Qualla: Yolo Causeway

Yolo Causeway: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, CC BY 2.0. The trophy is a cylinder of concrete, cored from the bridge itself. Every November, the UC Davis Aggies and the Sacramento State Hornets play the Causeway Classic, and the winner takes home this unglamorous chunk of infrastructure as proof of victory. It is a fitting prize. The Yolo Causeway is not a beautiful bridge. It is a utilitarian elevated highway on Interstate 80, a pair of twinned concrete trestles carrying six lanes of traffic across a floodplain between West Sacramento and Davis. But it is a bridge with layers: a successor to ferry crossings and plank roads, a former segment of the Lincoln Highway, a memorial to two murdered officers, and, improbably, the summer home of a quarter-million bats.

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Image: UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden | CC BY 2.0

Yolo Causeway: Ferries, Plank Roads, and Tule Jake

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Friedpez at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Before there was a causeway, there was mud. The Yolo Bypass basin flooded every winter, and for much of the 1800s, ferry service was the only way across. The first county seat of Yolo County, a town called Fremont built near the ferry crossing at the confluence of the Sacramento ...

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Image: Friedpez at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Yolo Causeway: The First Crossing and the Lincoln Highway

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pi.1415926535, CC BY-SA 3.0. The original Yolo Causeway opened on March 18, 1916, connecting West Sacramento with Davis on a permanent, year-round basis for the first time. It was a modest structure, but in 1928 it gained national significance when the completion of the Carquinez Bridge rerouted the Lincoln ...

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Image: Pi.1415926535 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Yolo Causeway: Blecher, Freeman, and the 1978 Shooting

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shea, CC BY 2.0. The current causeway was built in 1962, replacing the original with a pair of twinned concrete trestles separated by an earth-fill segment. Traffic reporters sometimes distinguish between the "long bridge" and the "short bridge," each carrying three lanes. In 1994, the structure ...

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Image: Shea | CC BY 2.0

Yolo Causeway: Bat City, Population 250,000

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cullen328, CC BY-SA 3.0. Every June, approximately 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats migrate to the Yolo Causeway. They roost in the expansion joints between the concrete segments, hanging in dense clusters in the gaps that engineers designed to absorb thermal expansion. At dusk, they stream out in a dark...

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Image: Cullen328 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Yolo Causeway: Bottleneck, Battleground, Bridge

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cullen328, CC BY-SA 3.0. The proposed widening has turned the causeway into a test case for California's approach to freeway expansion. Under a 2013 amendment to the California Environmental Quality Act, Caltrans must mitigate the environmental impact of additional traffic induced by any project it build...

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Image: Cullen328 | CC BY-SA 3.0