3 ms·

Cleve Shaffer's 1937 SF subway plan

14 points by juanplusjuan 11y ago

paulsutter 11y ago
Fascinating. Robert Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll"[1] was written in 1940, after this article. Heinlein's roads had sections that went up to 100MPH but otherwise look to be taken from the idea in this 1937 article. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll
jacobolus 11y ago
On the subject of old San Francisco transportation plans, check out this map of the desired freeways in the late 40s/early 50s: http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~258970~5522255 http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~25... http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~258982~5522256 http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~25... The plan was to wipe out a bunch of downtown neighborhoods and blanket the city in freeways so it would be more accessible from the suburbs, just as happened to many other American cities in the 50s–70s. Luckily, San Franciscans protested loudly and most of it didn’t happen. Another fascinating one is Burnham’s San Francisco plan from 1905. He wanted to add plazas, green spaces, etc. reminiscent of European cities, to end up with something like this: http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~28527~1120417 http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~28... Then the earthquake and fire happened and the plan was scuttled. (Was probably unrealistically destructive and expensive in the first place, but kind of interesting to look at.)
- duskwuff 11y ago
  Civic Center and most of downtown Market to be replaced by a "Central Parking District"?! Oh my god, that's even worse than I thought. Bonus points for proposing a "Southern Crossing" bridge be built to Alameda (I guess)... I'm not sure what the point of that would have been, let alone how they'd make it happen from a technical standpoint. (The Bay Bridge was buildable because it made a landing on Treasure Island; there's no such stopping point for this bridge.)

14 points by juanplusjuan 11y ago

Fascinating. Robert Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll"[1] was written in 1940, after this article. Heinlein's roads had sections that went up to 100MPH but otherwise look to be taken from the idea in this 1937 article. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll

jacobolus 11y ago

On the subject of old San Francisco transportation plans, check out this map of the desired freeways in the late 40s/early 50s: http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~258970~5522255 http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~25... http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~258982~5522256 http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~25... The plan was to wipe out a bunch of downtown neighborhoods and blanket the city in freeways so it would be more accessible from the suburbs, just as happened to many other American cities in the 50s–70s. Luckily, San Franciscans protested loudly and most of it didn’t happen. Another fascinating one is Burnham’s San Francisco plan from 1905. He wanted to add plazas, green spaces, etc. reminiscent of European cities, to end up with something like this: http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~28527~1120417 http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~28... Then the earthquake and fire happened and the plan was scuttled. (Was probably unrealistically destructive and expensive in the first place, but kind of interesting to look at.)

duskwuff 11y ago
Civic Center and most of downtown Market to be replaced by a "Central Parking District"?! Oh my god, that's even worse than I thought. Bonus points for proposing a "Southern Crossing" bridge be built to Alameda (I guess)... I'm not sure what the point of that would have been, let alone how they'd make it happen from a technical standpoint. (The Bay Bridge was buildable because it made a landing on Treasure Island; there's no such stopping point for this bridge.)