San Francisco’s Newest Subway (and other Muni Metro Lines) 

What makes San Francisco interesting is that the transport system reminds me some German cities rather than American cities. Heavy rail rapid transit, light rail transit, streetcars and buses are all combined.

When you get a chance, ride the SMART train in Marin County, North across the Golden Gate Bridge. Take the ferry from SF to Larkspur to catch the train.

That Asian gentleman at 06:58 likes to ride around the city on the N-Judah from end to end and back again. I saw him all the time when I lived in SF 20 years ago. Funny to see him in this video.

Fun fact: The Muni Market St. subway was ready for trains as early as 1975, but the new LRVs from Boeing had so many issues that they delivered them five years late.

Irving & 9 th Ave! Know it well. I grew up riding the old streetcars before the subway was built. When everything went along Market on the surface. And the N went out Duboce Ave to Market.

Such a beautiful city; I can't wait to visit.

Rode the Central Subway in March staying at the Luma. Love public transportation in San Francisco.

10:47 Chinatown station is deep because Central Subway has to cross Market St below MUNI Market St Subway and BART. And then they have to go uphill, which light rail has limited capacity, and Chinatown station is rather close to Market St and Union Square. Yerba Buena Station isn't deep at all, and not far from the street level Brannan Staton.

The above ground Muni Metro seems like an elegant way to see the city. And it seems as if it goes through some really gorgeous parts. Really need to prioritize a trip to Sanfran ton check this out. Also Thom, your knowledge of train vehicles is truly impressive!

Wow. Surprising to see how clean the trains are. I wish our brand new LRT cars looked this clean all the time. Wonder how BART trains look. Here in LA our Light Rail trains despite being just a few years old, always look dirty and trashed. Our HRT cars look even worse. LA Metro needs to clean up its act. Can't wait to go back to SF soon to check out the Central Subway.

It was fun to see the metro stations I commute through every day! I can't drive and really appreciate the transit here.

I lived in the SF Bay Area for more than 20 years, and hope to return soon. I spent last week visiting for my birthday, and it was great to use not only MUNI Metro, but BART as well as SamTrans

The Siemens S200 is manufactured up in the Sacramento area by Siemens Mobility.

Thank you. I haven't ridden on the Central Muni Metro, yet. I live in the Richmond district, and that's going to be an exploration adventure. However, I grew up on the N Judah line. We lived on 5th Avenue, between Lincoln and Irving. I recall that the ride downtown, AFTER the tunnel, seemed interminable. There was a stop, every two blocks, on an already crowded Market St., to Powell. (That was a long time ago.) The first time I took the "N," after Muni Metro was in place, I was shocked ... and pleasantly so! Like BART, it just "zip" from stop to stop. I love it. Now, living in the Richmond, I often drive to the Sunset and take the "N," from the Carl/Cole area. Even with the drive, It can be faster than the 38 Geary ... and, I can get to my car to unload packages.

"And Mr. Crocs over here is about to find out the hard way" 😂. I loved watching Full House as a kid too on TeenNick, especially the Disney World episode. Seeing the houses shown in the Full House intro is really cool, but it really makes you ask the big questions: Whatever happened to predictability? The milkman, the paperboy, evening TV? How did I get delivered here? Somebody tell me please, this old world's confusing me! Yup, the Painted Ladies were repainted that way beginning in the 1960s, though the houses were first built between 1849 and 1915. 48,000 of them were built during that time! They were painted as a battleship gray during WWI and WWII until 1963 when artist Butch Kardum set an example. And you definitely find some neat creatures at the Presidio. Like California voles and the Botta's pocket gopher! California voles are native to much of California as well as southwestern Oregon. Botta's pocket gophers are found in much of California but can also be found eastward towards Texas and southward towards Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. Pocket gophers live in a burrow system that can cover an area that is 200 to 2,000 square feet. Feeding burrows are usually 6 to 12 inches below ground, and the nest and food storage chamber can be as deep as 6 feet

Love trains, love metro, love your videos. Thank you! I live in SF and these were educational and relaxing.

