Climb ‘halfway to the stars’ and back in 25 minutes. Clamber up and down the steepest cable car hill in the world. Pass Crooked Lombard twice, swing through Chinatown, and roll smoothly through Russian Hill. Start and finish outside the Buena Vista Cafe, a block from Ghirardelli Square and interesting shops and restaurants in Fisherman’s Wharf on Jefferson Street. Meet people from all around the world while you’re doing it.
Thanks to Muni, with support from our nonprofit, the very popular Hyde Ride returns for summer 2026.
We at Market Street Railway are delighted to partner again with SFMTA/Muni to give transit lovers the chance to ride vintage streetcars, cable cars, and buses, while learning how public transit spurred the growth of San Francisco from a village to the world-class City we enjoy today.
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?
Thanks to Market Street Railway Board member and transit activist Kat Siegal, with help from Chris Arvin, you can now see where every cable car is on the street — in REAL TIME!
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.
In support of Fleet Week, SFMTA/Muni has dispatched two “vessels” to cruise The Embarcadero, shuttling happy passengers between Pier 39 and the Ferry Building. They’re supplementing regular F-line service between the heart of Fisherman’s Wharf (Jones and Jefferson) and Castro, via The Embarcadero and Market Street.
