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I just went back to visit S.F. yesterday after being away for a few years. It took 30 minutes to get through the Bay Bridge toll plaza, at 11am. For a brand-ne

by Osiris 13y ago

I just went back to visit S.F. yesterday after being away for a few years. It took 30 minutes to get through the Bay Bridge toll plaza, at 11am. For a brand-new bridge you'd like they'd use some sophisticated traffic simulations to help them develop a smoother way to get cars onto the bridge. When we got to the Exploratorium on Embarcadero, I found several open street parking spaces in a row. I spent a few minutes looking all over to check for no parking signs or something to tell me I couldn't park there. I literally couldn't believe that there would be 6 open parking spaces in a row in S.F. As I was there I was thinking... what in S.F. just banned cars all together? Instead, you could have tons of rental motorcycles and lots of trolley-type cars all over. S.F. just does not have space for hundreds of thousands of cars

pjlegato 13y ago
While banning cars altogether might work fine in a city that has extensive and efficient public transportation, San Francisco's Muni is an unmitigated disaster, so getting rid of alternative modes of transport would make living here a nightmare. It takes over an hour to go 3 or 4 miles on the trains. On a good day. On a bad day, your train breaks down due to poor maintenance or otherwise randomly stops in the tunnel, with no explanation from the staff, for anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour. Bad days happen dismayingly often. And this is not even mentioning the duct tape based repairs, not infrequent incidence of aggressive passengers, and the thick layer of filth on the vehicles. Source: Having lived in other cities with good public transport, I thought it'd be great to not have a car when I moved to SF. Now I take Muni every day, unfortunately. I wish I could drive a car to work and back. See also http://www.sfweekly.com/2012-06-13/news/muni-sfmta-buses-public-transportation-maintenance-accidents/ http://www.sfweekly.com/2012-06-13/news/muni-sfmta-buses-pub...
- Osiris 13y ago
  Clearly the current infrastructure is utterly insufficient to handle a complete ban on private cars on roads. There would have to be a completely new system of transportation created, even it's it a system of licensed transportation such as buses, light rail, rental vehicles, etc. Each person in the city takes up 16ft of space on the road, plus distances between cars for safety. Another option might be that during rush hours, certain intersections are closed to traffic, allowing main roads leading out of the city to always have green lights in the right direction of travel. The constant changing of red to green with people blocking intersections is a major component of the gridlock.

by Osiris 13y ago

pjlegato 13y ago

While banning cars altogether might work fine in a city that has extensive and efficient public transportation, San Francisco's Muni is an unmitigated disaster, so getting rid of alternative modes of transport would make living here a nightmare. It takes over an hour to go 3 or 4 miles on the trains. On a good day. On a bad day, your train breaks down due to poor maintenance or otherwise randomly stops in the tunnel, with no explanation from the staff, for anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour. Bad days happen dismayingly often. And this is not even mentioning the duct tape based repairs, not infrequent incidence of aggressive passengers, and the thick layer of filth on the vehicles. Source: Having lived in other cities with good public transport, I thought it'd be great to not have a car when I moved to SF. Now I take Muni every day, unfortunately. I wish I could drive a car to work and back. See also http://www.sfweekly.com/2012-06-13/news/muni-sfmta-buses-public-transportation-maintenance-accidents/ http://www.sfweekly.com/2012-06-13/news/muni-sfmta-buses-pub...

Osiris 13y ago
Clearly the current infrastructure is utterly insufficient to handle a complete ban on private cars on roads. There would have to be a completely new system of transportation created, even it's it a system of licensed transportation such as buses, light rail, rental vehicles, etc. Each person in the city takes up 16ft of space on the road, plus distances between cars for safety. Another option might be that during rush hours, certain intersections are closed to traffic, allowing main roads leading out of the city to always have green lights in the right direction of travel. The constant changing of red to green with people blocking intersections is a major component of the gridlock.