4.1M views · Apr 10, 2020 · 14:23 · 3 HN recommenders · 9 mentions · discussed 2020–2023
A neural-network upscaled 4K, 60 fps version of the 1906 film of a trip down Market Street in San Francisco, shot four days before the earthquake. It shows cable cars, horse carriages, early automobiles and pedestrians sharing the street.
Why Hacker News points people here: Cited in threads on cars, streets and urbanism as evidence of how mixed traffic worked before cars took over.
“You can see pedestrians, horse-drawn carriages, and early automobiles all "flowing" together.”HN comment, 2022
“This reminds me of a cool video i saw the other day of San Francisco's Market Street in 1906”
1906 San Francisco street with cars, horses and pedestrians sharing the road
This reminds me of a cool video i saw the other day of San Francisco's Market Street in 1906: this video It's so interesting to see how people, street cars, horse & carts, and cars all seemed to share the road in what seemed like a controlled chaos manner
“I've really come to enjoy these sorts of upscaled videos that allow a view of various cities in the early 1900's.”
Upscaled early 1900s city footage
I've really come to enjoy these sorts of upscaled videos that allow a view of various cities in the early 1900's. New York: link San Francisco: this video Paris: link Wuppertal, Germany: link
“You can see pedestrians, horse-drawn carriages, and early automobiles all "flowing" together.”
Upscaled 1906 film showing pedestrians, carriages and automobiles flowing together
FWIW, check out "A Trip Down Market Street", filmed in 1906 in SF just before the earthquake. link Upscaled and colorized: this video You can see pedestrians, horse-drawn carriages, and early automobiles all "flowing" together.
“You can see the origin of the situation from this extraordinary film shot just before the 1906 Earthquake”
Extraordinary pre-earthquake film of horses, pedestrians and early cars mixing
The two things are orthogonal. Item: humans driving huge machines on every street is and always has been totally insane. The reason we do it is because of a deliberate domestic propaganda campaign. No really. See: "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime (Adam Ruins Everything)" link You can see the origin of the situation from this extraordinary film shot just before the 1906 Earthquake: "San Francisco, a Trip down Market Street, April 14, 1906" this video You can see that horses, horse-drawn wagon and carts, and pedestrians could and did mix together in the public way. There are also early automobiles, and the problem is obvious: cars accelerate faster than horses. Already we can see reckless driving by cars that is only possible due to their ability to accelerate quickly! BTW, just for the record, cars themselves are generally awesome. It must be said. Cars are cool. It's only when we use them as mass-transportation and/or mix them with non-car-driving people (bikes, pedestrians, etc.) that it becomes mad. - - - - Ergo, safe automatic automobiles can't come soon enough! - - - - However, none of the above justifies using random people without their consent as test dummies in an open-air testing facility for massive, fast robots. That's also insane. - - - - To me it seems obvious that you do two things: 1) Start with slow light robots! Build a nerf foam golf cart that is limited to 5mph and get that working reliably. Going straight for Knight Industries Two Thousand right out o
“Plenty of cars, bikes, and people.”
1906 Market Street footage showing busy mixed traffic
Regardless still looks like morning hours on a snowy/winter day in most. Look at Market Street, San Francisco in 1906: this video Plenty of cars, bikes, and people. I doubt NYC was much different in 1940 at higher trafficked hours.
Old film footage showing chaotic street use
Old film footage suggests to me that it was just more "lanes" and in general more chaotic, e.g.: link this video
“You can see that, at low speeds and modest density, carriages and pedestrians flow together just fine.”
Evidence of traffic mixing before cars dominated streets
If it helps, it's the result of a deliberate domestic propaganda campaign. I usually point to "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) link for the story. We can see what traffic was like just as motorized carriages began to mix with pedestrians and horses. Here is "San Francisco, a Trip down Market Street, April 14, 1906" upscaled and colorized: this video You can see that, at low speeds and modest density, carriages and pedestrians flow together just fine. Although I'm sure there were still lots of accidents, everyone is more-or-less sharing the space. You can already see the problem brewing: horseless carriages can accelerate much faster than horse-drawn carriages.
Shows the transition period when cars appeared on shared streets
I just want to take a moment to remind everybody just how insane car travel is as a mode of transportation. Sure, it's convenient , but at what cost!? Air pollution, tire particle pollution, covering the Earth with asphalt, etc. Also, and this is gruesome so brace yourself, car travel causes incredible amounts of human suffering. Car collisions cause something like 40,000 fatalities per year just in the USA. In fact, more Americans have died in car crashes than in all the wars we've fought. I call it the "Mayhem Lottery". Anyone can play, little kids, old people, pregnant women, everybody. And the tickets cost nothing, all you have to do is be near a street. (Sometimes cars will even crash into buildings. People have been killed by cars while sitting in their own homes watching TV!) Now the weird, bizarre thing about this state of affairs is that it is the result of a successful mass-marketing campaign! When cars were first introduced people complained of reckless drivers ("Speed Demons"), the car companies and the government got together and created a deliberate plan to change public attitude (about being run down in the street by car drivers), they actually coined the term "jaywalker" to describe people using the street in the traditional fashion (pedestrians.) It sounds nuts, because it is, yet it really happened: cf. "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) link - - - - Edit to add: You can see the trasition period in the "a Trip down Market Stree
“The source of the problem is clear: cars accelerate much faster than horses.”
Shows cars outpacing horses on shared streets
First, where is the data? Second, yeah, it's bananas to test large, fast, heavy robots on public streets. The only reason we let it happen is because the robots look like cars. Third, it's bananas to have large, fast, heavy vehicles everywhere mixed in with all the other traffic. The only reason we let it happen is a mass-marketing campaign (see "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) link ) Here is a film "a Trip down Market Street" recorded in San Francisco on April 14, 1906, just before the Great Earthquake. The source of the problem is clear: cars accelerate much faster than horses. this video
