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Remembering the ugliest thing San Francisco ever built

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‘A monstrous mistake’: Remembering the ugliest thing San Francisco ever built

 

The plan was simple: Connect the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge via a freeway. It was the 1950s and everyone loved freeways. What could go wrong? Nearly everything.

The Embarcadero Freeway is widely considered one of the biggest mistakes the city ever made. For 32 years, a concrete monstrosity barricaded San Franciscans from the bay waters, shrouded the iconic Ferry Building in smog and made lots of residents very mad. Photographs of it now look like a very different, unsightly city. And while (nearly) everyone hated it, it took an earthquake to tear it down.

The real story behind the demise of America’s once-mighty streetcars – Vox

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The real story behind the demise of America’s once-mighty streetcars – Vox

The decline of the streetcar after World War I — when cars began to arrive on city streets — is often cast as a simple choice made by consumers. As a Smithsonian exhibition puts it, "Americans chose another alternative — the automobile. The car became the commuter option of choice for those who could afford it, and more people could do so."

But the reality is more complicated. "People weren't choosing to ride or not ride in some perfect universe — they were making it in a messy, real-world environment," Norton says.

The real problem was that once cars appeared on the road, they could drive on streetcar tracks — and the streetcars could no longer operate efficiently. "Once just 10 percent or so of people were driving, the tracks were so crowded that [the streetcars] weren't making their schedules," Norton says.

While I think battery technology has progressed a lot in recent years, for long-haul trucking and even long-distance bus transportation, I think trackless trolleys along interstates and major highways

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While I think battery technology has progressed a lot in recent years, for long-haul trucking and even long-distance bus transportation, I think trackless trolleys along interstates and major highways. I know a lot of people discount the possibility — after all it is expensive to run thousands of miles of electrified wires along with all the substations required to supply the wires, but it could provide a an economical source of power on go, beyond what even a large battery bank could provide.