Freeways almost ruined San Francisco

[@CityBeautiful]

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

[@becool365]

If you want to look at pointless transport schemes have a look at Bristol, UK. The transport network is the planning version of Frankenstein's Monster. Only now is it being slowly mended.

[@nathansmith6237]

The pierce elevated in downtown Houston

[@ric66521]

Stonecutters bridge in Hong Kong, though the view on bridge at night is fabulous.

[@nkrat1093]

A few decades ago the government wanted to put a freeway through my city (Vancouver), but like San Francisco activists were able to stop it. However, two short elevated sections were built before the plan was scrapped. Since then, they've been a pretty important route into and out of downtown - but they're a MASSIVE eyesore. Their location means there are a few blocks of concrete flats that have zero development. To this day, there aren't any freeways that cut up the city which is great for the community! The city is actually now planning on decommissioning the 'viaducts', demolishing one and converting the other into a greenway! Here's the report the city put out about it vancouver.ca/files/cov/2015-Staff-Report-Removal-of-the-Georgia-and-Dunsmuir-Viaducts.pdf

[@SerenityForschen]

In Salt Lake County Utah they are in a bit of a loop with more freeways will help the congestion. They are currently putting in a massive freeway to connect the south and north of the county on the west side called mountain view corridor when the majority of traffic woes could be better handled. Because Salt Lake County is on a grid system they could benefit from a couple one-way streets, expanded rail lines especially to the adjacent county to the west where most of their population commutes to Salt Lake County every work day. We currently need a better plan.

[@arnavn2554]

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

[@CityBeautiful]

That's the dream!

[@chromebomb]

That $9 was from the Fed gas tax? Was it initially funded from another source?

[@cloverman9815]

Why should the federal government give any money to a "sanctuary state"

[@LucasFernandez-fk8se]

Arnav N that's a stupid idea a freeway provides not only city people and suburban people with easier commutes but also connects the city to the rest of the country trains on the other hand are useless as they only serve downtowns are are terrible and inconvenient to use

[@raney150]

Lucas Fernandez That's just false. Trains are pretty easy and convenient to use. Also, trains aren't exclusively for the city dwellers. IDK about San Francisco, but 25% of suburban commuters in the Chicago area take the train. As for intercity, you can take a train (Amtrak) or a plane.

[@dylanberryman5365]

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

[@CityBeautiful]

You monster. :D

[@Orinslayer]

Barbarian!

[@azt3359]

Wow. What the.... 😂

[@leontransit1652]

*gets a bomb and destroys freeway*

[@ahamjax]

Honestly same though

[@darthutah6649]

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.

[@CityBeautiful]

Stay tuned for my next video on that very topic!

[@kennyholeater2494]

If you want to move to New York move to New York !

[@jewish_misteak3880]

@@kennyholeater2494 it's bad in New York as well. New dense walkable housing is needed everywhere.

[@FreewayBrent]

I don't believe the majority of San Francisco could support denser housing anyway. Not until they address their transportation system, where there's a shocking lack of subways serving the city. Too much dependence on the bus system, which is often slow. As a result of slow and sometimes no mass transit at all other than bus service, Uber and Lyft are incredibly popular in San Francisco.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

@@kennyholeater2494 people here are so afraid of San Francisco becoming New York that the NIMBYism has turned it into Greenwich. New people are coming into the city like it or not either from internal migration or natural birth rate growth. Refusing to create more places for these people to live only leads to those with the most means being able to compete for the limited housing resources. It doesn't have to be New York levels of skyscrapers or nothing, you can immitate cities like Paris. Rather than our general height limit of 3 floors, up the limit to 5 floors and you'll be able to add a very large amount of housing. Also the western half of the city is still almost entirely suburban style bedroom homes. These aren't a bad thin in general, but the land could be better utilized for housing more people.

[@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.

[@sirwillsirwill]

Alan Fisher FPV lost out?

[@raney150]

I lot of it between cities was really needed.

[@techblogger8323]

raney150 “between” American cities are built for cars not people

[@KevinSmith-qi5yn]

The United States is a bit different than Europe. Pretty much anything west of the East Coast has not been built up much. This allowed cities to design their roadwork around faster forms of transit. In European Cities, most were designed to be walkable. Modernizing such a city would be costly and require destroying many old buildings. This wasn't as much a problem in cities leveled during WW2. One reason why Germany is different.

[@turtle-balloon]

@@KevinSmith-qi5yn actually Germany built up their cities in the old way

[@michaelhamasaki3744]

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.

[@dynamicworlds1]

@EpiDemic117 you know what would be cheaper than that or even what we already do? Just giving every homeless person a small efficiency. The costs in things like crime and emergency room visits are greater than what it would cost to simply house every homeless person in America. We could also greatly reduce crime by ending the war on drugs, which funnels money into organized crime by pushing it to the black market. Problem (mostly) solved for better than free rather than just pushing it elsewhere at great cost. Just food for thought (and no, not making it up, as surprising as the first part may sound)

[@dynamicworlds1]

@EpiDemic117 it's not really a different problem though. You're proposing treating the symptoms, which seems reasonable at first glance, but I'm proposing treating the causes of those social issues instead.

[@dynamicworlds1]

@EpiDemic117 nice strawman. Muted (dumbass)

[@kennethsouthard6042]

@@dynamicworlds1 There are a few issues with this line of thinking: 1. Most homeless have mental an addiction issues and just giving them a small apartment is not going to work as they are not capable of managing their affairs. 2. For the population of the homeless where this may be feasible it creates moral hazard, as the next level up (working poor) from the homeless population that actually work to put a roof over their head will quickly realize that they would be better off by not working and just getting a free apartment like the formerly homeless do. This raises the the number of homeless and increases the costs.

[@dynamicworlds1]

@@thatgoodpain it's more than that, actually. It exists because it's something to threaten the working class with.

[@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.

[@milascave2]

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.

[@sagus_mage]

Opinunate ted That’s what happens when greed rules over practicality and public interest. And that’s pretty much the story of America.

[@hebneh]

Nope, not Henry Ford. General Motors was much more active in getting electric streetcar systems removed and replaced by buses that they built.

[@hopefulskeptic42]

@EpiDemic117 From the wording of your statement it's a little hard to tell just who you support. Are you supporting Ford and Disney, or are you supporting the Nazi's? In any case I can't see what either has to do with S. F. freeways.

