Throughout the past two months, San Francisco has been operating road diets whereby streets have cut off public vehicles (or lanes are narrowed down), ensuring walkers have more room to exercise and spin their arms around freely.
Over the past five years, 60,000 more cars have crammed our streets, a result of gig focused tech companies. The number of vehicular accidents and deaths in San Francisco are three times higher than other city in the US, because our city isn't designed for so many cars. Therefore, the recent contrast from mass, speeding four wheels to gorgeous vehicle-free roads has been wonderful. Cars have truly been given a back seat.
With more wiggle room and the shared space initiative coming into force, we can only hope and pray that this, and the road diet, will become a permanent fixture. San Francisco is geographically stunning and should be seen on foot, a bike, roller-blades and a skateboard.
Where is our train of thought going?
Well, the more cars that hit our streets the past half decade, the less distracted we were by the growing number of poverty sitting on the curb. Ultimately, when you're in a moving vehicle and irritated that you may be late to the next meeting, the last thing you're focused on is someone who's not had any food all day. But hey-ho, then came Covid-19 which resulted in our leaders relocating the homeless from the Tenderloin into social distancing tent villages, scattered around all our neighborhoods. The greater the road diets and foot traffic, the greater eyeballs we had on seeing these tent villages come to life in all our hoods. The more we walked, the more we handed food to the needy. Ultimately, this is the time for us to step it up with the shared space & road diet programs. The poverty are now not crammed into the Tenderloin. They're (rightly so) in all our districts, because diversity is the foundation of cultural integration and growth for all.
When you skip down the street to relish eating lunch alfresco at a restaurant (for the first time since mid March), please give a nearby homeless person half your food. If you're tight on cash, please pay for a side order and hand it to them. If you're really broke, buy a couple of 20c bananas and offer them to the person who hasn't had a bath in a month. Shared spaces means we aren't rushing, so we can see others, and we can share our food with those that never rush, because they have no place to go.
This is what it looks like...it's incredibly simple yet effective...
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