Interstate 80 Business (Sacramento, California)
Interstate 80 Business, called the Capital City Freeway in its entirety and also known as Business 80, is a business loop of Interstate 80 through Sacramento. The route is also colloquially referred to as "Cap City Freeway" and "Biz 80". The entire route is a freeway.
It originally carried mainline I-80 through Sacramento until the early 1980s. The eastern half, originally known as the Elvas Freeway, was initially grandfathered into the Interstate Highway System; however, plans to upgrade or realign this portion to meet Interstate Highway standards were cancelled. As such, the I-80 designation through Sacramento was moved to a northern bypass of the city that had previously been signed I-880, and the former routing was then designated as Business 80.
Business 80 then consisted of two connected segments. The western segment ran concurrently signed with U.S. Route 50 and also carried the unsigned designation of I-305. The eastern segment was assigned the unsigned designation of State Route 51. After travelers complained that Business 80 was difficult to follow, it was named the Capital City Freeway in 1996. As part of a re-signing project which commenced in 2016, references to Business 80 on the western segment are to be removed, subsequently marking the route as only US 50, but as of 2018 little progress has been made.
Route description
SR 51 is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, and both SR 51 and I-305 are part of the National Highway System, a network of highways that are considered essential to the country's economy, defense, and mobility by the Federal Highway Administration. Currently, it is the only business route in California to exist as a freeway.Western section
The western section of Business 80 begins in West Sacramento at I-80, where I-80 leaves the West Sacramento Freeway onto the Beltline Freeway. This interchange in West Sacramento is also the current west end of US 50 and the west end of the unsigned I-305.In downtown West Sacramento, Business 80 and US 50 split from the West Sacramento Freeway, which is now locally maintained in part over the Tower Bridge up to the door of the capitol, but was once designated as SR 275. Business 80 crosses the Sacramento River on the Pioneer Memorial Bridge, intersecting with I-5 on the eastern bank. SR 99 once ran along I-5 to the north and Business 80 to the east, but this is now signed TO SR 99. After crossing I-5, Business 80 runs on top of an embankment between "W" and "X" streets. The W-X Freeway gets its name from running parallel to "W" and "X" streets.
Beginning in 2016, signs on the western section were being updated to remove references to Business 80 and instead sign the route only as US 50. The eastern section remains signed as Business 80. However, most Rand McNally road atlases to this day continue to sign both the eastern and western sections as Business 80.
Eastern section
At an interchange southeast of downtown Sacramento, Business 80 turns north onto the southern end of unsigned SR 51. US 50 continues east, SR 99 heads south, and the unsigned I-305 ends. The elevated freeway carrying Business 80 east of downtown is between 29th and 30th Streets, and an older section beginning at A Street and continuing northeast was originally known as the Elvas Freeway. On this section of freeway, Business 80 crosses the American River before its northeast-bound merge with the North Sacramento Freeway.The North Sacramento Freeway, originally a portion of US 40, originally ran west from Marconi Avenue to an intersection with Del Paso Boulevard. The section from Arden Way eastbound back to Marconi Avenue is now part of the currently named Capital City Freeway. The original North Sacramento Freeway connected to the Roseville Freeway at the curve north of Marconi Avenue. At the east end of Business 80, the Roseville Freeway continues northeast to Roseville as I-80, while the short unsigned SR 244 heads east to Auburn Boulevard.
I-80 heads in both directions around the north side of Sacramento. A partially built portion of a never completed replacement freeway for SR 51, in the median of I-80, now serves as parking and access for the northernmost three stations on the Sacramento Regional Transit District's light rail Blue Line. If this replacement freeway had been completely built as originally planned, I-80 would have continued south following the railroad tracks going through the Ben Ali neighborhood of North Sacramento, crossed over SR 160, and joined with the Elvas Freeway portion just north of A Street.
History
The State Division of Highways constructed Sacramento’s freeways system incrementally from the 1940s to the 1970s. The plan for the Elvas Freeway was presented in the Sacramento Area Traffic Survey in 1947-1948, and the freeway was built between 1950 and 1955. The Division of Highways built the 2.9-mile Elvas Freeway as a four-lane divided highway to connect with the North Sacramento Freeway in the vicinity of Arden Way. The new freeway’s southern terminus was the surface roads at 29th and 30th streets. At the time the Elvas Freeway was conceived and built, the Division of Highways was already considering an elevated freeway along the 29th Street / 30th Street corridor that would connect with the then proposed South Sacramento Freeway. The Division of Highways went on to complete the Fort Sutter Viaduct along the 29th Street / 30th Street corridor in 1968, which led the Division of Highways to convert the Elvas Freeway from four to six lanes in 1965. The Sacramento River Viaduct was completed in 1966, the Southside Park Viaduct was completed in 1967, and the rest of the W-X Freeway was completed in 1968. The Elvas Freeway was connected to the W-X Freeway to the west and US 50 to the east, in 1968 and 1971 respectively. The W-X Freeway and the Elvas Freeway were signed as I-80.Between 1968 and 1975 a 5.2-mile bypass was proposed that was to straighten the alignment of I-80 and increase its capacity. The Sacramento City Council voted in September 1979 to delete the I-80 Bypass freeway from the Interstate System. In 1980 California submitted to AASHTO proposals to relocate I-80 in Sacramento onto then I-880, extend US 50 west to cover the west half of old I-80, and to assign I-305 to the west half of old I-80, and delete I-880 in the Sacramento area. AASHTO approved these proposals. The next year, the California State Legislature extended US 50 west to cover the western half of old I-80, and the eastern half was assigned the new SR 51 number and designated as Business Loop 80.. The signage change from I-880 to I-80, and the previous I-80 to Business 80 was installed in November 1983.
The old I-80 was not signed as SR 51, but as a business route. Unlike most business routes in California, which run along locally-maintained streets through a downtown area, Business 80 was not assigned to the pre-freeway alignment of US 40, but to a freeway. The existence of two freeways, both numbered 80, caused some confusion, and in 1996 the full route was given the Capital City Freeway name at the request of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. This name appears on overhead signs at prominent interchanges. The route is referred to as Business 80, Biz 80, Capital City Freeway, Cap City Freeway, and US 50 by residents and mapmakers. Caltrans does not normally use the Business 80 designation, except for signage and other related concepts like Cal-NExUS exit numbers. Caltrans refers to the western half as US 50 and the eastern half as SR 51 for traffic condition reporting.
Under the, "Route 51 shall be signed Interstate Business Loop 80". There is no such mandate under for Route 50, thus Caltrans was able to start removing references to Business 80 on signage in the US 50 segment.
Despite Caltrans' official signage and reporting practices, mapmakers may still show the I-305 and SR 51 designations, as well as the Business 80/US 50 concurrency on the western segment. The SR 99 concurrency, running along US 50 and I-5 to northern Sacramento, is also not officially designated by Caltrans, but mapmakers will still also often show it as such.
An earlier State Route 51 was defined on July 1, 1964 on a section of pre-1964 Legislative Route 2, providing a loop east of Interstate 5 through Orange, around the Orange Crush Interchange. It was removed from the state highway system in 1965.