It used to be pretty easy to get to UCSF from the Bayshore Freeway. Then an earthquake in October 1989 caused the Cypress Freeway to collapse across the bay in Alameda. This caused California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) engineers to inspect, and subsequently declare unsafe, any double-deck freeway built in California in the 1950s that used a "splice joint" construction technique in its concrete supports. This included a 1/2 mile section of the Bayshore Freeway connector in San Francisco. So at the end of 1996 CALTRANS closed this section of freeway and demolished the upper deck, leaving the lower deck available for traffic. This should be the end of the story, except that San Francisco's mayor, the Honorable Willie Brown (aka "Slick Willie"), decided that San Francisco is a much better city without all the traffic on that 1/2 mile section of freeway and instructed CALTRANS to leave it closed ``until the people of San Francisco can decide if it should be reopened again or not.'' The net result is that visitors are forced to exit the freeway one exit early and use surface streets to get to UCSF. Unfortuantely, the route isn't straightfoward.