[@Zeakthecat]

personally, its not just that. the automobile was a symbol of independence and american innovation. henry ford didn't want the freeways built because of greed, but because he wanted cities to adopt a "americanist" style. this lead to more funding for roads, however it ended up leaving behind mass transit in the process for many cities. of course now theres ways to beautify roads a bit. roundabouts are great for doing that, no more waiting in a queue at a traffic light. just yield to cars and continue when clear.. plus in most roundabouts theres a area in the middle for trees, bushes, walkways, etc. but i do agree we invested too much in roads, a balance would've been more perfered tho.

[@Zeakthecat]

@EpiDemic117 disney did support the nazis however a propaganda cartoon was made with donald duck in it. i honestly don't believe henry ford helped the nazis.

[@bonecanoe86]

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.

[@AlexCab_49]

Huh. Exactly what happened in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood

[@jmonteschio]

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

[@peterbanderas8184]

J Monteschio and that only lasted till the "new san Franciscans" showed up and messed every thing up.

[@jmonteschio]

Sorry Peter Banderas, but that sounds a lot to me like what a white person would say about non-whites coming into their community and "messing everything up".

[@peterbanderas8184]

J Monteschio sorry you think so, but it's true. All the little communities, from the Latino ones, where my family came from, to the Italian, Irish, Asian and Black working class communities have been gutted by "New San Franciscans" and they have turned the city to crap. The bay area used to be a laid back place with interesting people and interesting places. Now it's an elitist enclave of rich pricks who think because they now have a sf adress it makes them real san Franciscans or Californians.

[@lancegoop189]

I went to SF a week ago and its so damn sad to see the city being gutted by corporate interests and supposed 'urban renewal' in the name of economic development. Heck, the way things are going Chinatown won't be Chinatown anymore within the next 15 years.

[@malvolio01]

@@jmonteschio He's talking about the mostly white techies, idiot. That's obvious. I knew exactly what he meant.

[@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.

[@CarstenCzaja]

But we (I can speak for at least Germany) had also tried to implement the car centric city with a lot of freeways.....with, sadly, some degree of success.

[@kolofsson]

I heard that in Zurich, where I live, the traffic has been solved like this: the highways lead into the city, where they end. Entry points are guarded by traffic lights, which control how many cars are let into the city. This keeps the traffic jams out of the city center. So a common situation is that you drive a highway very quickly up to the city border, where you wait endless minutes at the traffic light. Seems brutal, but it effectively discourages people taking the car. So they often opt for the train, and the public transport network is really good and clean.

[@TransitAndTeslas]

Przemek Kołowski It also worked for San Francisco as we can see, and so far I love it here. There’s still cars and traffic but public transportation is superb, as good as New York or London.

[@christianlibertarian5488]

Przemek--What you are describing is the government destroying people's lives by not providing adequate roads. No doubt it discourages people from using cars, but governments SHOULD NOT BE MAKING THAT DECISION ON HOW PEOPLE RUN THEIR LIVES.

[@kolofsson]

There is no place to build more roads, and I don't know why you mess the government into it. In Switzerland if people want something, they can decide on it in a referendum. So far the majority does not want more roads and it's a perfectly understandable decision to me, as paving the whole landscape with roads will only bring more cars and it's a vicious circle. Having a car is expensive and it is not sustainable for everybody to own a car. I don't know if you're a libertarian, or a egoist who only sees his end of the bargain. The majority is Switzerland does not want more roads, it's that simple.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

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.

[@superdevinsX]

This

[@citiesskyscrapers4561]

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 :)

[@CityBeautiful]

Thanks! And interesting channel you have there. If you added some voiceover and made the videos a little longer you could really have something. Let me know if you need/want any help or advice.

[@citiesskyscrapers4561]

Wow, thank you!

[@shades9721]

SF is very car-dependent compared to some major American cities, like NY, Boston, and DC

[@citiesskyscrapers4561]

Jackie Scholl But it’s less car dependent than Atlanta or Phoenix, for example.

[@somemanwhoateapuertoricanl7859]

Cities & Skyscrapers yeah. Atlanta. The amount of nimbyism it has gone through to block projects for MARTA

[@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.

[@chioj36]

Agreed

[@penguinsfan251]

Baltimore is a dump and would be a dump even without I-83 or I-95. I-70 was never built.

[@PeterSantenello]

Thanks for this!

[@AlgaeNymph]

Something that'd be interesting would be a video on how to make a city _less_ pleasant to live in. How to build the ultimate slum, in other words.

[@kansasthunderman1]

San Francisco is building high rises like there's no tomorrow and the place is worse than ever before.

[@hithere5553]

LA lmao

[@JETZcorp]

There are a couple videos on that already. "Seattle Is Dying" is a good one. Not only is it a decrepit trash heap, it's also getting praised for implementing all the trendy stuff. They're patting themselves on the back all the way to their Detroit future.

[@anthonysnyder1152]

Ok so I watched this like 2 years ago living in San Francisco, intrigued about urban planning. Now I’m in a masters program for Urban Planning and live in Switzerland. Oh how time flies.

[@WorldWideWong]

Wendover supported this video? GO SAM!!!

[@CityBeautiful]

I know! I love that he's a patron, as I'm a huge fan of his videos.

[@WorldWideWong]

you should collaborate with him, sometime.

[@allamasadi7970]

City Beautiful do a collaboration with Wendover Productions and Real Life Lore!

[@orangepeelz3579]

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!

[@migo-migo9503]

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.

[@bbolin5626]

John Peric Yes and ordinary rapid transit (subways, light rail, monorail).

[@Hyperventilacion]

A youtuber that finally puts sources YES

[@CityBeautiful]

Yes! My only problem is that some of my sources are behind academic paywalls so people can't read the articles to verify if they want. I wish there was more access to the general public.

[@Hyperventilacion]

Just put the DOI, that's enough to get them ;)

If that's the case you would love TL:DR (Teal Deer)

[@CarFreeSegnitz]

A freeway scheme for Vancouver, Canada was shot down decades ago. Freeways were proposed for the northern and southern edges of the icon downtown peninsula. These would have ruined picturesque waterfronts. Motorists are the ones who bemoan the move away from downtown freeways. But efficient transportation systems focus on moving people instead of vehicles. In Vancouver's case mass rapid transit in the shape of the Skytrain network was the option.

[@CityBeautiful]

Yeah, from what I understand Vancouver has no freeways within its city limits, which is unique in Canada and the United States.

