I was in downtown San Francisco a week back. It was a great trip and one thing that stuck me was the way people lived, parked and commuted in the downtown or in my opinion an up-and-downtown. The roads were precipitously dipping and rising at times and while it proved to be fun driving there, I dreaded to think how messy and painful it could become during rush hour. I have'nt experienced rush hour downtown SFO traffic but I can get an idea.
My friend tells me that it was the result of a civil engineer's lack of suitable knowledge of the terrain while planning the city. But given that its both a major tourist attraction and a pain for local commuters, is it really serendipity on part of the designer or just his greatest folly ?
And one other thing that I would be interested to know is if anyone every missed his turn in crooked street and went hurtling down the town ?
2 comments:
only parts of the city are hilly. you can reach point A to point B without going through those up and down streets. cabbies do that always.
I have driven in rush hr in those streets, and trust me it ultimate fun. one of these days I would like to try a stick shift car on 'em :)
yeah the designer's folly turned out to be the best thing that happened to the city.
Saran
I agree that one can commute from Point A to Point B without going through the hills, but it still remains a fascinating and possibly profitable (in terms of tourism) error on the part of the planning team for SFO.
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