Back to the Waterfront: Before and After the Embarcadero Freeway
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Back to the Waterfront Before and after the Embarcadero Freeway Elizabeth Boyd CPLN 752 April 15, 2005 - 1 - TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................... 3 HISTORY.................................................................................................................................................... 4 THE FERRY BUILDING.................................................................................................................................4 THE RISE OF THE CAR.................................................................................................................................4 TRANSIT FIRST.............................................................................................................................................6 WATERFRONT ......................................................................................................................................... 7 POST-FREEWAY DEVELOPMENT .................................................................................................................7 NORTHEASTERN WATERFRONT PLAN .......................................................................................................9 EARTHQUAKE........................................................................................................................................ 10 URBAN DESIGN STRATEGY............................................................................................................... 12 FERRY BUILDING AREA ............................................................................................................................12 UPLAND AREA............................................................................................................................................15 EMBARCADERO CORRIDOR ......................................................................................................................22 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................... 23 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................................... 26 - 2 - Introduction In 1989, an earthquake centered more than 50 miles south of San Francisco had a lasting impact on the development of the city and its waterfront. The fifteen seconds of shaking did what decades of activism and political will had not been able to achieve. The city was finally able to move forward on what so many had spent decades of planning on, hoping to accomplish. The earthquake did not bring changes by itself. In fact, if it had not been for the forward thinking of certain politicians and planners, the post- Figure 1: Ferries and trolleys meet at the Ferry Building earthquake San Francisco waterfront could have continued http://www.harborcourthotel.com/hcthist/index.html in the same patterns that it had experienced before. The earthquake merely opened the door to the plans and hopes that had been waiting to step out into the light. The resulting development on the waterfront has brought its designers and the city acclaim and recognition. Boston reporter, Robert Campbell, stated that “There's a lot to be learned from things that San Francisco has tried, some good and some not so good.”1 In order to learn from San Francisco’s waterfront revitalization, this paper will bring the reader through the history leading up to the city’s disengagement from its waterfront and what brought the city back. It will cover the design that reunited the city and its waterfront, how and how well the design was implemented. Because most of the design/hopes/aspirations have been built, this paper will also critique what is on the ground and how well it fulfills the dreams and plans of its planners and how well it works for those visiting the area. 1 Campbell, Robert Bay watch May 14, 2002 Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/beyond_bigdig/cases/sanfrancisco/index.shtml - 3 - History The Ferry Building The story that leads up to the Embarcadero project is closely tied to transportation and the changing views on it. Changing policies regarding preferred modes of transportation have been one of the most pressing forces on the development surrounding the Ferry Building. After the gold rush, San Francisco began to grow steadily. Like many cities, San Francisco grew up around its water. Figure 2: Bay Bridge constructed http://www.discountgraphics.net/photo-sbloom/sbloom/sbferry.html Its only connection to other communities in the Bay Area was through an extensive ferry system. The waterfront was a lively place that welcomed visitors and was used constantly. And at the center of activity was the Ferry Building. A wooden ferry house had been built in 1875 but the amount of traffic that came through on the ferries called for a larger structure. The Ferry Building was planned and designed starting in 1892 as an impressive and welcoming structure, with a clock tower to “serve as a welcoming beacon on the Bay.”2 The new building opened to commuters in 1898. Commuters streamed in and out, up to 100,000 a day at the height of its use. It stood proudly at the terminus of Market Street on the San Francisco Bay and San Francisco met at the Ferry Building. As you can see in Figure 1, the Ferry Building welcomed ferries on its bayside and trolleys on its city-side. The Rise of the Car 1936 dawned a new day for the Ferry Building area. It was in this year that the Bay Bridge was finished and opened to automobile and train traffic. With the popularity of the automobile came the 2 Ferry Building marketplace History of the Ferry Building 1998 http://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/html/history.html - 4 - demise of the Ferry Building’s prominence. Ferry service slowed to the Ferry Building and then stopped altogether. Mass transit around the city followed the same pattern as the ferries. The share of transit trips of those visiting downtown San Francisco steadily decreased from 82.6% in 1912 to 40.9% in 1965 while auto travel increased. 3 Slowly, the trolleys that ran down Market Street were retired; cable Figure 3: 1948 Transportation Plan http://www.spur.org/documents/000701_report_01.shtm car routes were fewer and fewer. The kind of development that had caused all San Francisco to be gathered around the old transportation centers like the Ferry Building was no longer relevant in the auto-dominated age. Guided by the federal program to build a nationwide network of highways, a transportation plan adopted by the planning commission in 1948 highlighted the new emphasis on the car. A more expansive plan, the Trafficways plan, was adopted in 1951 and money for implementation made available soon after through state gas tax funds. The first of the freeways to open was the Bayshore Freeway in 1953. In 1956, the San Francisco Chronicle published a map showing all the Figure 4: 1951 Trafficways Plan From presentation given by Rebecca Kohlstrand planned freeways and mentioned detractors to the freeways.4 As soon as the freeways became a reality, people began to change their minds about whether they really wanted them. By the time the Embarcadero freeway was under construction, so 3 Kohlstrand, Rebecca APA Conference 2005 Aging Infrastructure’s Silver Lining 4 Carlsson, Chris The Freeway Revolt http://www.bikesummer.org/1999/zine/freewayRevolt.htm - 5 - was the “Freeway Revolt, triggered by the advancing Embarcadero Freeway and planned obliteration of the Golden Gate Park Panhandle.”5 Decades of complacence about the changing transportation context ended in fights against the California highway department that were headed by Casper Weinberger, a lawyer and backed up by the many thousands of citizens that turned up to protest at Supervisor public hearings or sign petitions. By the time the Embarcadero freeway was finished in 1959, most of the rest of the highway grid had been removed from the plan. Although it was too late to save the Ferry Building and that waterfront area, the Figure 5: “Save us from the Freeway” northern waterfront was spared the ignominy Urban Design Strategy of a bulwark-like freeway construction. Transit First The changing attitude that the “freeway revolt” highlighted not only revealed itself through stopping highway construction, it also raised awareness in San Francisco of the need for transit. This change of attitude about the rising ascendancy of cars began to show itself through city policy. A successful proposal for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system was made in 1957 and approved in 1962. In 1973, the planning commission and the board of supervisors adopted the “Transit First” policy. This policy stated that the city should not expand highway capacity, that increased demand should be accommodated via transit, that parking should not be expanded in the downtown area, and that the pedestrian environment should be enhanced. 5 Walker, Richard A. The Battle to Save San Francisco, 1960-1990 Working Paper February 1997 http://geography.berkeley.edu:16080/PeopleHistory/faculty/R_Walker/AnAppetiteForTheCity.html - 6 - BART was built and opened for service to San Francisco in 1974. Although the original plan for BART did not include a station at the Embarcadero because of the nature of the state financing, San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) led a lobbying effort to fund such a station. In the 1970s a return