(I-280, as originally planned, ran south from the west end of I-480 along SR 1, through the MacArthur Tunnel and Golden Gate Park, to join its present alignment in Daly City.)

Construction of the Embarcadero commenced in May 1955, starting with its connection to the Bay Bridge approach where the new Bayshore Freeway tie-in had just been completed.

The short piece of former I-480 from the junction with new I-280 (previously SR 87) south to the Bay Bridge approach legally became part of I-280 (to allow I-280 to meet I-80), now named the Southern Embarcadero Freeway.

Then-Mayor Art Agnos proposed demolishing the freeway in favor of a boulevard with an underpass at the Ferry Building to allow for a large plaza.

[10][13] Merchants in Chinatown had suffered a dramatic decline in business in the months immediately following the earthquake and feared that if the freeway was not reopened they would not recover.

[14] Agnos continued to negotiate with federal and state officials to win enough funding to make the demolition practical, arguing that the city would squander "the opportunity of a lifetime" if it allowed the freeway to remain.

This retrofitting was part of a larger, $6-billion project to upgrade the aging Bay Bridge to modern earthquake standards, which included replacing the entire eastern span.

In late 2005, Caltrans began the demolition of the original western approach after traffic was routed onto a temporary bypass structure.

[20] Along the waterfront, the former freeway was replaced with a wide, palm-lined boulevard with San Francisco Municipal Railway tracks in the median.

In a 2004 retrospective of the Loma Prieta earthquake, San Francisco Chronicle architecture critic John King wrote:[The Embarcadero Freeway] cut off the downtown from the water that gave birth to it, and it left the iconic Ferry Building – a statuesque survivor of the 1906 earthquake – stranded behind a dark wall of car exhaust and noise.

Oppressive does not begin to describe it... Take a walk today on the 2+1⁄2-mile [4.0 km] promenade between Fisherman's Wharf on the north and China Basin on the south, and it's hard to believe that an elevated freeway ever scarred the open air.

"[22][30] Community organizer Rose Pak, who had fought to preserve the Embarcadero Freeway, later lobbied for the Central Subway to be built to extend the Muni Metro's T Third Street Line into Chinatown.

The San Francisco Chronicle in 2016 credited her for "almost single-handedly persuad[ing] the city to build" the Central Subway to compensate Chinatown for the loss of the freeway.