Transcription
If you ask San Francisco locals, they'll tell you that MUN, operator of the city's urban rail system, is known for one thing: being really slow. It averages less than 10 mph systemwide. That's concerning, especially for a system that labels itself a metro and even has a substantial underground section.
But if you ask anyone from outside San Francisco, MUN is known for one completely different thing. >> Don't do that. That's branch. This is, of course, the San Francisco cable car system. The only such system left in the world. It needs no introduction, but I'll give it one anyway. Three cable car lines cover the part of town where the grid system was just half-hazardly thrown onto incredibly steep hills, and cars grab onto a moving steel cable under the street to pull themselves along. Hear that? That's the sound of wires. This system dates back to 1878. And at its height, it consisted of 23 lines inspiring similar systems in places like Seattle.
And this thing is so dang fun. Yes, I know it's a cliche tourist attraction, but the steep hills, the twists and turns, and the fact that you can hang on the side of a moving transit vehicle keep me coming back again and again. And to finish it all off, our car reaches the top of Russian hill and descends towards the ocean, pretty much just letting gravity pull this 138-year-old transit vehicle made of wood loaded with tourists down to 21% grade in a street full of traffic. Have I mentioned how much I love these things?
It is worth noting that since the cable cars are operated by MUN, they're functionally part of San Francisco's main transit system and can be covered by MUN's $13 day pass, which gives unlimited rides. The cable car is undoubtedly the most famous transit in San Francisco, if not California or the United States, but MUN has another heritage line as well. We're headed to the F Market Street Car. This runs 6 miles from Fisherman's Wharf down the Embarcadero and Market Street to a loop at 17th and Castro.
So, to be perfectly honest, while San Francisco transit is really cool, um, there are realities of living in a city right now. There is a gentleman across the street who is yelling profusely at a wall. Rolling stock on this line consists mostly of PCC street cars. Many are painted for other systems around North America, making car spotting on this line quite fun. Kansas City. The F Market Line was built out of old street car lines as a tourist attraction to augment the cable cars. And today it sees over 19,000 daily boardings. The Atlanta street car could never.
We hop off at the Embarcadero and Washington for our next ride. Let the record state that Walter brought me these amazing like strawberry matcha chocolate things from Japan. And let the record state that this is the last one in the box he gave me. >> We've only been together for about 3 hours. And all that sugar in my system is healthy. What has the abilities? Be happy you're not getting copyright strict. >> Our next ride is indeed a trolley bus. One of 15 routes in MUN's system. MUN has been operating trolley buses since 1935. Today they have the largest such system in the United States. And one can understand why. We're running up Sacramento Street, which is pretty steep, and our bus handles it like a champ, pulling all the current it needs from the overhead wires.
>> Also, did you know that the fortune cookie was invented here in San Francisco? Today you can visit a fortune cookie bakery in Chinatown right off the trolley bus route where you can see the machines they use to make these clairvoyant treats. So here you can actually write your own fortune cookie and have it folded into a cookie in real time. So Walter and I are each going to write one for each other. >> You will kick a bench today. >> Still warm. You hardly ever have a warm fortune cookie. You won't miss your flight this evening.
But when a transit agency is rooted in street railways, oversees one of America's largest heritage transit systems, is no stranger to electric urban transit, and has to tackle some of the nation's toughest urban terrain, what happens when they try to run light rail? The only way to find out is to go for a ride. See, I was getting to that part.
MUN Metro consists of seven light rail services fanning across the city of San Francisco. We're starting with the newest one, the T3rd Street, which runs along the east of the city from Sunnydale up into Chinatown. Most of the line built after the turn of the century runs in dedicated medians, but the northern three stations are deep underground in the central subway, which opened in 2022. After a plate of dim sum bankrolled by my generous Patreon supporters, who get early access to videos and bonus content, Walter and I head across the street to Chinatown Station. The platforms here are a full 100 ft underground, requiring an impressive array of escalators to take us downstairs past grandiose works of art. Walter has two MUN day passes on his phone, one for each of us. But since there are no scanny scans on the fairgates, he shows the code to the station agent who opens the accessible fairgates just for Walter. He has my day pass as well. But despite its impressive design, this subway extension has received criticism for costing almost $2 billion. A two-car train pulls in. Awfully small for such a big station. >> Right there, you can see the end of the car. One car, two car. That's not even enough space for an additional car down there. >> That's even worse than Seattle.
Our ride is a Siemens S200 SF, the newest equipment in MUN's fleet. It's a short jaunt one stop down the line to Union Square where we watch our train pull away. This station is also served by the rest of MUN Metro, but we have to exit fare control to reach those lines. We ascend a steep escalator and reach the fare gates. Now we find ourselves in the Market Street subway, the beating heart of MUN Metro. Consisting of seven stations under Market Street, this subway was opened to MUN Metro in 1980 and now contains all of the system's lines other than the T. Four stations are shared with BART, whose tunnels and platforms sit below those of MUN. However, the two have separate fare control, and we head over to the MUN faregates, where once again, I'm worried about how our day passes will work. Thank me in your Emmy awards. >> I would like to thank that random person who just told me that I could freely walk through that fair gate because she said to thank me in my Emmy awards and >> I don't think YouTube videos typically get those.