[@Makoto778]

Well there is hwy 1, but I guess it just skirts the north east corner of the city.

[@Three_Raccoons]

There's a freeway (HWY 1) that maybe runs 2.5 km through the North East corner of the city. There is also a remnant of the original downtown freeway plan. The Georgia and Dunsmir Viaducts were the start of a proposed crosstown freeway, but less than 0.5 km was built before protests and new city government put a stop to it. This year, it was confirmed that those remnants of freeway will be torn down to make way for parkland and more residential space.

[@HowlingWolf518]

Problem is that SkyTrain expansion keeps getting delayed, so congestion has caught up.

[@christianlibertarian5488]

And look at the price of real estate in Vancouver. The lack of freeways is one of the main drivers of those ridiculous prices.

[@fauzirahman3285]

Wow, the state was so deadset on the panhandle freeway where there was so many other better alternatives proposed.

[@Liz-sc3np]

It was amazing when the 15 in northern San Diego was widen and fastrak included. 10 years later ... we’re back at the same place we started. Fastrak gets as congested as the regular freeway.

[@evanfunk7335]

Just add more lanes, Im sure it will help!! I abhor the design of san diego, having lived here all my life.

[@james5460]

New York City was facing exactly the same situation at exactly the same time and stopped Robert Moses cold. His highways would have cut right across Manhattan and would have been a disaster. So, this wasn't just some SF thing, it was an issue across the country.

[@warmleatherette5652]

It still happened as there are freeways (expressways) throughout NYC in Queens, The Bronx and Brooklyn.

[@GH-oi2jf]

James - Yes. In fact, Robert Moses made a plan for a grid of freeways in Portland, Oregon. The segment on the west side of downtown was a part of that scheme, but most of it was killed, thankfully.

[@jasonmeadows8510]

I traveled from Long Island to New Jersey a few times. It was annoying not having at least one freeway across Manhattan. The Queens Midtown Tunnel basically just ends in the middle of Manhattan, and you're stuck in the middle of a traffic jam trying to get to the Lincoln Tunnel. If your're an out of towner, it can be a nightmare if you're just traveling through.

[@TheStig_TG]

@@warmleatherette5652 Staten island has 3 highways, we are lucky because we were gonna get 7.

[@somemanwhoateapuertoricanl7859]

Reminds me of Winnipeg. A North American city with both zero freeways and bad public transit

[@Peng_Pong]

meaturama dude.

[@somemanwhoateapuertoricanl7859]

meaturama yes. Litterally zero freeways. Basically just a ring expressway and a few wide streets going through the city. And all of that was because of nimbys

[@chi8514]

whats wrong with Winnipeg transit

[@somemanwhoateapuertoricanl7859]

chi bus service is shit in this city

[@513Lindaddy]

public transit isn't all that bad in sf.

[@Deadlytrick]

I don't think this paints the entire story. We are now struggling as a city every day to bear the cost of removing these freeway plans. Any plans to travel from east to west in the city, as many people withIN the city have to do, are a logistical nightmare. Public transport has been woefully inadequate to suit those that live in areas like the sunset, richmond, or other western districts, and are completely unfeasible for those living there that need to access further cities. 19th avenue, where the western freeway would have gone is now one of the tightest bottlenecks in the city if you are trying to head north. SF NIMBYism may have preserved neighborhoods, but it screwed over the ability to get anywhere in the city for the foreseeable future.

[@GH-oi2jf]

Deadlytrick - In fact, you have the ability to get anywhere in the city. You are just in too much of a hurry.

[@puffpuffin1]

@staytunedfor We need both. When the next subway was being planned after the Market St subway opened, there were two choices: 3rd St or Geary. The mayor chose 3rd St so that's why it was built. It was always planned for at least two phases since the subway portion was more complicated than the surface portion. Plans were always to extend it to Fishermans Wharf or even the Marina, but North Beach (and the "progressives") tried killing the whole project. Luckily, Chinatown told them, "If they didn't want a subway in your neighborhood, we will will build it for our neighborhood." So now we have a subway that stubs into the edge of North Beach. Guess what happened? NOW...they want the subway extended! Ugh! SMH.

[@BoeboeMusic]

Same thing happened here in Amsterdam around the same time. The plan was to build two major freeways through the heart of the city center, which is already relatively small. It actually came to violent protests at some point but the people won and Amsterdam got a beltway instead.

[@adventureguy5088]

San Francisco is honestly so much more beautiful than Los Angeles, and a lot of that is thanks to the lack of freeways.

[@kansasthunderman1]

San Francisco isn't so beautiful with increasing traffic congestion. The Embarcadero is now just a freeway at ground level.

[@brownie3924]

We need freeways in LA or our entire street would have been clogged.

[@temich1985]

Frisco looks great zoomed out, but once you zoom in its a whole new different world there

[@DavidinSLO]

@@temich1985 With all due respect, Frisco is a city in Texas. No one in California refers to San Francisco as "Frisco".

[@temich1985]

DavidinSLO people in SF Bay Are who are not living in SF refer to it as Frisco. People in SF hate it, because they're super snobby about the fact that their Drivers License says San Francisco in the address so they think they're cream de la cream of entire world

[@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

[@induceddemand]

Something very similar happened here in Toronto, actually. In the '50s a massive plan to build huge amounts of provincial and municipal highways and expressways across the city surfaced. It proved to be wildly unpopular (of course) and in the end, very little of it was built. The most notable example of this was the Spadina Expressway (now known as W.R. Allen Road), which planned to carry traffic off the 401 (continent's busiest highway) and dump it onto Bloor Street downtown. The highway was cancelled after the city (including activist Jane Jacobs) came together to shoot it down. The highway has been partially built but is now a fraction of its planned length. I live right near a site of a proposed east-west expressway, the Scarborough Expressway. Land set aside for it still sits empty today. I'm glad our city wasn't scarred by American-like planning and freeways.

[@CityBeautiful]

Nice! I need to get to Toronto. Never been!

[@induceddemand]

It certainly is a beautiful city and worth a trip. I'd liken it in a lot of ways to cities like San Francisco or Seattle - lots of history, tons of green space, modern, safe, booming, and tons of charm. Our iconic streetcar system (which could make for a lovely video - hint hint) adds a lovely touch to those quaint downtown neighborhoods full of cultural shops and different foods we're known for. It's definitely an amazing city and I'd be thrilled to welcome you.

