QUESTION: What’s the worst freeway interchange in Contra Costa County?
© Copyright 2023 Claycord News & Talk
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QUESTION: What’s the worst freeway interchange in Contra Costa County?
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© Copyright 2023 Claycord News & Talk
23 comments
That’s easy… I-680/Highway 24.
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Northbound 680 REALLY sucks during the afternoon commute.
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This would be my choice as well. Additional housing at naval station will make this phenomenally worse.
The current gridlock on Treat and YVR is an egregious unforced error.
We need to extend HWY 24 along YV road to connect with HWY 4 in Pittsburg (or at least the Concord Pavilion and then veering north through the old naval base to link up with the 242 / 4 interchange). If that’s too much trouble, at least conver Treat and YVR to limited access arterial roads a la the Capital and Montage Expressways.
Doing so would make East Walnut Creek (Northgate area) as desirable and accessible as Westside Alamo and Danville and put the Clayton Valley corridor on par with east San Ramon / Dougherty Valley, assuming the new, wealthier population improves the schools out there over time. (Hint: Ditch the MDUSD; it’s the abusive husband to East WC’s / Clayton’s pretty but naive, doe-eyed little wife.)
The status quo needlessly relegates Northgate and Clayton to third-tier suburb purgatory.
That was talked about 30+ years ago. Many issues, cost of buying up the land, earthquake fault and shifting road at Cowell, blah blah blah.
Transitioning from Westbound 4 onto Southbound 680 is no picnic.
I second your opinion. Horrible connector ramp design.
I concur.
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Most drivers dont know how to merge. And then at the bottom they fail to accelerate at the creek overcrossing… it’s a dedicated lane for God’s dake!! GO!
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It irks me to hell!!!
Where 242 merges with 680 in the northbound direction!! Making things worse is more traffic entering onto 242 north from Monument Blvd.
Highway 4 and Highway 680 – they reconstructed everything, but it’s still dangerous.
The merge lanes are too short, especially the one on westbound Hwy. 4. Through traffic has to slow down really hard to the accommodate the slower cars entering. The entering cars have to accelerate too hard to match the speed of the through traffic. it’s regrettable, but I think the Hwy. 4 westbound speed limit should be reduced through the intersection.
I swear this was in the plans to be fixed with overpasses. And then it didn’t happen. Wonder where all the money went…
I kind of remember that, too. I thought it was all going to be fixed, but it wasn’t.
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I believe that plan is still in place as Phase IV or Phase V for the interchange. Of course it takes $$$$… lots of it.
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The document and planned layout is available on the CalTrans District 4 website.
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There is supposed to be a flyover ramp from NB 680 to WB Hwy 4. A dedicated exit ramp from EB Hwy 4 to SB 680 would be aligned thru what is now a mini-storage facility.
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242 West in the AM is always backed up
North bound 680/24 west to Lafayette is terrible!
Inconsiderate jerks from the 680 lanes cut off the lanes that go to highway 24. It makes for a unnecessary stressful driving experience.
I had a LabCorp vehicle do it to me the other day. There’s no excuse for “professional” drivers to be doing that!
I-580/ Richmond Parkway. People driving all over the road trying to get onto the Richmond bridge quicker.
That is a really bad area. Of course some of those erratic drivers may be dodging bullets.
Treat/680. Both directions are a mess then throw in the CHP scales to add insult to injury.
680/4 …the old cloverleaf design may be ok with very low density – here it’s a recipe for disaster
@DOMO….But it’s so much fun drifting the cloverleaf.
I believe that to problems with interchanges are not so much design as it is with the drivers.
Irresponsible, arrogant, impatient, and reckless drivers are most of the problems.
If people respected one another, had some patience, and were courteous, there would be far fewer issues with driving.
People need to stop being “me first” and more “you first”.
I really like your post.
Years ago local car enthusiast Martin Swig wrote a piece in a similar vein and suggested the advent of disk brakes as a contributing factor to discourteous driving. And now with traction control, anti-lock brakes, and cars with performance far north of most driver’s capabilities, perhaps there is something to his hypothesis.
Punch and swerve, stab the brakes and swerve, and an “I don’t care if I cause an accident as long as it’s behind me” attitude, and here we are.
Unfortunately me first seems to be the norm. 680 – 4 cloverleaf would be less of a problem if people increased distance to vehicle ahead to allow merging.
@CELLOPHANE…..It was called “defensive driving” when I took Driver’s Ed. What I have a hard time with is “right of way”….do people not understand the concept at a 4-way stop?
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