April 18, 1906, a date forever seared into San Francisco history. The cataclysmic earthquake and fire divided eras and impressed unforgettable memories on all who experienced it.
There is nothing like San Francisco’s famed F-line heritage streetcar service, beloved by residents and a facet of Muni’s operations in which the transit agency rightfully takes great pride. But how did it come to be decades ago, and how is it sustained today?
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.
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.
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.
…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.
By Rick Laubscher, Market Street Railway President
Here’s a great chance to see memorable historic photos of San Francisco transit. And, if you come on January 27, bask in the perfection of a fully restored vintage Muni bus and hear from photography and history experts.
Dianne Feinstein is rightly being remembered for an astonishing range and depth of accomplishment during her 90 years of life. Her memory is a blessing to all who knew her, especially the thousands of women she mentored as a breakthrough female political leader.