[@somemanwhoateapuertoricanl7859]

Zack Smith but unlike San Francisco, it barely has a subway system that is extensive enough to serve its people. Technically it's just two subway lines, with only one of them going through downtown, aswell as two others spurring them off. Now they are currently building the Finch LRT, which will just make the Yellow line a bigger bottleneck

[@induceddemand]

1) San Francisco also only has one stretch of subway running through downtown, under Market Street (I know multiple lines use it, but they're all just branches of each other for the most part. Also not counting MUNI considering it's just an underground streetcar). Also, Bloor Street is the edge of downtown, so yes, Line 2 runs through downtown as well, especially given how much residential development is happening in Yorkville and The Annex. 2) There are four TTC lines, with one under construction and multiple planned. Two of them are small, yeah, but they're still lines. 3) San Francisco as a city is more dense and has a smaller population. Look at GO Transit. Most of Greater Toronto is suburbanized, and the GO system is much more vast than Caltrain or BART, even though the Bay Area is larger population-wise than the GTA. 4) Our bus system is top-notch, with a large system of routes running every ten minutes or less city-wide.

[@somemanwhoateapuertoricanl7859]

Zack Smith but while San Francisco has less people taking the BART, as opposed to Toronto with its terrible subway system, at least the system connects to two airports and currently serves two major cities (Oakland of course, which no one would ever go to because it's a crime-riddled shithole, just as much as many Black neighborhoods, especially due to Black gangster culture, but of course not all Blacks are bad). And they are expecting to connect San Jose to the BART system from at least 2023. Meanwhile, in the GTA area, with its absurdly large municipalities (reason why there are only 10 U.S. cities with over 1 million people, San Francisco not included), the TTC still has no plans to connect the airport to the subway system or even build a new rapid transit line that would be overground for the most part and goes through downtown, all because of building delays due to money mismanagement. And depending on where do you live, a lot of bus routes are actually bad, considering most buses don't have air conditioning and people will be crammed up into them. By the fact that you claim that the GTA area is more suburbanized, yes, you may be right, but in both cases, both San Francisco and Toronto are very car-dependent, especially with GO Transit being unreliable at most times

[@sniper6081]

Good thing they stopped those darn freeways. San Francisco would've gone to shit otherwise. There would've been homeless people everywhere, needles littering the streets, insane home price-. Oh wait...

[@lordalpharius5928]

It would of been worse, congestion would still harm traffic commute no matter what. But the homeless crisis, yeah, it would of been worse.

[@roadtrip2943]

Thanks for san fran freeway story. I clearly remember the embarcadero fway before 89 quake and after. Keeping the city intact made the 15 years living there much better. Access to the bridges due back up local streets though.

[@philrabe910]

Well, I lived and drove here before the Embarcadero & the tail of the Central freeway were torn down. They were heinous ugly to see and to drive on, BUT Traffic has become appalling since they were removed- it was merely horrendous before the quake, and the City isn't all that much larger now than then. I refuse to go anywhere near the areas once served by the Embarcadero on a Friday afternoon. Or anytime there is a ball game in town. 19th ave [the western freeway] is a parking lot that takes 20 to 30 minutes to drive a little under 5 miles for much of the day. All that needless exhaust pollution from thousands of idling cars is happening right in front of people's homes!! That corridor needs a tunnel, that is the only way that level of congestion will ever be addressed.

[@dropmelon]

meaturama Expanding the areas covered by mass transits and increasing its frequency are more viable in the long run.

[@bencatechi4293]

Anyone who lives in SF knows not to drive during a Giants Game. You just take Muni. It's cheaper, faster and if you get drunk at the game then you don't have to drive home. Traffic may be worse now but it affects far fewer people because public transport is so much better. It's like saying a hospital is bad because all of it's patients have life threatening diseases. That may not be ideal but if they cured all their less sick patients and cut their patient count from 100 to ten, they're doing their job right. You have to include people who don't use cars in your traffic statistics.

[@michwashington]

Phil Rabe bet you wish the freeways were still there. Too bad !

[@biglos9d]

My commute solution: lane-split a motorcycle through all of it. I can get from the east bay to downtown SF in about 20 minutes at the peak of the commute.

[@VestedUTuber]

The problem I see with the freeway plan wasn't the fact that it existed, but rather the poor and inefficient layout. Honestly, I was OFFENDED by the proposed layout. They could have easily achieved what they wanted by simply routing two intersecting routes through the center of the city (in this case, a tunnel from the Golden Gate bridge to the southbound bay-side freeway, and one from the Bay Bridge to the coastline-side freeway), and then adding a beltway for local service. Supplemented with a decent commuter rail network, this layout would be far more efficient than the rotten spaghetti that the State of California proposed, and with far less use of imminent domain.

[@ScottWallace5]

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!

[@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.

[@peteralbert1485]

You did an impressive job with such a complicated history! Even after the 1989 earthquake had damaged the Embarcadero and Central Freeways, there was so residual opposition to removing them. They’re gone, and you’re correct in connecting the expansion of Muni and BART in SF as the direction the city is going. The first two subways in downtown (BART and Muni Metro) were opened in the 1970s and 1980s, a good decade after the Embarcadero freeway was halted. The new Muni Central Subway, roughly tracing one of the abandoned N-S freeway routes, opens in 2019, and Caltrain electrifies and intensifies its old diesel commuter line to Silicon Valley by 2022. In the final nail to the freeway coffin, BART and Caltrain are now planning another tube to run through Downtown and to connect the Peninsula to the East Bay for both rail systems.

[@johnmeraz7348]

This so why I love visiting San fransico then LA. Less traffic, don’t have to drive and I just take public transportation to travel around the Bay Area. I live in Phoenix a big care centric city plus the weather is amazing and the people are nicer then LA.

[@scottkew6278]

What helped stop it were the Marin County voters. Construction of the The Hiway 102 BRIDGE piers were actually started. When Marinites realized that there was going to be a 6 lane freeway terminating in Point Reyes and a huge project called Marincello was going to turn the coastline out along Muir Beach and the Marin Headlands into a massive housing development the voters in Marin said NO ! They voted no on extending the future but very much in the works BART to Marin County at about the same time ending all hopes of this project proceeding any further. Remember that the Golden Gate Bridge was originally built with the second deck intended for transit either train or trolley, neither of which ever happened.

