Cleve Shaffer's 1937 SF subway plan

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~8~1~25...

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~8~1~28...

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.)

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