Sunday, February 8, 2009

Steep

I have been to a few towns that are known for having big hills, Duluth MN and Houghton MI, both have hills that impressed me in the past. Now that I have spent a little time in San Francisco those two midwest towns seem tame.

Duluth and Houghton basically are built on one big hill side. San Francisco has lots of different hills going in many directions. You can hardly go anywhere in town without going up and down a few hills.

The slope of the hills is also surprisingly steep. These steep hillsides lead to some very interesting engineering and construction issues.


Look at the bottom of this red garage door. How does the floor inside transition to a level surface?

Driving and walking on these crazy slopes can be challenging. But people do walk up and down them. When I lived in Houghton I would avoid walking up the hill at all costs, like most people I drove everywhere. In San Francisco there seemed to people walking all over the place. Even this crazy sidewalk staircase had a lot of foot traffic.
C.O.

1 comment:

srhcb said...

San Francisco is indeed the "steepest" city in the US. You might not guess that the cities with the second and third steepest topography are Seattle and Pittsburgh.