[@minivergur]

Mass private cars must be the most inefficient way of transport in an urban setting

[@kyle857]

Friðrik Ólafsson But one of the most liberating. I can and have just jumped in my car and been half way across the country in a day.

[@minivergur]

true, but I'm mainly talking about in an urbam setting

[@jogiff]

Driving occasionally really isn't an issue. The problem is the people who insist on driving every single day and then insist that the government needs to pave over people's houses and remove the bike lanes so they can go 1% faster.

[@MrRShoaf]

This depends on where you need to go. If you live and work in an urban area you can walk or bike or hop on a street car or bus, public transportation works, and people will use it. but if you get off work an hour late and the busses stop running then what? What if your house is a couple of miles from the public transit on one end and beyond walking distance on the other? That is when people will decide that public transportation doesn't work. Then they will drive because it is more efficient to them.

[@StevenTorrey]

Look at the transit lines now in San Francisco. Instead of Freeways, what are essentially secondary roads now guide cars through the city. Route 1 on 19th Street through Golden Gate Park, where Route 1 is barely noticeable when people walk beneath it, onto Funston Ave to Golden Gate Bridge. Route 101 through Van Ness Avenue to Lombard Street to Golden Gate Bridge. Routes 280 and 80 funneling traffic through Embarcadero. While the aesthetic mess of elevated highways are avoided, the use of secondary roads oftentime means pedestrians crossing those roads take life in hand. Collapse of the Embarcadero Freeway was an urban planning godsend opening a city area that had been an urban dead zone opened to city revitalization of the 6 mile water-front including a stadium for the San Francisco Giants baseball team attracting tourist dollars to the improvement of the city economy. In conclusion, denying the construction of Freeways in the city, preserved the character and personality and soul of the city.

[@warrenlemay8134]

My old neighborhood (CUF) in Cincinnati was nearly sliced through by a cross-town freeway in the 1960s. It would’ve gone right down the block I used to live on. Thankfully, the plans for the William Howard Taft Freeway, along with several other freeways on the north and west sides of the city, were all cancelled. The destructiveness of freeways still affected Cincinnati though, as the historic West End and Kenyon-Barr were destroyed, and thousands of people, many of them ethnic minorities, were displaced.

[@CityBeautiful]

Yeah, no city went completely unscathed during the era of freeway construction. It's crazy to look at old maps and see what could've been, though.

[@warrenlemay8134]

They also used the right-of-way that had been preserved to build a never-completed rapid transit line around the city in the 1920s to build parts of I-75, I-71, and the Norwood Lateral. Part of the rapid transit line still exists under Central Parkway, a never-used Subway Tunnel.

[@CityBeautiful]

I find the story of the unbuilt subway system in Cincinnati to be really fascinating. Might have to be a video someday.

[@adnanilyas6368]

Yup. We’ve got the infamous distinction of having the largest failed public transit system in the world. At certain times of the year, you can actually take tours of the old tunnels.

[@zabba7461]

Ay I live in the 'U' of the neighborhood. Public transit in Cincy is pretty fascinating imo. The history (old streetcars and inclines, the subway) and the future with the new streetcar and *potential* expanded light rail network. The streetcar definitely should have come up to UC.

[@dylanryall]

San Francisco anti freeway activism inspired Sacramento county residents to fight and prevent a freeway connecting I-80 and US 50 east of the city. It would have gone north-south through Carmichael and Rancho Cordova. They built the connection ramps when they built the connection between 80 and business 80 northeast of Sacramento. Some are used as the Auburn blvd exit from both freeways. It is marked as state route 244 on Google maps. Other parts of the connection ramps are now used as parking for the Watt and I-80 light rail station.

[@pforce9]

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.

[@davidnissim589]

Freeways ruined every city, but there are few cities they ruined more than San Francisco. Until the 50s, the Bay Area had one of the best rail infrastructures in the country; streetcars and cable cars that connected the ENTIRE city, the Peninsula Commute train that ran from SF to San Jose (this is what Caltrain used to be), as well as the Key System, which ran from SF, across the Bay Bridge, to the East Bay and Sacramento. You could literally take a train from downtown San Francisco to downtown Sacramento in about two hours! With the rise of freeways in the 50's, most of the cable car and streetcar lines were removed (five streetcar lines were kept ONLY because they used tunnels and hills that buses could not), and the train tracks were removed from the Bay Bridge.

[@d.m.conroy6717]

topic: Fordham University hastily constructed ugly buildings in the Bronx to prevent Robert Moses from building a highway right through the campus in the 1940s GREAT CHANNEL!

[@CityBeautiful]

Ooh, I didn't know that little Robert Moses factoid. I'm overdue on a video about Moses. I'm hoping to get to NYC later this year so I can film one on location.

[@GH-oi2jf]

City Beautiful - A “factoid” is a false fact, not a small fact.

[@grahamturner2640]

Phoenix almost barely had freeways. The I-17 was only finished in the 70s, and the I-10 skyway proposal vas voted down in 1973. However, freeway construction was expedited when the valley had a massive boom in the 80s. That was the push to finish the I-10, though not as a skyway, and a bunch of more suburban freeways (mainly the loop freeways, the State Routes 101, 202, and 303).

[@GH-oi2jf]

Here’s how I see the criticism: Everybody wants their own route through the city to the places they want to go to be quick and easy. But the catch is that, for others, it will be an obstruction, or will destroy their neighborhood, while doing nothing for their transportation needs. Congestion is inherent in a large city. Adding traffic lanes never reduces congestion generally. When you have a growing population, any traffic lane you build quickly fills up until the congestion is the same as everywhere else. That is because of the atomic nature of individual vehicles. Cars are like molecules in a liquid - they flow to fill the available space. A good example is the road which bypasses Portland on the west, connecting US 26 to I-5 south of Portland. I have used that shortcut many times. Often, traffic comes to a dead stop.

[@kansasthunderman1]

The whole idea of endless population growth and development is doomed to failure. It's like saying that the problems associated with cancer can be solved if more of the cells used mass transit.

[@BeverlyF]

I always wondered why there was a half built freeway over the embarcadero growing up. Now I know. Thanks!

[@WanoToba]

San Francisco: *NO TO FREEWAYS!! My city, Winnipeg: We would love to have some of that...

[@Saucy-ws6jc]

Rapid Transit* which also has induced demand but is a good thing. Freeway induced demand leads to more congestion, pollution, time wasted

[@Blueoceandog]

Wow. I've lived in the bay area my whole life and didn't know the panhandle almost became a freeway.

