Portrait of a Cloverleaf

"Now that a City report is recommending the reconfiguration of both loops at the north end of the bridge, only the southwest loop (lower left above) will remain.

Opened in 1954 at the height of the post-war infrastructure boom, the Granville Bridge was vastly overscaled for its purpose. This high-elevation eight-lane structure would never reach its design capacity unless the feeder roads to it were likewise enlarged.

But back then, they presumed that the city would be rescaled for the car, so they built freeway-style cloverleafs at both ends."

Plenty of pictures and diagrams after the jump.