recycled or salvaged by Green Waste Recycle Yard in Richmond, California.
More than 50 native plant species, for a total of 45,000 plants, were collected in the Presidio prior to construction and are now being grown in the Presidio Nursery.
Many of the piles for the high viaduct will be 12 feet in diameter, requiring a special oscillator rig for installation of the piles. Larger, deeper piles mean fewer piles are necessary, opening views from the Presidio to the bay.
The new parkway will allow pedestrians and bicyclists to cross over or under Doyle Drive in accordance with the Presidio Trails and Bikeways Master Plan.
The new parkway will have larger 11- and 12-foot lanes to accommodate buses and provide an improved experience for drivers.
Each weekday, nearly 120,000 vehicles travel between Marin and San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge along Doyle Drive.
The start of construction of the Presidio Parkway was accelerated by more than a year thanks to the receipt of $50 million in federal stimulus funding.
The new parkway will improve traffic safety by including continuous shoulders for emergency and disabled vehicles.
The first set of tunnels, the Battery Tunnels, will be constructed north of the San Francisco National Cemetery and span 853 feet.
Halleck Street will be closed and temporarily removed during construction. Upon completion of the Main Post Tunnels, Halleck Street will be restored over the top of the new tunnels.
The Main Post Tunnels will be constructed north of the Main Post parade grounds. These will be the longer of the two sets of tunnels, spanning 1,017 feet.
$3.6 million went directly to small and local businesses for the project’s first preconstruction contract (tree removal and native plant and seed collection).
The new parkway will include extended bus bays on both sides of Richardson Avenue.
Seismic safety will be achieved in 2011 when traffic is transferred onto new structures and the temporary bypass adjacent to the existing facility.
A robust Disadvantaged and Small Business Enterprise Participation Program has been established to actively engage businesses throughout San Francisco, the Bay Area, and California to participate in the project.
The northbound and southbound roadways will be separated by a wide, landscaped median improving driver safety and creating a parkway feel.
Both sets of tunnels will be constructed using the cut and cover method by digging into the natural bluffs and covering the tunnels with a green pedestrian corridor.
Including a temporary bypass in the construction phasing reduced the construction duration by nearly two years.
Concrete is used more than any other man-made material in the world

History

Replacement Project History | Doyle Drive History | The Doyle Drive Historic Corridor

The Doyle Drive Historic Corridor

Frank Pierce Doyle<< back

DURING THE 1930s AND 1940s, no single person was described as the “father of the Golden Gate Bridge” more often than Santa Rosa banker Frank Pierce Doyle. This was especially true in the northern California counties, from Marin to the Oregon border, that joined with San Francisco to organize the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District (GGB&HD). During the early 1920s, Frank P. Doyle was the president of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce and worked to support highway and road development in northern California and the building of Redwood Highway (modern-day U.S. 101).

Chief engineer Joseph B. Strauss (left) and bridge promoter Frank P. Doyle (right), 1927.San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

Composite photo of Frank P. Doyle (left) and Santa Rosa Dodge dealer J. H. Williams (right) with the first private car to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, 1937. Courtesy Sonoma County Museum

Frank P. Doyle cuts a chain with an acetylene torch at the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge on May 27, 1937. Courtesy Sonoma County Library

DOYLE ORGANIZED THE CRITICAL JANUARY 13, 1923 MEETING at Santa Rosa City Hall that brought together influential engineers, business leaders and politicians from San Francisco and the northern counties who formed the Bridging the Golden Gate Association. Although engineer Joseph B. Strauss and San Francisco City Engineer Michael M. O’Shaughnessy had advocated spanning the Golden Gate for several years, Doyle’s meeting launched the organized campaign to connect Redwood Highway with San Francisco via a bridge across the mile-wide Golden Gate.

DOYLE WAS THE LEADER of the business and civic figures whose promotional efforts were essential to the passage of the $35 million bond issue in November 1930 that financed the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. To help stimulate the depressed California economy, in 1932 Amadeo Giannini had his Bank of America begin purchasing what would eventually amount to the entire bond issue.

WHILE INSPECTING THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE several months before its official opening, Doyle was invited to turn his car over to a bridge worker who made the bridge’s first automobile crossing. Representing the Redwood Empire Association, Doyle cut one of three chains that officially opened the Golden Gate Bridge in May of 1937, during a ceremony attended by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1940, the GGB&HD Board of Directors named the Golden Gate Bridge approach road from Marina Boulevard to the Toll Plaza “Doyle Drive.”

History

The Doyle Drive Historic Corridor

Frank Pierce Doyle<< back

Doyle worked tirelessly to organize the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District in the 1920s.