Herb Caen’s ‘The Walking Caen’ Is Exactly Why Car-Free Streets Should Exist in a Post-Pandemic San Francisco

Fewer cars, more bikes; cleaner skies

Aerial view of the Great Highway — sans vehicles — in San Francisco, one of the City’s car-free corridors. (Photo: Courtesy of Christopher Michel)

I’ve found myself dripping in nostalgia this week. In between busy fits of writing and rearranging my micro-apartment — only to then move bits of furniture back to their original positions, having realized their sharp corners sat more relaxed where they were prior — I came across an old San Francisco Chronicle column from Herb Caen, the famed (and beloved) San Francisco journalist.

Caen’s reel of “love letters to San Francisco’’ sit as a welcome, albeit dichotomous, allegory to current narratives about the city. (But to be fair: Caen’s San Francisco existed in a time before the record-rates of homelessness, a series of tech booms, and where odious examples of individual greed weren’t around every street corner — albatrosses to the ’70s more meditative stances on humanity.)

Courtesy of Twitter via @chrisarvinsf

One of Caen’s favorite past times was an activity most of us bipeds take for granted: the simple joy of walking. Moreover: trekking through San Francisco to sponge up the cityscape through its clear panoramas and…