San Francisco has become on of my favourite transit cities in the US! The city has an impressive amount of rail transit covering a good amount of the city! It’s also a really diverse system with everything you can imagine! Midi buses, rigid buses, articulated buses, trolleybuses, vintage trams, modern light rail, cable cars, metros, and ferries!

That joyous tram bell is so reassuring and reminds me of many happy days in European cities, unlike the dystopian clang of the HBLR - loved that self-levelling step, RIP Mr Crocs \m/

Very interesting. It brought back memories of the movie 'Dirty Harry' with Clint Eastwood running around the tunnels with the old-style streetcars which you showed last week. 👍

The new T Line really is a new chapter for Muni. Until the last 50 years or so, building rail-based public transportation in hilly cities was a challenge, because light rail is generally limited in how steep it can climb (metal train wheels only have so much grip with vehicles that heavy; people don't want an "I think I can; I think I can" slipping train experience on their daily commutes). This partially explains why the SF public transportation system was essentially three disjointed systems (cable cars for steep hills, trollies/street cars for the flatter valleys and along the Embarcadero waterfront (including the rare, wide uninterrupted valleys forming Market Street and the Mission), and electric (instant high-torque) rubber-wheeled buses that could do inclines in between the two extremes). In order to have true, off-grid light rail in hilly cities, you have to have the engineering to build an underground seismically stable, well ventilated, essentially flat subway/light-rail network, built at a level near or below the lowest elevation in the city the network must go through, and then to build long escalators and elevators that can reach up to the surface, however high the surface may be at that particular station. That only came into existence (or at least at a relatively affordable price) more recently, which is part of the reason why the NYC subway is over 70 years older than Washington, DC's subway system. (As a result of its hills, the DC metro contains the two longest escalators in the Western Hemisphere). Ironically, SF had adopted this "build flat; add stairs" solution for hills quite early in its public transportation history. In 1917, SF completed construction of the Twin Peaks Tunnel, which allowed street cars going down Market Street to stay flat and essentially drive through the hills in the middle of the city to come out on the other side for access to the Sunset neighborhood. And, in the middle of the tunnel, SF created the Forest Hill Station, which had stairs to get commuters up to the surface on top of the hill. But after doing this once, SF hasn't returned to this approach for servicing hilly locations until now, over a century later. The video notes that the platform for the Chinatown Station is build deep underground. That's true, clearly, relative to the surface, but it's not so much that they build the line deep (it's not nearly as deep relative to the surface near Market Street), so much as the surface got high, since Chinatown is built half-way up Nob HIll. The Line stayed at (or near) the same depth, it's the surface that rose, so more escalators are needed. Hopefully SF continues down this path (not waiting another century to try again) so that off-grid light rail can be brought to other SF neighborhoods currently isolated from the system, which must rely on personal vehicles or surface-level buses that get stuck in (and contribute to) traffic. I'm sure the escalator industry would be in favor.

I took it recently from chase center to connect to bart. It was a lifesaver in the cold rain

The new rebranded T line stations are nice. The escalator down to some takes a full minute. The T line ends at Chinatown instead of going all the way to North Beach as the local businesses and residents there would like. Maybe someday it’ll get extended…

It definitely is nice when stations have pretty cool artwork to honor the neighborhoods or attractions they serve! Like Museum station on the Toronto subway as they have columns referencing a different part of history, like Forbidden City columns, Parthenon columns, Osiris columns, Toltec columns, and even Pacific Northwest-style columns! The Tashkent Metro does an exceptional job honoring Uzbek history, from the Silk Road to the empires that once ruled over it. Each station tells a story. Some look like ballrooms with huge chandeliers hanging from the ceiling while others look like a film set from a science fiction movie. And of course the Pyongyang Metro artwork is incredible too. At Yonggwang (Glory) station, its chandeliers represent the fireworks that celebrated the Koreans' victory, and the pillars are sculpted in the shape of victory torches. At Kwangbok (Liberation) station, there are murals showing scenes of the forest from which Kim Il-sung led guerrilla anti-Japanese attacks.

First one! Thanks again Thom for all your informative and entertaining videos!