[@factis1094]

I actually think that having freeways through the cities benefits the American cities because unlike in Europe, the majority of Americans live in suburbs. Not to mention that people prefer to live in a house with a backyard than a apartment highrise. To put into perspective, while chicago's population is 2 million, it's suburbs have a total 7 million people, almost 4 times the city population

[@yoyoa8362]

I agree. Sure it's nice to live in a city while you are young, but the majority of people who want to raise children would want to raise them in a less hectic place, more affordable place. American metro areas are just too large and spread out to adopt the European model. The only way would be to densify, but many don't want to live so close together and not to mention higher taxes.

[@kwd3109]

Yes, the traffic on 19th Avenue is awful. A pleasant detour around that mess is to take Geary Street down to the Great Highway past the Cliff House and just enjoy the ride along Ocean Beach. If you do a constant 35 mph all the lights on Great Highway will turn green as you get to them. A beautiful, relaxing drive that skips all the stress of 19th Avenue. (Just wanted to offer a solution instead of complaining all the time :)

[@heyyou1198]

boston puts their freeways underground, it’s great

[@quintont.monroe7642]

and Dallas should do the same with I-345 it's literally the only way they can keep it long term, no other option

[@InfiniteCS]

And now San Fransico has some of the worst traffic in the country

[@EmpReb]

Infinite Ouya laughs in Texan freeway.

[@BAYAREA_PizzaParty]

Only because the population in the bay area is growing and everyone drives out to SF for work. Doesn't have anything to do with having no freeways.

[@InfiniteCS]

Timmy Turner kinda does when you have a horrible bottleneck at the ends of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge, another freeway to help divert traffic instead of forcing that traffic onto small 2 lane roads would of helped.

[@BAYAREA_PizzaParty]

Infinite Ouya Yeah that solution would help for a while.. until people buy more cars after they see there's a extra freeway built to help them get to work faster.

[@InfiniteCS]

Timmy Turner they clearly are buying them anyways, only other thing you could do is reduce BART costs but that still wouldn't get rid of that bottleneck. It's not only loud and obnoxious but also in hiderous to the economy due to the rediculous amount of traffic.

[@kwebs10]

You should do a video on all the LA freeways that were fought and later were not built.

[@earnthis1]

Thank you activists from 50 years ago, and more! Your love is still felt today

[@breakingborders]

I didn't know all of that history. Great video!

[@grumpygoomba9763]

Something similar happened in London. It was known as Ringways, and Jay Foreman made a really good video on it.

[@mk3a]

Fun Fact: Amsterdam and to a lesser extent, the Randstad area of the Netherlands, almost ended up like California in the 1970s. It took over 40 years to reverse the damage and look at it today. Making a city livable is doable.

[@thatredmanguy]

Neighboring Oakland had a similar viaduct called the Cypress Viaduct, but that got destroyed in the '89 earthquake.

[@gpan62]

Vancouver faced a similar situation in the 1960s. A myth has grown that resistance from local residents killed the freeways. The real reason is that governments ran out of money.

[@yggdrasil9039]

Great video. What happened in San Francisco is an inspiration. Meanwhile Sydney is in an underground tollway building frenzy. Adopting a failed transport mode from 70 years ago. You couldn't make this stuff up. It's not the car companies that own Sydney because Australia doesn't make cars any more, it's the tollroad operators that own the city and prevent much needed new public transport rail lines from being built. Melbourne meanwhile has more sense. They cancelled the Eastwest motorway when the previous government got voted out over the issue and now have a plan to build a huge ring railway system to interconnect all radial suburban rail lines.

[@Garrettm448]

You should do a video about the fight to keep a freeway out of New Orleans’s French Quarter!

[@donaldtorvalis9734]

Must be the reason Business Insider ranked it the third worst city in america in terms of traffic (published 2/11/18).

[@chrisw443]

whats also fascinating is the story of portlands freeway activism in the 80's

[@CityBeautiful]

Yes, that would be a nice sequel to this video.

[@NatureShy]

Would love to see a video done on Portland's freeway activism, and the various abandoned freeway projects, like the Mt. Hood Freeway, etc. I'm from Portland.

[@diamonddigs6206]

I've been through Portland many times and it seems like they lost

[@peskypigeonx]

Peter Dribble did a video on activism, both on a past downtown waterfront “freeway” and many Portland freeways as a whole

[@trapcubetv5712]

I say that those designs are good, Just replace them with cycle lanes, Subways, and a beautiful Boulevard with wide sidewalks and plentiful trees and easy crossings like at Santana Row san Jose.

[@hamishashcroftplaysminecra6262]

It's not a coincidence that the cities people love the most (In North America cities such as Vancouver, San Francisco, New York) are also the cities that have very few motorways running right through the middle of them. Meanwhile, cities that really adopted very car centric ways of expanding (highways, sprawl, acres of parking, strip malls etc) such as Detroit, Nashville, Atlanta are seen as somewhat less in demand destinations. The combination of sprawl (think McMansions), poor public transit, lots of highways and tons of surface level parking lots that take up huge swathes of the inner city leads to a toxic environment for pedestrians and cyclists, creates tons of congestion, (and no, larger roads won't help, it called induced demand) makes people fatter, creates more emissions and pollution, makes people less sociable and friendly, reduces footfall for businesses, makes everything so far away from everything else it is impossible to walk, makes goods more expensive and decreases tourism. Ughhh

[@mrbrainbob5320]

Vancouver? Never really heard anyone consider it one of their favorite

[@TheBoldImperator]

Correlation and causation. Denver and Houston are thriving at the moment and both have enormous highway networks. Detroit was hardly made or broken by its infrastructural choices. This is nonsense.

[@nascaracing9]

Lol all those cities are notorious for drug users, poverty, radical liberals, and overpriced real estate. They suck

[@philrabe910]

I'm not sure you are speaking about New York, NY, USA. It is a town bisected / destroyed by the freeways of Robert Moses.

[@krisnathebalinese]

You have perfectly described what Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila have now become after decades of poor planning, or rather lack thereof altogether. Three extremely car and motor vehicle-centric cities that are fortunately getting a grip on expanding their rail based public transport. It feels like travelling to a different utopian dimension as soon as you go to neighbouring Singapore from any of these three cities.

