Freeways almost ruined San Francisco

San Francisco activists fought a plan to build a Los Angeles-sized network of freeways in San Francisco, and won.

Sources:

1. Johnson, K. M. (2009). Captain Blake versus the Highwaymen: Or, how San Francisco won the freeway revolt. Journal of Planning History, 8(1), 56-83.

Video thumbnail: Wikimedia Commons user brx0

Produced in sunny Sacramento, California.

[CityBeautiful]

Are there any unnecessary freeways in your city? Any plans to remove them?

[arnavn]

Now imagine if the federal government gave the state $9 for every $1 it spent on a San Francisco subway system.

[darthutah]

San Francisco's nimbyism may have saved the city from freeways but they've been causing a serious housing crisis in the city lately. Since there's basically no more room to build outwards in SanFran, the only way to build is up. The problem: there's a zoning law which keeps apartments from being above a certain height. You see, when supply can't meet demand, price goes up.

[dylanberryman]

*continues to build freeways through low density residential neighborhoods in Cities: Skylines*

[showyourvidz]

Lived in SF for 30 years & loved it's walk-ability. I'm originally from Detroit & the freeways destroyed families. My grand aunt once was able to walk a couple of blocks to visit her sister. Then the city tore everything up. The freeways took down 2 streets at a time & destroyed the grid replacing it with a giant ditch with no cross streets. Families now have to have a car just to go some place close. No point of staying in that decaying city.

[bonecanoe]

Have you heard of South Street in Philadelphia? In the 60s there was a plan to build a freeway along South Street (The border of Center City and South Philly). The freeway was eventually cancelled after protests. But an interesting thing happened; while the freeway was still planned, properties along South Street became very cheap because people feared their demolition was eminent. A lot of these cheap properties were being bought by hippies and the area became the center for the counterculture in the city. Fifty years later it might not be a center of counterculture anymore but it's still a well known tourist destination. All because a freeway was planned, and then cancelled.

[alanthefisher]

Damn, if there was that much push to build freeways in the 1960s I can easily see why America lost out to the car in many cities.

[michaelhamasaki]

I hope public transportation will be the easiest. method of travel in the Bay Area one day. A 15 minute drive can become a 1 hour commute just because I live near the wrong bus stop.

[milascave]

I have lived in SF before and after the 1989 quake. The area looks so, so much better with the freeway down. Freeways within cities truly screwed up a lot of cities. Furthermore, perfectly good streetcar systems in LA and Minnesota were torn down because Henry Ford wanted the government to fund freeways, not public transit.

[MarloSoBalJr]

City Beautiful. You think you could take a look at Baltimore's highway infrastructure and show how it sent this city into ruins over the past half-century. I truly believe it contributed to the divide and desolation of the city as a whole.

[anthonydelfino]

As a San Francisco resident, I will say that now the problem from this activism is that it takes longer to get across town using carpooling and the like than it does to get into town. I live in the western part of the city, and my commute time to the eastern part is longer than my coworkers coming in from Oakland partly because of the unreliability of our Muni system (trains that don't run often enough and fill up too fast) and partly because when attempting to use carpooling or ride sharing services, the trip in the car takes more time than taking the trains when they are running.

[jmonteschio]

As terrible as the Loma Prieta earthquake was, the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway beautified San Francisco considerably.

[citiesskyscrapers]

It’s great that San Francisco has avoided the fate of the most American cities.
The main ways of transportation in a city are public transport and bikes.
Building highways is not a resolution for the transportation problem, it just encourages people to use cars more often and or buy new cars. Eventually the roads are overloaded again. The real solution is developing public transportation and bike infrastructure.
Great video :)

[orangepeelz]

I binge-watched a ton of your videos last night and now I'm looking into getting involved with my local government and going to public outreach events! I never realized stopping a highway could happen with such a small scale. I also found out looking through a lot of the documents that there are ideas to get rid of or change some highways that run straight through our downtown and divide it which is great!

[Bbknuckles]

I love this channel! I was taught something about a city I’ve lived in for 30+ years. Thanks for the in-depth content.

[ScottWallace]

Great and informative video! Since I drive there on occasion this really explains a lot and why there's no direct route from 101 or 80 to get to the other side of SF on the Golden Gate bridge. Good work!

[TransitAndTeslas]

Learn from European cities, they still have freeways, but once you hit the city, the freeways then turn into regular roads and you can use mass transit or just drive on the regular roads to get around. No reason to run a freeway through the middle of the city.

[migo-migo]

I like public transportations, esp trains. I think EU and Asia shows how useful train systems are. I feel more free at a city where I can easily travel without having to rent a car or pay for a cab. The same goes for cities I live in. Having to drive everywhere is a pain, not to mention gas, maintenance, and insurance.

I find that in driving cities, a lot of people who are not suited for driving are forced to drive because they have no choice. Endangering themselves and others.

[pforce]

I like your report. Having the years in the lower corner of the screen click off as you narrated was pretty cool. I think that it is important to preserve history like this for people that need to know what really happened.

[uniworkhorse]

Damn, thanks for making this! Can't imagine having a freeway deleting the Panhandle, it's such a common route I take and thoroughly enjoy! Makes me really appreciate the activists' foresight