The Breda trains are the worst, something like 10k miles before they need to go back to the shop and they always got put out of service because of tech issues also the central subway was only specd for 2 car trains when it runs through some of the densest neighborhoods in the city/west coast and can be extended to other popular neighborhoods

You mentioned the Muni day pass. The website seems to indicate that this needs to be purchased through the app or with cash at the farebox. Does it also work with Clipper? Do they just not charge the third fare effectively?

I'm looking forward to seeing your review of the SMART train in the North Bay, Caltrain along the peninsula, and VTA light rail in Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley).

The reason why the L is using busses is because they’re upgrading and rebuilding the metro infrastructure along Taraval Street.

The Muni is really a neat service, spent late december through new years this last winter and our airbnb was right on the street line, and they had flag stops on the street, which i'd heard of, but *never* realized was still in service. Honestly i may go back to frisco just because of how easy it is to get around.

There was a top patio with a decent view on top of the Chinatown Station, surprised you missed it.

I just found this video, and I'm glad you had a great time riding Muni here in San Francisco! Someone else already pointed out that the "weird little critter" you saw in Golden Gate Park (at 3:28) is a gopher. FYI, Golden Gate Park also has a colony of Great Blue Herons. Sometimes you'll see a heron waiting patiently for a gopher to appear; they'll just jam their beak in the hole to grab the gopher and then swallow it whole!

A few interesting tidbits as a local: 1) the new LRV 4s are having their sideways bench seats replaced already by new individual seats with more grip due to passengers complaining about sliding around on them while the train is moving, and half of the seats are being turned to be forward facing. 2) much of the original surface sections existing as streetcar lines is due to dedicated ROWs existing along the line the makes turning them into buses impractical, thus saving the entire line. For the N-Judah’s case, that piece of infrastructure would be the orange facaded Sunset Tunnel you showed in the video (where the trains also run really slow due to trespasser concerns). 3) The T-Third in its entirety is a completely new line opened in 2007, and used to run into the Market St Subway through running with the K-Ingleside before the Central Aubway opened. A service that recently briefly got revived when APEC closed off the Moscone station! 4) All T-Third surface stops, the N stops along the Embarcadero to Caltrain, and the 2 M stops at SFSU and Stonestown have full length level boarding high platforms mainly for accessibility reasons, but for the 2 M stops it was more for crowding reasons from SFSU students. 5) The Market St tunnel is directly connected to the older Twin Peaks streetcar tunnel (the section of subway between Castro and West Portal), and MUNI runs an S-Shuttle service during weekday peak hours within the tunneled section between West Portal and Embarcadero for extra service. The S-Shuttle moniker also appears in the Central Subway as a game day shuttle between Chinatown and Chase Center on game days only. 6) The tunneled sections all use ATO (West Portal to Embarcadero, Chinatown to the portal just past Moscone Center), kinda similar to a modern subway train. That is why trains stop at the tunnel portals to make the changeover between ATO and manual driving. 6) Muni is notorious for being one of the slowest transit systems in the country, with an average speed of less than 10mph. It was so bad on the T-Third (only 15 years old mind you) that Muni revived the bus line it replaced and made it a limited stop express line to complement the Third Street corridor. This is how the 15 bus was reborn as the 15-Bayview Express. Aside from lack of signal priority, the slow running speed on the surface is also a contributing factor.

On the main subway there was a time when multiple routes would bd connected so like some rail systems in Europe you had to be sure you boarded the service you needed.

“Mr. Crocs is about to find out the hard way” is a magnificent sentence.

funny fact about the new MUNI rolling stock: the bell sound isn’t an actual bell, just a recording of the older train’s bell playing out of a speaker.

Thank you for immersing us in San Francisco. The underground city is fascinating to me. More maps please! I loved following you around the city, but I actually had no idea where you were much of the time.

It's good to know that there's a good way to commute and tour in San Francisco, riding on trains efficiently and inexpensively to key places. Thank you for sharing.

Funny. I grew up with trams and light rail vehicles that have folding steps, but they have since almost all been replaced. The light rail lines got high platforms (also on the street-running sections), and the trams were replaced by low-floor vehicles. I never would have thought they still bought cars like that elsewhere as recently as 2017.

No visit to Haight-Ashbury ? As a Dead Head it would be my first stop.

