The Lost Spaces of San Francisco

The thriving metropolis by the Bay, San Francisco is a spectacular city. If you’re in the right place at the right time, you never know when you’ll be rewarded with a spectacular view, of the mountains, the morning fog, the Bay or the Ocean. But the city isn’t as perfect as the tour

This semester, I’m taking a class with Peter Bosselman on research methods in urban design. The main point of the class is straightforward: by rigorously and methodically observing people’s behavior in public spaces, designers can make better public spaces. This is our chance as designers to look at how successful, however defined, existing public spaces are. While I could have done a study on just how well used Dolores Park is on sunny Sunday afternoons, or a survey of the city’s best coffee shops, I foolishly chose to work on a project examining failed public spaces. These are the places in San Francisco where the views aren’t as spectacular, where you probably wouldn’t sit and read the paper or have coffee with a friend. These are the places that are neglected, isolated, and often dangerous.

It’s important to keep in mind that because of the urban nature of San Francisco, all of these failed places were designed at some point. Of course, creating a great public space is an incredibly complex and difficult challenge. And certainly, there are many well designed spaces that are still failing. But it’s always worth reexamining the cities we live in.

Freeways are particularly difficult places to design around. They’re loud and polluting, divide neighborhoods, and create impossible barriers for pedestrians. And, unfortunately because of the realities of our current political and social models, they seem to be not going anywhere soon (with a few notable examples, such as San Francisco’s Embarcadero and Portland’s Harbor Drive freeways). Given these constraints, it’s not surprising the solutions that have been constructed so far are sometimes less than successful.

The above pedestrian overpass crosses over Cesar Chavez Avenue directly west of the 101. I presume it was built to allow pedestrians to cross from Bernal Heights to the Mission. It’s made of concrete and steel, and is essentially a ramp that climbs up and over the street. In my four years of living in San Francisco, I’ve never seen anyone use this overpass.

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Why? It seems that people would rather either walk a block down and cross at the next intersection, or play chicken with traffic and cross at grade on Cesar Chavez. Pedestrians tend to strongly prefer to take the pass of least resistance, even if that route is safer.

If you were to use the overpass, you do get a nice view of Twin Peaks, if you look past the heavy traffic of Cesar Chavez.

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