Welcome to San Francisco, where the extensive transportation system helps residents and tourists alike avoid having to go up the city's steep hills. There is a wide variety of services available in the San Francisco metro area, including cable car, streetcar, bus, commuter rail, and subway.
The most popular form of transit in San Francisco are the three cable cars that run from downtown over Russian Hill and Nob Hill. Whether you ride the California Street Line, Powell-Mason Line, or the dramatic Powell-Hyde Line, you will get to see many San Francisco neighborhoods and have a travel experience that can not be had in any other city. Additionally, the cable car power house doubles as a museum and is definately worth a visit.
The transit system within San Francisco is the San Francisco Municipal Railway (MUNI), operating five streetcar lines and Metro Subway in addition to many bus routes throughout the city. The five streetcar lines all use the Metro Subway tunnel under Market Street but run on the surface west of Van Ness (N-Judah and J-Church lines), west of West Portal (K-Ingleside, L-Taraval, and M-Ocean View Lines), and east of Embarcadero Station (N-Judah line) and now operate light rail vehicles manufactured by Breda with AC traction. The vehicles have steps that rise up to create level landings for the high level platforms in the Metro subway and steps for the street running sections. The L-Taraval and N-Judah lines operate 24 hours a day, but during the night time hours, they use buses instead of streetcars. The primary maintenance facility is located at the Balboa Park BART station.
MUNI also operates the historic F-Market streetcar, using rebuilt streetcars from all over the world, including Philadelphia, St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York City, Kansas City, Cincinnnati, Chicago, Boston, Newark, Baltimore, Lousivile, San Francisco, and Milan. The rebuilt streetcars operate between Fisherman's Wharf and Castro Street via the Embarcadero and Market Street. Additional PCC cars from Newark, NJ are to enter service in 2006 to add service to this line.
Finally, MUNI operates buses on 71 routes crisscrossing the city. Seventeen of these routes are operated with electric trolley buses that produce no emissions.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) operates trains that connect San Francisco to Oakland and the East Bay. The BART system has the fastest subway trains in the United States, reaching 85 MPH in the Transbay Tube between the Embarcadero and West Oakland stations, and exceeding 75 MPH in many other locations systemwide. BART has stops at both San Francisco International Airport and Oakland Airport (bus transfer required at the latter). The BART fleet consists of cars manufactured by Rohr, Alstom, and Morrison-Knudsen. The original Rohr cars were built in the early 1970s and have now been rehabilitated and have Adtranz AC traction motors with water cooling. There is artwork in many of the 43 BART stations. BART uses a pay-per mile system similar to the Washington Metro with fares ranging from aout $1.5o to over seven dollars.
Other area transit systems include CalTrain, operating commuter rail service between San Francisco and San Jose Diridon with rush hour service extended to Gilroy. The Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority operates light rail and bus service in San Jose, AC Transit operates in Alameda County on the East Bay, and Golden Gate Transit and San Mateo Transit offer express bus service from downtown San Francisco to San Mateo and Marin County.
A single phone number and website provide information on all the transit systems in the San Francisco Bay area. By calling 511 from any phone or by visiting 511.org, one can find out schedules, phone numbers, point to point trip itineraries, and even arrival times for select routes.
This page has photography of the cable cars, MUNI Metro Subway, MUNI Buses, BART trains and stations, Caltrain, and San Mateo Transit.
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| MUNI's fleet consists of 454 diesel buses, 331 trolley buses, 136 LRVs, 17 historic streetcars, and 40 cable cars. |
| The steepest grades of Muni routes are:
Bus - 23.1% for 67-Bernal Heights on Alabama between Ripley and Esmeralda. |
| Average 2001-2002 weekday MUNI ridership was 737,287.
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| Official MUNI Web Site: http://www.sfmuni.com |
| Official F Line Historic Streetcar Web Site: http://www.streetcar.org |
| Official Cable Car Museum Web Site: http://www.cablecarmuseum.org |
| Official BART Web Site: http://www.bart.gov |
| Official Caltrain Web Site: http://www.caltrain.com |
| Official Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Web Site: http://www.vta.org |
| Official San Mateo Transit District (SamTrans) Web Site: http://www.samtrans.com |
| Official Golden Gate Transit Web Site: http://www.goldengatetransit.org |
| Official Bay Area Travel Guide Web Site (511): http://www.511.org |
This train does not continue past this station. In order to continue your journey, transfer to one of the trains continuing past this point, or click "BACK" to take the return trip back to Grand Central. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Historic Streetcars  Cable Car Museum     
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