
Walking Every Street in San Francisco - wormold
http://www.sfwalkingman.com/
======
iraphael
> Call it an exercise in eccentricity or futility, and you'd probably be
> right.

The art geek in me sees this 'exercise in eccentricity or futility' a rather
interesting activity. Yes, he walked every street, but as he said it himself:

> Nothing is forever, though. I can only claim to have walked every street in
> this city at this moment in time. New streets are being built as I write.

He has only walked through every street in SF as they _currently_ stand. His
prize is ephemeral. Tomorrow, a coffee shop will open and he won't have seen
it. Heck, coffee shops probably opened in the timespan it took for him to
finish his journey.

And yet, despite not being able to say "I have seen everything in SF" for
long, he can still say "I have seen everything in SF at the moment I saw
them". While this may seem a little obvious or silly, it shows how every
experience we ever have is unique to us.

I apologize for ending with a cliché but my only conclusion is that the we
live for the journey, not for the destination. Because when we reach our
destination - when we have finally seen every building in SF - we realize what
we have seen is gone, and new things took their place.

~~~
methodover
Something about that is incredibly interesting to me. And for some reason it
makes me sad:

You cannot fully understand even a city. It takes too much time -- as soon as
you understand one piece, the other pieces have changed.

Cities are small, in the grand scheme of things. When it comes to larger
things-- states, nations, planets, there's no way you could ever fully
understand them. All you can get is a tiny, ephemeral snapshot, stuck in time.

It's humbling to think about, and I don't really know why it makes me sad.

~~~
sousousou
This comment reminds me of a book by Italo Calvino. Probably my favorite of
his. It's a collection of stories told by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan about
cities in his domain. Somewhat fantastical, but strikes deep to the heart to
transitory nature of cities and perception itself.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0156453800/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0156453800/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1441661122&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=invisible+cities+by+italo+calvino&dpPl=1&dpID=51NQqPgtVWL&ref=plSrch)

~~~
pash
A few dazzling lines on wanderlust from _Invisible Cities_ :

 _... Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches. ...

And Marco's answer to that: "Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler
recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and
will never have."_

------
jbk
In a semi-related, semi-off-topic way, there was this challenge of going
through all the subway stations of the Paris underground, during the same day
(and if possible in the fastest way possible):

[http://www.madore.org/~david/misc/defimetro.html](http://www.madore.org/~david/misc/defimetro.html)
[FR]

The funny part was that they wrote a program to calculate and optimize the
time to do that, using the length of the lines and the little public info they
had; and I thought it was pretty cool.
[http://www.madore.org/~david/misc/metro.tgz](http://www.madore.org/~david/misc/metro.tgz)

And of course, it was in 2002, so before the OpenData movements...

~~~
js2
When I visited Venice last year, I briefly considered whether I could cross
all of its bridges at night while the city slept. But I quickly learned that
many of the bridges are private, and I didn't really have a feasable way to
plan a route in the few days I was there. I'm not even sure I can figure out
what/where all the bridges are. It will have to remain for a future trip,
should I ever go back.

~~~
adrianN
OSM should at least have the necessary data. Planning a route that takes you
over all accessible bridges is still a bit of work though.

------
secfirstmd
Ha, a bunch of us in Dublin tried to work out the optimum route for breaking
the current "Guinness Book of Records" record for most pubs visited in a pub
crawl. Though one of the team got a decent enough method of working out the
optimum route, unfortunately some guys smashed the record in New York. We were
unable to match the density of pubs in the 24 hours allowed - I think we
needed to be hitting one every four minutes or something like that. I really
doubt that it can ever be done anywhere other than New York any more :(

~~~
qqg3
I think Tokyo may be able to hold its own depending on the definition of
'pub'.

~~~
binarysolo
I was just thinking about Golden Gai!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Golden_Gai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Golden_Gai)

------
randomstring
Here is someone who bicycled every road in San Francisco. All tracked with
GPS. [http://rideallofsf.tumblr.com/](http://rideallofsf.tumblr.com/)

And someone who walked all of Berkeley, CA back in 2007.
[https://walkingberkeley.wordpress.com/](https://walkingberkeley.wordpress.com/)

------
schoen
One of the biggest changes since he finished his walk is the residential
conversion of Treasure Island, which is now open to the public, and home to
over 1000 people, and even a few restaurants. Hopefully it's not quite as
toxic as it was before. The Navy is still working on that part (as they still
are down in the Hunters Point Shipyard).

[http://sftreasureisland.org/news-release/us-navy-hosting-
oct...](http://sftreasureisland.org/news-release/us-navy-hosting-october-bus-
tour-ti-cleanup-sites)

There's still a plan to develop it more intensely, although it's been delayed
repeatedly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island_Development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island_Development)

[http://sftreasureisland.org/development-
project](http://sftreasureisland.org/development-project)

------
sampo
Here is someone who walked every street in Manhattan:
[http://linkage.cpmc.columbia.edu/Manhattan_Walk/Walk.html](http://linkage.cpmc.columbia.edu/Manhattan_Walk/Walk.html)