[@Daniel-mf8yn]

I think the unfortunate thing is that many cities simply can't afford to remove freeways. It is unfortunate as well since the people have become so accustomed to it that they do not realize how bad having a freeway ram right through downtown is.

[@CityBeautiful]

I know. The State and Federal government should use funds for highway maintenance and repair to remove freeways, as it saves them on maintenance costs in the long run!

[@MarloSoBalJr]

Baltimore should take note. Since highways started slicing through the city, crime rates risen. Look where it is now.

[@somemanwhoateapuertoricanl7859]

MarloSoBalJr and so the 2015 riots happened

[@LucasFernandez-fk8se]

Daniel literally after the initial destruction of a few houses there are no bad things about freeways public transport on the other hand has many many faults such as crowded nasty and you don't get to leave when you want you have to follow someone else's schedule also the trains are often late now if u have a magic solution that's better than both of those we would all LOVE to hear it

[@Daniel-mf8yn]

American public transport is poorly funded. No one said a freeway was bad. The placement of the freeways were bad, and not planned well. Freeways in the US ram right through cities, instead of a "ring road" which loops around the outskirts of a city.

[@FiveMissiles]

that shit would've been over my house

[@flyguille]

Freeways are the worst that can happen inside a city... properties go down.. neighborhood goes abandon poverty increases.

[@Squab1987]

Someone needs to do a biopic about that topic, would make for a great film

[@RichardCurrie]

Getting across or into San Francisco is terrible today. Getting to the Golden gate bridge takes over 30 minutes. The western freeway would have been great, even if it was stop+go

[@eddiehe7454]

Dude this is an awesome video, learned so much in less than 10 minutes, keep doing it!

[@pauvelasco06]

our metropolitan area (Metro Manila) has really bad city planning but there are pocket of it that are beautiful

[@pongop]

Awesome video! Power to the People! A friend's dad (4th generation San Franciscan) once mentioned that freeways didn't really go through the city, but that's all I knew of the story. I didn't even know there was a story. It's cool to learn the whole story.

[@markmalloy5050]

Plot twist: it was ruined by homeless people instead

[@DiddamsGaming]

San francisco is such a nightmare to get around today... It shouldn't take 40 minutes to travel 3 miles on the street. I feel like a good compromise would have been to allow the majority of the planned freeways to be built, with the exception of the embarcadero... That one I agree was pointless and did nothing but ruin the downtown skyline.

[@bbolin5626]

DiddamsGaming Or expand rapid transit.

[@AmazingAmigo]

Love this Channel. I think it has huge potential. Remember me guys, i was here before the hype!

[@CityBeautiful]

I love my OG supporters.

[@mennomateo]

Vancouver BC is soon to demolition the viaducts, the initial components to a highway system that was to cut up the beautiful downtown we have today. Sadly the construction of the viaducts at the time did displace the established black neighborhood in Vancouver that included Jimi Hendrix grandmother.

[@42luke93]

I’m crazy because I think freeway bridges like that are beautiful.

[@austinblackburn8095]

Know I think when done right they almost look futuristic.

[@krombopulos_michael]

They can look good, but they also make the city worse by increasing the amount of car traffic and decreasing the amount of space for people or businesses.

[@LukasLobmann]

Im form Ludwigshafen in Germany and here we have a something similar to the Freeways called the "Hochstraße" (high street in english). It was planed and build around the same time as the American Freeways and is likely to be influenced by them; the only difference is that our "Hochstraße" is not that ugly and dosn´t destroy the view or skyline of the city and to make it even better it keeps the exhaust of the commuters traveling to the BASF out of the city (The BASF is the world largest chemical concern wich has its biggest and oldest plant as one of our city districts). Now the "Hochstraße" is in poor condition due to poor maintenance and the best way would be to rebuild it (maybe with small modifications), nevertheless city authorities are motivated from the American Freeway demolitions and want the "Hochstraße" to go and replace it with a big motorway at ground level. Not only that this plan would lead to the demolition of housing estates and a part of our city hall, it would also mean that a big motorway would cut directly through the city (instead of crossing on top of the city life) and in front of our biggest high-school. Furthermore all the pollution from commuting cars would now be directly at city level. And all that only because the state authorities want to be modern and like the Americans instead of realizing that they life in on of the only city where Freeways in the American sense worked...

[@RaymondHng]

I looked up de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochstra%C3%9Fe It looks like an elevated freeway similar to the elevated freeway in San Francisco here.. goo.gl/maps/dFvVL4YdMiy

[@Jaisonawsome]

I am from the sf area love your videos, I wish the tunnels were built traffic is horrible in SF especially on those corridors they had planned to bulit, van ness and 19th especially, you should do a video on the Bart system there is alot of history of public dispute over that system that is flawed yet over achieving and a life saver at the same time. One of my favorite things about the bay area. I wish it wasn't so expensive and hard took build, if the original 1950 (s) master plan would've come through it would be so amazing. I am glad we have that instead of a freeway mess, especially since the automobile might be obsolete in 30-40 years and the road/freeway infrastructure is so expensive but I'm sure BART will still be running and hopefully better then

[@CityBeautiful]

Yeah, there needs to be more transit in SF. One tube across the bay is not cutting it for BART. I know that Caltrain is expanding, which is a step in the right direction. I commute to the Bay once a week on Amtrak Capitol Corridor and that's a fantastic service. I wish it ran all the way into SF.

[@danhernandez8082]

Remember Oakland's Key System and how it took riders into San Francisco via train on the lower deck of the bridge but got killed off due to National City Line's buses in 1958. Then people realized they needed rail transit again so the came up with BART. I think it's an interesting addition to the topic with a lot of history.

[@christianlibertarian5488]

You don't actually live in SF do you? Of course not. You can't afford it. Because the freeways were blocked.

[@LucasFernandez-fk8se]

Jaisonawsome cars aren't going to become obsolete just electric we have millions of miles of freeways and culdesacs across the country do u really think that all that will go to waste?

[@peteralbert1485]

City Beautiful I think your point here (plus your tradition of thoughtful videos) make a perfect set-up for the next huge transit project now in planning stages for San Francisco: the second BART tube. The official plan as of today to build a tunnel that carries both BART and Capitol Corridor/Caltrain, so BART gets the capacity relief it needs while San Franciscans can board a train at the Transbay Terminal that takes them directly to Sacramento without needing a transfer. This is too-long overdue and, because it includes a new Silicon Valley-Peninsula-East Bay rail connection, finally provides people who drive on 280, 101 and 80 a seamless, direct rail service.

