A graduate from the Environmental Forum of Marin has just launched a website — www.whatmighthavebeen.squarespace.com — highlighting those plans and a number of others around the Bay Area that would have given the region a much different look today if they had come to fruition.
"After reading the book by Marty Griffin, 'Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast,' I thought about what the Bay Area would have looked like if all these projects happened," said law student Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, the woman behind the effort. Alfred Twu illustrated the project. "This is a gift to those who helped save these lands. Looking at what might of happened makes me even more grateful for having the Marin Headlands to hike and having a healthy bay."
One of the more eye-opening projects featured on the website was a plan to land a major bridge right in the heart of Tiburon.
As train travel gave way to the automobile, transportation officials began looking to crisscross the bay with bridges to get people around the growing region as the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge became more crowded.
Proposals to the north included a second Golden Gate Bridge and even an underwater tube between Aquatic Park in San Francisco and Sausalito, according to the website. But it was the Tiburon bridge plan that got the most attention.
The state began acquiring parts of Angel Island as a park in the 1950s. In December 1962 the federal government — which had historic military operations on the island — turned the rest over to the state. While most of the plans for the island centered around recreation, one state highway map showed a second northern bridge crossing to complement the Golden Gate Bridge.
State Highway Department maps of the day show a bridge beginning in San Francisco from either Telegraph or Russian Hill, then crossing to Angel Island before passing over Racoon Strait into downtown Tiburon. It would have then continued up the east side of the county, past San Quentin — where it would have linked with the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge — and eventually moved west to connect with Highway 101 between San Rafael and Novato.
Caltrans oversaw Highway 131 — Tiburon Boulevard — for years because it had acquired the roadway in anticipation of the freeway, only relinquishing it to the town on Thursday through new legislation. Of course in the end it didn't come to pass, with one version of events having Stewart Udall, who was secretary of the interior for presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson from 1961 to 1969, suggesting the federal government would take Angel Island back if a bridge plan went ahead.
Udall would also have a hand in keeping Point Reyes from being developed, another story featured on the website. Various development plans had been proposed for what would become the Point Reyes National Seashore, but Rep. Clem Miller of Corte Madera introduced a measure in Congress in July 1959 to preserve it as a federal recreation area.
Udall helped see it through.
"In terms of areas that have been preserved, Marin may be the richest county in the United States," Udall told the Independent Journal in 2004 when he visited the park, six years before he died. "I don't make that statement lightly."
Intermingled with West Marin development projects was a plan put forth by Gov. Pat Brown to turn two-lane Highway 1 along the coast into "a four-lane parkway ... to cut across ridges from Point San Quentin to Point Reyes Station with east-west thoroughfares," according to the website.
A 1959 Army Corps of Engineers report estimated that the highway system would have Marin grow from 151,000 in 1960 to 780,000 by 2020 with thousands of new residents in Stinson Beach, Bolinas, Point Reyes and Tomales. A water pipeline from Sonoma would have fed the suburban sprawl, the site notes. Today, Marin's population is 250,000.
The website also features what could have played out at Bolinas Lagoon, where some envisioned commercial enterprises as people entered the new Point Reyes National Seashore.
Marincello, the ill-fated 2,100-acre development in the Marin Headlands, that would have been sandwiched between forts Cronkhite, Barry and Baker and the city of Sausalito is also highlighted. The community, which would have housed 25,000 people, was defeated in the face of intense opposition that helped solidify Marin's environmental movement.
As part of her environmental studies Tejeda spoke with Mill Valley resident Huey Johnson about Marincello, which he helped defeat.
"Hearing his story firsthand had an impact on me," she said. "It was very inspiring to me. And I think seeing what these plans would have looked like will have an impact on people."
©2015 The Marin Independent Journal (Novato, Calif.)