This city, Chicago, New York, are the top three cities I recommend if you want to go to an American city for public transit.

hi Thom, a few questions. First, it appears that when the trains are in the subway, they run on 3rd rail, and the pantograph is retracted. Is that correct? Next, what are the buttons on the handgrip poles inside the cars used for? If this was a bus, it would be to signal a stop. But why inside a metro car?

Awesome video!!!!

The T-Third on the street running segment is painful to ride. There's stops practically every other block with zero signal priority or preemption. It's so bad that Muni added the 15 Bayview Express to run as an express service with less stops alongside the T-Third. It seems highly illogical that the bus is treated as the express and the train is the "local" service. Buses are able to accelerate faster and the train has the special right of way in the median along Third St. Despite being the newest line in the system, it suffers from the same speed issues as the other lines. Also when the train is in the tunnel, it is FAST. It takes roughly 15 minutes to get from West Portal to downtown which is really, really fast for Muni. And the reason those light rail lines still exist is because all of them (with the exception of T-Third) run in tunnels under hills. Replacing those with buses would have been too slow. That's why they retain the old lettering of J, K, M, N, and L. Those lines have existed before they replaced nearly all the streetcars into buses. I did read somewhere that there's a plan to underground the N Judah all the way to 8th and Irving, but considering the speed SFMTA builds, it'll probably be built in a couple decades.

Have you heard about or seen the abandoned Twin Peaks tunnel station?

this is really your best that I've seen. GREAT photography, but then again, SF is a very photogenic city. Good facts on the MUNI system, which compares with Philly's subway-surface LRVs, for which Septa has plans for upgraded vehicles in the near future (which is Septa-ese for "eventually") Anyway, the F-line PCC cars is also a great way to see this beautiful city. Kudos, again for a great job.

It’s poetic that wounds of racism and railroad exploitation are healed by the chinatown subway ❤

I love MUNI and BART, I practically stopped driving.

Come visit Calgary and see our S200s. It's like the backwards Muni metro where downtown is on street and suburban is grade separated

5:30 There's actually a whole variety of seating arrangements. The earliest LRV4s have the longitudinal seating which many activists and riders hated because people would slide around on them and were uncomfortable. Newer vehicles have a mix of transverse and longitudinal, all with a more bucket seat for better comfort!

Thanks!

Woah I had no idea the muni stations looked so nice especially when the media portrays them in such a negative light. I still wish that muni streetcars got some signal priority though on the streets. That would be awesome but it does have its fair share of complications. One thing I do wish given that the central subway was so expensive is the incorporation of platform screen doors.

Muni Metro and historic streetcar lines are designated by a letter and a name. You rode on the N Judah and T Third lines. The other Metro lines are J Church, K Ingleside, L Taraval, M Oceanview and (sometimes S Shuttle). Historic streetcars are F Market and E Embarcadero. Bus and trolleybus lines have numbers and names. Cable car lines just have names. But colors shown on maps are just for visual clarity, so don't ask a local for directions to the'Orange line, Purple line etc. because nobody will know what you are talking about. By the way, the reason the T line is so deep is that it had do cross under the BART which is under the Metro, which is under Market Street. And the tunnel boring machine that built it is parked at the northern end of the line waiting to someday dig the extension to North Beach and beyond.

I can't think of a picture that fits the quaint California Americana stereotype I have than the shot at 4:13 . The single floor shops, the short trees, the retro car, clear skies and a streetcar. It's such a lovely shot that single handedly makes me want to move there lol

The J Church is my favorite of the Muni Metro streetcar lines. It leaves the road to go through Delores Park and then winds along a narrow right of way between houses before rejoining the street. . . . When I lived in SF I had the monthly pass which allowed me to ride the cable cars free of charge. I sometimes commuted via the California Street cable car.

Love the video - brought back so many memories from growing up there. Glad you two got to see Golden Gate Park. In the Richmond, there is also Sutro Park (and the Cliff House) but it's no where near the scale (or length) of Golden Gate Park. Excited to share this video (and I'm sure the future ones of San Fran) with my sister - she will be blown away by the improvements and expansions you brought to light in the vlog. Thanks for the great content and continued safe travels for you two!

