Routes 5 & 580--West Side Freeway
Routes 5 & 580--West Side Freeway is a State Scenic Byway in California. Within California it covers roughly 55 miles. The map below shows its route. Use “Plan a drive” to open it in the Road Sorties route planner — already routing along Routes 5 & 580--West Side Freeway with scenic roads turned on, ready to add your own stops.
Routes 5 & 580--West Side Freeway pairs two scenic highway segments in California's Central Valley and Bay Area. Interstate 5's roughly 330-mile West Side Freeway run traces the valley's western edge, while Interstate 580 adds a scenic stretch near Tracy. The I-5 portion runs from the California 99 split at Wheeler Ridge north to Interstate 505 near Woodland, tracing the valley's dry western edge through irrigated farmland while deliberately avoiding the population centers strung along Route 99 to the east. For much of that distance the freeway parallels the Delta-Mendota Canal and the California Aqueduct, the engineered waterways that turned this semi-desert corridor into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country. Interstate 580, a 76-mile spur connecting US 101 in San Rafael to I-5 near Tracy, carries its own scenic designation from the San Leandro city limits to State Route 24 and again from I-5 to I-205, with views opening east over the San Joaquin Valley and west toward the Coast Range. Together the two roads bookend a drive that's less about postcard scenery than the sheer scale of California's water infrastructure and farmland.
- I-5 West Side Freeway (~330 mi, Wheeler Ridge to Woodland)
- Delta-Mendota Canal & California Aqueduct
- I-580 (San Rafael to Tracy)
- State Scenic Highway segments (I-580)
- San Joaquin Valley & Coast Range views
- Central Valley agriculture
Plan a drive on Routes 5 & 580--West Side Freeway →
What is a State Scenic Byway?
State Scenic Byways are roads a state has formally recognized for their scenic, natural, historic or cultural value — each state's own curated collection of drives worth taking slowly.