Noted Bay Area journalist Joe Fonzi’s 30-minute on the history and operation of the F-line is now online. Watch it here. (If for any reason the link doesn’t work, URL is www.ktvu.com/video/1736822. The doc has some great historic footage, including the 1980s Trolley Festivals, engaging interviews with F-line operators, maintainers, and riders…including Mayor Daniel Lurie, who tells what he thinks about the F-line.
Author: Rick Laubscher
ENCORE SHOWING of F-line documentary Nov. 2 on Channel 2
UPDATE: Joe Fonzi’s great 30-minute documentary on the F-line will indeed be repeated on Channel 2 on SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, at 12:30 pm, just before NFL football on Fox. If you haven’t seen it yet, either watch or record it; it’s well worth your time, with great interviews featuring operators and maintainers of the streetcars, wonderful historical and current footage of both PCCs and vintage cars, and an interview with Mayor Lurie.
The 22 Fillmore: a line to love since 1895
Muni’s 22-Fillmore line is one of San Francisco’s longest-lived and most important transit routes, gaining additional popularity even now, 130 years after it was built.
Boat Tram sails most Fridays/Saturdays thru Oct. 11
“Special Guest Streetcar” service has been operating on Fridays and Saturdays this summer. As it wraps up for the season, the very popular 91-year old Blackpool “Boat Tram” is most frequently operated, and is scheduled to be out on the Friday and Saturday of Fleet Week (October 10-11) Its first trip leaves Castro and Market around 12:30 p.m. and operates through about 6:30. You can see exactly where it is on our live streetcar map.
Ride into the past: Muni Heritage Weekend Sept. 20-21
Muni Heritage Weekend, jointly sponsored by us and Muni’s parent, SFMTA, is ON again this year.
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.
Black barrier-breakers in San Francisco transit
San Francisco didn’t always have a reputation for openness and inclusion. The city’s past has been marred by discrimination in many forms. For example, before World War II, all but a small number of city employees were white.
2026 calendar photos wanted
What? Some of us are still hung over from New Year’s Eve, and you’re already thinking of 2026?
Yep.
Santa Claus Was Coming to Town
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