Nuce Vídeo. Muni has some resemblances with Oporto metro

It will interesting what possible future rail extensions will look like as some proposed alignments tunnel under the Central Subway to reach Geary and points West. We’ve yet to connect rail to the Transbay Terminal as well.

There is one other train that may be worth checkinb out - the Smart Train Marin-Sonoma counties including a bike path

Hello, Thom. I very much enjoyed your video essay on San Francisco's new subway line and its Muni light rail/streetcar system. I'm fascinated by new developments in public transport in this country where we prioritize highways, so I was glad to learn of the brand new central line. But in this case, as a former Bostonian, I was even more intrigued by your portrait of the Muni which seems to me like a west coast cousin to Boston's Green Line. So I followed up by seeing what you had to say about the latter. Your comments were astute and I felt some nostalgia for those old, slow cars. Both networks are based on legacy infrastructure developed mostly in early 20th century but adapted for current needs. Both networks start as light rail in downtown central business district tunnels, then branch out to surface street car lines. Like you, I think it is good practice for cities to build on their historic installations to repurpose them for modern usage. I just wish Boston had a westbound BART equivalent to accompany the Green Line trains which run partly on center of street right-of-ways, and can be slow going once they leave the tunnels.

We took BART on our San Francisco trip from Millbrae to Powell every day of our stay. We stayed at Millbrae because hotels were a LOT cheaper there. We would do it again but always hear that SF is so unsafe anymore especially riding BART. Looked good in your videos!

Boston has a pretty similar sized and layed out light rail system. But it is so pathetically slow compared to SF Muni!

Brilliant video sir.

I love taking Muni from my aunt's near the zoo across the city to Giants games. Saves a lot on parking! I've always loved BART/Muni a lot. San Francisco is a wonderful city; I've been going all my life, and there's still plenty I haven't seen!

Philadelphia 🤝 San Francisco Trollies sharing a tunnel with a subway under a Market Street

It’s interesting that you can see the cars turning right into the crosswalk by CalTrain at Third Street and King. That right hand lane is now blocked off after the fatality of a child in w stroller. You can see that in order for drivers to see oncoming traffic they have to go into the crosswalk because Safeway obstructs their vision. They have removed all evidence of the crash scene but I have pictures of the ghost stroller. I live downtown but work in Mission Bay. I am on this train about five days a week

Love the T-line, when I had to have physical therapy done the office was in Chinatown, and it was so convenient to take the T there. But yeah, the whole Powell station is one of those perfect transit hubs, you have the north/south running trams going through there, you have BART trains going through there, and then you have central subway T-line crisscrossing through it (short walk from the other platforms). Also if you transfer from another form of transit, BART, Caltrain, Ferry, another county bus service in SF there is a discount on the fare as long as you ride Muni within an hour or two, doesn't apply to the day pass though which IMO all visitors should be getting just for value as you're most likely out last the 2 hour window for free transfers

San Franciso is one of four or five American cities that never stopped using streetcars and new Light Rail Vehicles. Now that the Covid-19 Pandemic is windind down i shall have to ride the Central Subway. TM Muni Clipper Card User

amazing how clean the stations are if this was NY there would be garbage on the tracks and graffitti all over the tunnell walls

The existing 8 bus serves basically the same route as the central subway expansion, and is usually faster, especially once you count escalator time. So while the central subway is nice to look at and demonstrates some potentially useful technology, the short expansion from union square to Chinatown is just generally not an improvement for many users. I think the light rail really needs to get off the street to compete in speed against buses on the highway.

Including Chicago that had a great street rail system with PCCs into the early 1970s.. then poof… diesel only buses CTA style👎🏻

MUNI used to have a Metro line that ran from Fort Mason , through the "dirty harry" Tunnel (Fort Mason ) to SF Maritime and ran on the F - Market wharves rails. there is hopes that MUNI will Reopen this Historic Tunnel to MUNI Riders. this would Enable access those in Pier 39 to Fort Mason by MUNI.

Breda cars 1400 - 1476 are LRV2s. 1477 and up are LRV3s. Slight modifications between the two. 8:48

Very Convenient To Chase- Center?

