Streetcars and cable cars have stirred the imaginations of countless young San Franciscans for 150 years. Here, lightly edited, are childhood memories of three of our members. Market Street Railway continues to work to interest today’s young San Franciscans in the importance of clean, safe, efficient public transit.
Month: March 2025
The fall of Market Street Railway
May 15, 1932 was perhaps the peak of San Francisco’s streetcar era. True, a few unimportant lines had been abandoned in the previous few years, but on this day, San Francisco celebrated a brand-new streetcar line: Market Street Railway’s 31-Balboa. It would be the last new line with substantial new trackage until the F-line opened along the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf 68 years later.
It was 25 years ago this month…
…that the F-Market streetcar line became the F-Market & Wharves streetcar line, with the opening of the extension from First and Market Streets to Jones and Beach, connecting Downtown to the Ferry Building, The Embarcadero, and Fisherman’s Wharf. On March 4, 2000, the extension created what we call the “Steel Triangle” of rail: the two Powell cable lines and the F-line.
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