~~~
dnautics
That's much easier.

~~~
ghaff
Not immediately obvious to me. Manhattan is somewhat smaller (about 33 mi^2
vs. 46) and less hilly but I'm not sure that qualifies as "much easier."
Frankly, I'd probably worry more about safety in some areas of upper Manhattan
than within San Francisco city limits but I'm not sure how much of that is
perception vs. reality.

------
icebraining
In the same vein, see also Charles Fleming, who has been finding and mapping
public staircases all over SF and LA:
[http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-75-secret-
stai...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-75-secret-staircases/)

------
sbw1
This is cool. This person did something similar on a bike:
[http://rideallofsf.tumblr.com/](http://rideallofsf.tumblr.com/) (go back a
page or so, the project finished a while ago and it has since devolved into
Strava drawings)

------
jeffreyrogers
Cool :) reminds me of something similar with Manhattan:
[http://linkage.cpmc.columbia.edu/Manhattan_Walk/Walk.html](http://linkage.cpmc.columbia.edu/Manhattan_Walk/Walk.html)

------
Ben-G
If you enjoy the idea you should read "The Cool Gray City of Love" by Gary
Kamiya. He walked (almost) the entire city of SF and wrote wonderful chapters
for most of SF's neighborhoods that also cover the history of the city.

------
jacquesc
I'd love an app to help me track this. Any know anything like this? Basically
show a map of all the streets with the ones you've walked highlighted.

Walking around SF is my favorite thing in the city.

~~~
randomstring
Strava.com will generate a heat map of all the roads you've walked (or biked)
on. There is even a club that seeks to "Ride Every Road" of their local town.

[http://www.strava.com/clubs/ride-every-
road-22350](http://www.strava.com/clubs/ride-every-road-22350)

~~~
randomsearch
> Strava.com will generate a heat map of all the roads you've walked (or
> biked) on.

Warning - I think this is a premium-only feature.

------
femto
A similar feat in Sydney, Australia, by an old codger who was walking to keep
fit.

[http://www.walksydneystreets.net/](http://www.walksydneystreets.net/)

------
gtani
Heh, i think after living in the Haight a bunch of years, i walked, ran,
skated, rollerbladed and biked < 5% of the streets

This was good, vid on the steepest sidewalks:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FisaHV2hQYc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FisaHV2hQYc)

------
stevewepay
I would have thought Market Street is the longest, although it changes its
name from Market to Portola to Junipero Serra and then turns into 280.

~~~
sundaeofshock
The name change is because Market and Portola did not connect until about 1920
or so.

[http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C...](http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C133%2C1112%2CE/2exact&FF=dstreets+market+1918+extension&1%2C9%2C)
[http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C...](http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C133%2C1112%2CE/2exact&FF=dstreets+market+1920+extension&1%2C4%2C)
[http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C...](http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C133%2C1112%2CE/2exact&FF=dstreets+market+1921+extension&1%2C15%2C)
[http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C...](http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dStreets+M/dstreets+m/1%2C133%2C1112%2CE/2exact&FF=dstreets+market+1927+extension&1%2C7%2C)

------
incompatible
This reminds me of the novel Bleeding London by Geoff Nicholson from 1997. One
of the characters is trying to walk every street of the London A-Z map.
([http://www.amazon.com/Bleeding-London-Geoff-
Nicholson/dp/057...](http://www.amazon.com/Bleeding-London-Geoff-
Nicholson/dp/0575400560))

------
WalterBright
It would be fun if he'd attached a camera to his head and then made the
hundreds of hours of video available!

~~~
jl6
I make that about 43TB of smartphone HD video, based on his stated walking
distance and speed.

~~~
WalterBright
About $3,000 worth of disk drive space. Quite doable.

------
Animats
Where are the thousands of hours of GoPro video?

Things like this were cooler before StreetView.

------
meerita
I really like this. I could do the same for Barcelona. It will show nice
views. I walked a lot, though, but not everything.

------
travelbug345
This is impressive! I wonder though, which street was his favorite? Or which
neighborhood, at least.

------
roflchoppa
a very cool accomplishment. it would be neat to see someone do this without
the overlap of walking the same road twice.

~~~
schoen
It's likely not to be possible!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eulerian_path](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eulerian_path)

~~~
traviscj
I was going to argue that if every street had a sidewalk on both sides, then
we could indeed construct an Eulerian path over sidewalks, but probably there
are some streets without sidewalks on both sides.

~~~
schoen
I was thinking it was common for alleys to have no sidewalks at all, but I
looked at quite a few with Google Street View, and many do have sidewalks
after all (even on both sides!).

An example that I found which seems to have a sidewalk on only one side is
Orange Alley, but it's complicated: sometimes the single sidewalk disappears
entirely, and in tiny patches a sidewalk shows up on the other side. But I
think the alleys probably will undermine your clever suggestion.