It’s awesome how many transit options San Francisco has!! What a huge construction project that tunnel must have been!! It’s so awesome that they still have streetcars on the original tracks. Thanks for this awesome video showing the different transit options!!

Great video! Now about that long wait at 4th & King... The T-Third Street is (or was) the only line with full-ish signal priority, but it had to be disabled at 4th & King/Caltrain because it proved to create more problems than it solved. From when it opened in 2007 to the Central Subway's full opening in January 2023, the T-line turned onto King Street and into the Market Street Subway. Initially, as a separate line, then as an extension of the K-Ingleside, it added more problems to a system over capacity at an already complicated intersection. It's a freeway on/offramp, a major transit hub, high volumes of pedestrians, requires long signal times, etc. The priority signaling system from the early 2000s is also pretty rudimental by today's standards, didn't work in a lot of situations anyway, and there was only so much the SFMTA could do until the Central Subway opened. Now that the T-Third Street and N-Judah cross perpendicular as they were always meant to, planners are probably doing what they can to tweak signal timing, but a real solution is a few years away. The SFMTA is preparing to install a modern communications-based train control (CBTC) system that didn't exist when the T-line started construction in the early 2000s across the city-wide light rail system starting next year with that segment of the T-Third Street and N-Judah.

Great video! Brings back many memories when I lived in San Francisco, and rode Muni Metro everyday! The best part was the fact that I lived across from Delores Park, and the J Line ran along side of it! There are two stops along the park, and one of them was directly front of my house! It made commuting in the city so easy!

Those tunnels are pretty deep but I suppose that San Francisco is quite a hilly city so tunnels are going to be deep.The Minsk Metro 🚇 is supposed to have the deepest tunnels on Earth of any metro.

"Mr Crocs". ;)

I enjoyed that video👍👍

The new stations look awesome. Even though I have my own problems with San Francisco's public transit a lot (well, mainly just BART), they are really good at making their new stuff actually look new. The stations, the trains (both the BART trains and the MUNI metro trains) all actually look like they can fit right in a European country. Just wish there were platform screen doors though

I should also mention that I didn’t like the “ice rink” seating bench during the initial run of LRV-4, as I had a hard time sitting still in one spot, to the point that I could skid off the bench rather easily.

I like the hybrid high floor style of the MUNI trains. Compared to the (soon to open) Line 5 in Toronto, which is a hybrid tram/light rail lifht. Here they opted for low floor vehicles which is going to reduce capacity long term. In contrast the C trains in Calgary use high floor vehicles which have elevated platforms even at street level (akin to the acceccible platforms on MUNI). Lots of different ways to set it up and all have pros and cons. But high floor will always have higher capacity.

The Central Subway ends in Chinatown, but the tunnel goes several more blocks to Washington Square in North Beach. An extension is inevitable.

The reason the Central Subway is so deep is that it needs to pass under BOTH the Muni Metro and BART levels when it crosses Market Street.

I think the Baxter's on That So Raven also lived in one of the Painted Ladies

Do you think Cleveland’s future S200s will have the same moving steps mechanism?

Fantastic video, thank you very much! They should play it on PBS. "Mr. Crocks"... that was funny.

Boston and Philadelphia are the other 2 cities that are like San Francisco

those doors on the siemens trains are so slow!

Why does the MUNI logo remind me of the old GMPTE logo (Greater Manchester have since changed both the logo and the name of the agency)?

I always admire new videos on your channel, I have learned a lot about transport in America and compare it with the transport of my hometown. But, as for me, our bus traffic is better than in America, and the commuter rail service is worse Greetings from Russia (Siberia)

Signal priority?! That would imply that Muni had any idea how to do their job properly. Taking the T from Powell to the end of the line at Sunnydale will _easily_ take you an hour and is one of the slowest possible ways to make the trip. The Central Subway wasn't just plagued with delays and overruns, it was heavily criticized as overpriced, poorly-designed, and likely to be underutilized. It's really telling that you mainly used Muni to visit tourist spots starting from Powell. That's one of the few things that Muni can actually accomplish adequately. Otherwise it's a nightmare of poor system design, lack of right of way, and numerous transit methods that poorly connect to one another everywhere other than Market or Powell.