The first train we catch is the J Church, which is just one car, meaning we have to run all the way down the platform to catch it. After blasting through the subway and stopping at a few stations, we exit out the D'Ouch portal and turn onto Church Street, where we run in mixed traffic. While many newer sections of MUN are in tunnels and dedicated medians, plenty of tracks still share the streets with cars and buses. We cross Market Street and the tracks of the F Market Street Car. And it's here that we realize something that may have already been very obvious. Most California light rail systems were first opened in the 1980s, decades after older generations of street cars and interurbans were replaced by buses. These were meant to be lower-cost alternatives to metro systems like BART while still accomplishing similar goals of longer-range travel. But MUN Metro is different. It's the direct continuation of San Francisco's old street car system upgraded for the modern day. This became this became this. Street cars in San Francisco never entirely went away, thanks in no small part to a bunch of dedicated infrastructure built over the years to navigate the city's difficult urban terrain. And that's what we're entering now.
Leaving the street, we climb up a 9% grade along the edge of Mission Dolores Park, then wind through a couple of residential blocks. It was because of this private right of way that this line avoided conversion to bus service, and it became the last MUN street car line converted to light rail in 1981. So, just to appreciate what we're looking at here, we have this tight little curve surrounded by shrubbery, kind of in a little rut between some houses. Tracks are for trains, not for playing games. >> Whatever this is, plant boomers, tell me what this is. It smells wonderful. This honestly may be one of the most aesthetic light rail stations I have been to, ever.
We board another car heading back into downtown, stopping to serve the park once again, where a few people have gathered to enjoy the sun. There's also an abandoned station here. Since stations across the system can be both low and high level, stairs like these descend and retract as needed. We turn back to the portal and head underground, making a cross-platform transfer to the N Judah line, which takes us back out of the same portal and straight down to Bowes Avenue. We can see some of the low-level above ground stations here. The Bowes Park is a bit quieter than the last park we saw. Then we passed East Portal Station and enter the Sunset Tunnel, which dates back to 1928. Another piece of infrastructure left over from the street car era that prevented this line from becoming a bus. West Portal sees us street running once again. And I got to say, this neighborhood looks really nice. I'm sure the rent is really affordable here, too. This car will go all the way to Ocean Beach, but we're getting off a couple stops later. So, I would do a little station review here, but there really isn't any kind of station. Here is the entire station. It's a pole >> and it says bus stop.
We jump back on the train to retrace our steps to the portal. This might be a good time to note that only 54% of MUN Metro stops are currently wheelchair accessible. As we cross a trolley bus route here, we can see the complex network of wires needed to run both trolley buses and light rail vehicles through these intersections. If we were continuing onto these tracks, seen here branching off to our left, we would be routed out onto the Heritage Line on Market Street because again, this has all been one system since it was constructed.
We get off at Van Ness where we watch a few trains come and go before boarding the M Ocean View. It's a one-car train, which means we have to walk down the platform again. And it is packed to the gills. Having fun, Walter? >> One car train will not stop. Please stand clear. Please stand clear. Unlike the previous lines we rode, the M doesn't use the D'Ouch Street portal and instead keeps running underground to Church and Castro, the last stations on the Market Street subway. Then we're still underground because the Market Street subway feeds directly into the Twin Peaks Tunnel, an old street car subway under hills known as the Twin Peaks. This tunnel is actually going on for a while. This opened in 1918, including Forest Hill Station, which is completely underground and looks and feels much older than the Market Street subway stations. Part of the reason you can tell that this is a uh Twin Peaks tunnel station is the fact that at the ends they have low floor platforms or at least sections of platform that used to be low floor. It's because PCC's used to run uh through here and other low floor rolling stock used to run through here.
One more train takes us to West Portal, which was rebuilt from a curbside stop to a partially covered metro-style station as part of the light rail conversion. Looking around this area, the transition from metro station to street running light rail is pretty jarring. But we don't have much time to take that in because we're heading back into the subway. After Forest Hill, we passed the remnants of Eureka Valley Station, which closed in 1972.
The point I'm trying to make is that MUN Metro feels and is slower because it's a different flavor of light rail than LA Metro or SACRT or the San Diego trolley, all of which I've covered in previous videos. It's one of only six first-generation street car systems to survive into the present day and the only one west of the Rockies. And no system has survived and thrived quite like MUN has. If we look at the others, Boston's Green Line is probably the most similar system to MUN, but it's only one part of a city-wide metro system along with three heavy rail lines of similar length. Philadelphia built the Center City tunnel for its trolleys, but only now is it pursuing upgrades to light rail on its urban routes. Well, it and Cleveland's suburban roots were and are largely grade separated to begin with, and Pittsburgh's system was augmented so much by light rail conversion that it hardly streets at all. And of course, New Orleans cars basically just survived because of tourism. Compare that to MUN, which has to run a partially upgraded street car system as the main means of local rail transit in one of America's most prominent cities. You've got cable cars and deep subway tunnels just a block from each other. You've got massive metro stations emptying out onto a lot of street running trackage shared with road vehicles. You've got PCC's running alongside Siemens light rail vehicles. You've got office commuters zigzagging through people's backyards and parks. You've got pieces that feel like a bus on rails and pieces that feel like a futuristic metro. In short, MUN Metro is slow because it's a treasure trove of all the things rail enthusiasts love with over a century of history. Now, does that make it the optimal rail transportation solution for a city like San Francisco? Well, that's debatable, but I'll let you have that debate down in the comments.
Special thanks to Walter for joining me on this adventure and planning it out. Thank you for watching, and until the next time, take care.