[@jacobgathman289]

Fortunately for where I live, it's not a huge metropolis like San Francisco but still a good sized small city, when interstate 94 was built through it, the city had not yet built that far, so the freeway didnt require any demolition of existing houses. After the freeway was built, that spurred growth around the freeway and made my city what it is today. Then in the 70s, the city decided that a freeway route going to the south of the city was needed, and it was built without destroying a bunch of houses and leaving the river banks alone. Fast forward to today and the city is looking at options to get traffic from the freeway to the north side of town while also not destroying any current housing. I think freeways can be a good option as long as people's lives aren't being messed with. Inner city freeways are a terrible idea unless they existed before the city built around it.

[@maumor2]

Only in America: Lets move to the suburbs and then ruined the cities we just abandoned by making them build mega transit projects to make my commute easier (and in the meantime set rules that dont allow people darker than us to move to the suburbs)

[@merefinl6914]

I'm from the Bay Area and grew up hearing people casually mention being glad the Embarcadero was gone every time we were around the Ferry Building, I had no idea it had such a long history of being hated!

[@Balthorium]

Idiots hate it. It was great. You could get around the City with ease instead of 50 intersections.

[@dan_youtube]

That's why it's a nightmare to get into the city plus the hills and the stop lights at the end of them is no easy task for produce to be delivered to the residents.

[@patrisio3]

The only problem that I have with San Francisco not having more freeways is that the city did not do a good job in making transit alternatives to long stop-go-stop-go driving thru neighborhoods. The current Muni and BART routes are not enough. Even if the city just adds a subway line under Geary between the Financial District and the coast thru Richmond (or even an overhead rail or overhead Bus Rapid Transit line for cheaper cost), it would really improve transit in the city....although still lacking.

[@tohopes]

San Francisco is basically a city-sized roadblock for anyone trying to drive north or south through that part of California. The area is badly in need of a freeway to "ruin" the city.

[@kyle857]

Ttrucker Dont want traffic noise? Move to the country.

[@jogiff]

Wow, if only there were some way to go north through California without driving directly through a very (geographically) small city that would inevitably be a chokepoint regardless of freeways since it is a friggin peninsula... Hmmmm... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_680_(California)

[@tohopes]

jogiff that's about 25 miles out of the way. no chokepoint is "inevitable".

[@mlneale1959]

What gets missed is that the concept of the interstate system was mainly for commerce. When I was still driving commercially, I covered most of the U.S. east of I-35 and occasionally would take a trip out to Salt Lake. Someone mentioned Cincinnati. You have I-74 that connects your city with Indy and the Quad Cities where it joins with I-80 which then takes you to the west. I-75 connects Miami with the UP of Michigan through Toledo and Detroit. I-71 connects Cleveland with Louisville, where it connects to both I-65 and I-64. I-65 is a major north south route as well. Many of these roads could have been better designed to make them safer and I have no idea what the politicians and engineers were thinking. Nashville especially comes to mind. On the other side, without these roads our economy and country would likely be a second world country without Eisenhower's vision based on what he saw in Germany. The first over the road trip by a truck was a load of tires from Akron Ohio, to New York City. It took a month to complete the trip. A modern semi traveling on the interstate system can do the trip in a day with enough on duty and drive time to pickup a backhaul and leave the state of New York. If you've got it, a semi brought it and at least part of his trip was on an interstate.

[@harrisongarovi8860]

I always wondered when you would make a video on this.

[@realadrieno]

what really saved san francisco from ugly freeways was actually the earthquake in 1989 because many freeways were substantially destroyed and they decided that those freeways really weren’t worth rebuilding.

[@SquidCena]

I have to ask but what's wrong with freeways going through cities? I mean doesn't San Francisco need freeways? Freeways make cities nice right?

[@NutsAndThighs]

It destroys neighborhoods. They can't behave cohesively socially or economically once you divide it. Even if you have bridges over it, it'll divide it and will affect the area negatively. They increase pollution in already polluted areas, add noise pollution, decrease land values, and lead to more congestion (yes, *more* highways add more congestion, they do not reduce it, lookup induced demand, it's quite fascinating). Big cities need big mass transit networks, not freeways. Ideally you'd have lots of your workers living nearby and have a short commute with anyone else picking up transit from the suburbs.

[@CityBeautiful]

What Misha C said.

[@SquidCena]

Misha C but how do they destroy neighborhoods? I mean they sound beautfiul and how does traffic get increased?...

[@eshwarkumar8138]

Zaheed Chapman Since there is more capacity in the road system, travel times will be shorter, drawing people from mass transit to freeways. There have been studies on this. And most people don’t like the sound of freeways, they’re loud, very loud.

[@charlesjwin]

it's as if our locals forgot all the advantages of tunnels, suddenly.

[@karstenschuhmann8334]

In Basel a motorway crosses the river Rein more or less in the City center. However, at the waterfront the motorway is in a tunnel below a residential street. The Bridge over the Rein itself is extraordinary as it is a two-storied bridge, with the residential street on top. The lower deck containing the motorway is glazed protecting the scenery from noise pollution.

[@Allocated_Brain]

This video deserves more than 51 views.

[@CityBeautiful]

As this video was posted 17 minutes ago, I'm sure it will get more! I hope!

[@iammrbeat]

This video deserves more than 2,070 views, too.

[@tylernass6263]

how about 51k?

[@abroamg]

91k

[@michwashington]

It has only 51 views because it's anti progress. Instead of complaining about something that would have helped the city. It promotes nonsense.

[@Ryguy-lg2xz]

You know what’s unfortunate back then San Francisco used to be a tough working class city with a unique identity back then nowadays it’s a post modernist wasteland that is been overrun by rich techies who know nothing about the city and a massive homeless problem. The location is breathtaking but the people in the city are what made it great and all those people from a century ago are long gone

[@wilhelmkirkpatrick]

San Fransisco has a homeless problem that needs to be addressed

[@kchal0]

great content, just subbed. I like how clearly you address the history and you don't romanticize the african american experience as it is an important part of american history.

[@CityBeautiful]

Thanks! That's always something I can improve on, but I do my best.

[@gcsugirl]

Awesome video, I learned a good bit!👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

[@CityBeautiful]

Thanks!

[@NOREDLAC57]

This video explains a lot! Thank you for making it. I couldn’t imagine a concrete network in today’s SF.