Pleasant surprise, at 4:01 see the green and brown picket fence. I built them in ’21. Excellent video. Great commentary and satisfying photography.

BART, of course, allows bicycles on the trains. Hopefully, cyclists who are polite & courteous will not board when the trains are crowded, e.g., at peak rush hours. MUNI does not allow bicycles. Is the solution for the cyclist to have a bicycle that folds up small, e.g., Tern, Dahon, Brompton, in order to take it on the MUNI? I’d imagine that MUNI would allow it: 1) folding bikes are very popular among people commuting within The City; 2) folded up, the bike is only about the size of a suitcase, not big at all, so not obstructing other passengers.

This is like the opposite of the Channel 5 video about San Francisco, but then again, you’re talking public transportation in your channel.

A fascinating tour of the Muni Metro lines! They did indeed begin as streetcar lines, but with some "proto-light-rail" touches. For example, there were two long tunnels. One is the Sunset Tunnel on the N Judah, the tunnel that connects the outer portion of the route on Judah St. to the inner portion on Duboce St. The other, longer tunnel is the Twin Peaks tunnel, that connects West Portal station with an old East Portal station where the line surfaced and ran down Market Street. In the tunnel, there were two stations. One of those stations is Forest Hill. Here the tracks are so deeply underground that there are elevators rather than escalators to get between the tracks and the surface. The reason for the station was the nearby old ladies' home (now a city hospital). Cute little miniature Muni buses ran between the hospital and the station. While those in good shape could walk the distance (about a quarter mile or half a kilometer) most of the elderly who lived in the home could not. The station house is a quaint early example of Mission Revival architecture. West of West Portal, the three lines run on the surface. But here again, the K and M lines have some off-street running south of St. Francis circle. The M line in particular goes off-street, crossing Ocean Avenue at a rather blind grade crossing. Does it have crossing gates currently? It should. For most of its existence the crossing was protected only by signs. But the Muni Metro lines are not the oldest examples of electric streetcars in the city. The Municipal Railway, as its name implies, was built by the city of San Francisco. But it was built to offer competition to the older, privately owned Market Street Railway. Streetcars on the MSR ran on numbered lines, while Muni lines had the letters they have now. When the MSR finally went bankrupt and was taken over by the Muni, most of those lines were converted to buses or trolley buses. Most of them retain the same route numbers. The Muni operated several streetcar lines that have not survived intact. Before the Muni took it over, down the center of Geary Street ran a steam railroad called the Geary Street, Parks, and Ocean Railroad. It ran three routes that went to Golden Gate Park and the Cliff House. The Muni took it over and electrified it. This was the A, B, and C lines. Pressure from automobile traffic in the 1950s forced the median of Geary Street to be paved over and the lines converted to buses. The other lost Muni streetcar line was the F Stockton line. It ran through a relatively short tunnel under a hill. The tunnel was later paved so it could be shared with automobiles and the streetcars were replaced with trolley buses. So why does San Francisco have so much electric transit? Well, it seems that the city of San Francisco built a dam called Hetch Hetchy dam, which is actually located in Yosemite National Park. It produced copious quantities of hydroelectric power. The city wanted to take over the private power company, Pacific Gas and Electric. Problem was, PG&E didn't want to sell their lucrative business. So, the city approached them about buying the electricity produced by Hetch Hetchy. They didn't want to buy that either. So, the only thing the city could do with its electric power was to power city buildings and transit lines. As a result, San Francisco is one of the few cities that has actually converted some diesel bus routes to trolleybuses. Hetch Hetchy dam, built in 1911, is still there, still providing Muni with electricity. It also provides San Francisco with its water supply, for drinking and so on.

Random fact, trains are run in automatic mode underground! They use ATCS, a very early concept of modern CBTC (moving block system). You can see at 12:14 the two cables running along the middle of the tracks and along one of the rails, they loop every few meters and are counted to figure out where a train is underground. Operators only open and close doors when running underground, and the system takes care of the rest.

Me too... I used to like that serie a lot, but the little girls grew up.

Update: L Taraval will be back in operation on 9/28/2024, I personally can’t wait to ride it on a daily basis

Wow I remember when they first started building this new line seemingly a zillion years ago. Good to see it operating!