If you ignore the unfounded “war on cars” and look hard at transportation trends, you see a city embracing an identity it claims not to want.
In the oldest parts of San Francisco, the streets are narrow, the grid is idiosyncratic, and everything is hills. There’s a reason the city’s most famous cars get dragged along by cables. Topography, infrastructure, and self-image have long conspired to keep the automobile from being the people’s choice for getting around.
But despite that legacy, San Francisco may be on the verge of becoming something else entirely: a car city…