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Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

I seriously think that San Francisco can benefit from this.

Each zone in SF is actually very small - and very walkable.

In my extreme SF transport utopia - SF would only allow pedestrians, bikes, and electric muni transport in certain regions of the city.

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The biggest issue with bikes and walking in SF (as well as Seattle) is the hills. Oslo is relatively flat, as are other very bike centered cities like Amsterdam. Mind you, the rise of electric bikes is helping a lot, but it seems like hilly cities would only be able to get rid of cars if they replaced them with better, efficient, clean public transit. And it doesn't have to be just buses. Seattle, where they exist, escalators are very helpful. Maybe trams? I'm not a public trans expert by any means though. But as a guy who's not getting any younger, I definitely start to appreciate a hill escalator (there's a couple here in Seattle, some public, some parts of buildings) when my knees are hurting.

You mean like the cable car?

Just a modern one. I know cable cars are a tourist attraction in SF, but even the ones on Market are like 50 years (seriously) behind what you can see in Europe.

Ive often thought how neat it would be to have a pirate cable car which was capable of putting a clamp down on the cable and moving along, releasing when it needed to move about like a normal car.

Source: actually born in san francisco and have thought this since the 80s

To call Oslo flat is a great understatment. Parts of the city are located with 1000ft+ height differences. Just the very center is the flat part. Oslo is very different from Copenhagen or Amsterdam in this regard. It’s probably quite close to Seattle in elevation change considering relatively few people live in the flat parts.

http://en-gb.topographic-map.com/places/Oslo-1311779/

http://en-gb.topographic-map.com/places/San-Francisco-353207...

Oslo is anything but flat.

Calling utter bullshot on this post as i have literally been a bike/pedestrian in SF for now going on a decade exclusively.

In working in tech and knowing the city inside and out. This is flatly not an issue.

Further, i used to live upper market at twin peaks - and taking the bus was not a problem other that the normal muni issues whoch this discussion is not about.

Ive biked and walked and commuted literally every area in sf. Lived twin peaks, presidio, biked and commuted all of down town marina etc.

Hills is a literal non issue.

I guess you don't live in Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Pac Heights, etc. And even if you, personally, are able to bike up those hills, the vast majority of residents would have a very tough time.

Plenty of SF is bikeable, but to say hills are a non-issue citywide is ridiculous.

Are you literally focusing on that population of residents?

Name a freaking company who's office is in ANY of those locations who's employee population we are talking about.

What's ridiculous is you sound like a person who thinks their millenial perspective is the only thing that matters.

Let me leave you with a litteral quote from my interview at twitter in 2008:

" So tell me how you will do things differently because most people I interview came from facebook as their first job out of college and think that their way is the only way to do anything"

Yeah - you sound like those people. Moronic to think that we are worried about "commuting to russian hill" jeasus.

I think most of the metros in the US can handle this quite well. The last mile is far easier to solve in a city than a suburb.

I think woonerfs would work well in SF and elsewhere. Cars are allowed, but they have the share the space with pedestrians and bikes. Speed limit is super slow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf

Would be sweet to see signs that say "woonerf" all over the US too.

Market and Geary would be the best candidates for this. Traffic is so bad in these areas it’s kind of pointless anyway. All the traffic is just thru traffic.

Mission would be a good candidate too. We've already re-routed most of the traffic using tactics like mandatory right-turns to other streets like South Van Ness, Cesar Chavez, San Jose, and Alemany.

One km of market street and the entire Fisherman's Wharf area up to pier 35 would be great pedestrian areas.

A great contributing factor in Oslo is that very few people live in the city center. It’s only business. I would imagine in the US, residents would still like to have cars accessible. But maybe in SF it’s the same with business-only areas?

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