SAN FRANCISCO, United States

- Walk score: 89

One of the most walkable cities in the United States, the story of San Fransisco is one of grassroots community movements, road space allocation (and not wanting to be like the other big Californian city).

A community rallies behind their cable cars

Following a 1947 commitment by Mayor Lapham to replace San Francisco's remaining cable cars with diesel buses, the San Francisco Federation of Arts formed a Citizen's Committee to Save the Cable Cars led by Mrs Friedel Klussmann. A letter writing campaign delivered personally by Mrs Klussmann and invitation for Mayor Lapham to join the Citiezens committee was met by ridicule from Lapham. This was despite the fact that the diesel buses purchased to replace the cable cars could not cope with the grade of the San Francisco hills when full with passengers who were forced to walk a block when they caught the bus. This was a problem that the cable cars had long overcome with help from the underground cables underneath the hilly San Francisco streets.

Recognising the value for tourism that the Cable Cars attract, the Citizen's Committee turned to national (and international) media. Life, Time, Newsweek and The Saturday Evening Post all produced articles opposing the removal of San Francisco's Cable Cars. A local houseware store placed an ad in Time Magazine asking the American people to 'vote' by writing a letter to the store. The owner of the store reported an overwhelming response from people who wrote to him from around the to keep the cable cars.

There were a few people who were in favour of scrapping the cars. One complained about the noise of the cables that kept her up at night during her visit. When the locals found out that this letter was written by a visitor from Los Angeles, her complaints were quickly dismissed.

A measure was put to the people of San Francisco to vote for on election day of 1947. The measure included a charter amendment to guarantee the future of cable cars ran by the city as well as a bond to rehabilitate the aging system. With high turnout the measure was passed with significant majority support.

Saved by an Earthquake

The Californian Government's plans to build freeways through the heart of San Francisco met community opposition from locals from the start of construction in the late 1950s. On 17 May 1964 two hundred thousand people gathered at Golden Gate Park to protest against any new freeways. At the rally folk singer Malvina Reynold sang "Little Boxes", attacking urban sprawl.

One freeway that was built was the double-decker Embarcadero Freeway, also known as State Route 480, which ran between the city's Downtown and its foreshore. A community campaign to demolish this section of freeway rose in the 1980s. A 1986 vote to demolish the Embarcadero was defeated due to some of Chinatown's shop owners support to keep the freeway.

It was the damage from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that closed the freeway to traffic. Following the earthquake Mayor Art Angos saw an 'opportunity of a lifetime' to replace the freeway with a waterfront boulevard and worked with the state Government to secure the funds to make this happen.

Rose Pak, the business owner and community organiser from Chinatown, did not like this and switched her support away from Angos who lost the next election. Later, Rose Pak led the campaign to extend the Muni Metro into Chinatown as compensation for the loss of the freeway. She is now credited with persuading the city to build the Central Subway.

A curious commuting pattern

San Fransico is now such a desirable place to live it now houses the highly paid and educated Silicon Valley tech employees. Companies like Google, Meta, Yahoo and Apple run company shuttle bus services from the walkable inner urban San Francisco to their sprawling suburban campuses down south. The lower paid service industry workers, who can't afford the rent in the inner neighborhoods where they work, commute in on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train from across the bay.

Accidental traffic calming

The well to do tech employees have taken to online shopping with associated van deliveries with relish. This has had the unexpected effect of making their local streets even more walkable. There is not enough kerbside space for all the vans to park so they usually double park on the travel lane to make the quick dash to drop off a parcel before they continue on their way. This converts a two way local street into a one way where vehicles approaching the van need to slow down to give way to oncoming traffic as they overtake. The person delivering the package also adds to the life on the street - often with a friendly smile and wave as they deliver their packages. The whole exercise has turned many local neighbourhood streets formerly used for rat running traffic into slower more friendly places to walk.

Low-cost measures that work

Walkability in San Francisco has been recently further improved by a series of low-cost measures that have successfully managed traffic in its inner neighborhoods. One example is the installation of two plastic barriers on the entry side of each leg of the intersection: one with a 'local traffic only' sign and the other with a purple 'slow streets' sign. This forces entering car drivers entering the street onto the opposite (exit) side after they stop to give way to people walking across and cars exiting the street. This is a simple and cost effective way to create a negotiated space without the need for kerb build outs or raised intersection treatments.

During the COVID pandemic, cafes and restaurants were permitted to place outdoor dining on the kerbside street space that was used for car parking in front of their business. This measure was so successful that the city made the provision permanent.

A collection of grassroots community action and innovative low cost road space allocation measures has made San Francisco one of the most desirable, walkable and expensive inner city areas to live in the world.