Monday, March 07, 2005

Octavia Boulevard Comes to Life

Only tangential references to bikes this week!

As Octavia Boulevard rises from the rubble of the old Central Freeway, Bikescape takes a tour along with about thirty others led by Robin Levitt and Tom Radulovich. The walk was jointly sponsored by Walk San Francisco and Transportation for a Livable City.

The downfall of the freeway and the rise of the Boulevard is another chapter on San Francisco's ongoing freeway revolt, a grass-roots movement that goes back to the fifties. San Francisco owes its livability, charm and cohesive community to the individual neighborhood activists who banded together at strategic times to fight the auto culture that was treatening to choke the city with cars and blight. Imagine what almost happened: an elevated freeway on Polk St. and six lanes cut into a trench where the Panhandle an Golden Gate Park now stand! And most of these victories (and some of the losses) squeaked by on six to five votes!

listen to the podcast

More links mentioned in the podcast

-j

2 comments:

Erik Sandblom said...

This podcast sounds interesting but unfortunately I can't download it. It's a file not found.

jon said...

Once again erik, thanks for the heads-up! All fixed.