CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SAN FRANCISCO : Board Backs Plan to Demolish Freeway

San Francisco supervisors gave conditional approval to Mayor Art Agnos’ plan to demolish the earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway and replace it with a partially subterranean six-lane expressway. The 11-member board gave the mayor until Aug. 1 to address community concerns about the feasibility of such factors as federal financing of the $120-million expressway and traffic management during the four-year construction phase. The vote came after hundreds of Chinatown merchants showed their opposition to Agnos’ plan by shuttering their shops and filling City Hall with more than 1,000 protesters.