The resumption of F-line and Powell-Hyde service (story here) is great news for San Francisco’s economy, and hundreds of businesses along the lines. But much of this gain could be lost again for an extended period without concerted effort. Here’s a look at the threats to full vintage streetcar and cable car service in the coming years, and what we at Market Street Railway are trying to do to minimize service disruptions.
F-line on Market Street
As we explained in the cover story of Inside Track issue 2020 No. 4 (“Battered Market Street”), the city has taken ten years to get to the point of starting construction on a major upgrade of Market Street. The Department of Public Works (DPW), lead city agency on the project, is finally preparing documents for the first phase, between Fifth and Eighth Streets. But the way they intend to sequence the work would take streetcars off the western part of the F-line for two full years, starting this September, just three months after F-line service resumes.
Instead of re-doing both track lanes at the same time, they intend to do them one at a time, along with the rest of that half of the street. Muni buses, taxis, and bicycles would use one lane in each direction on the side of the street not under construction.
We have alerted our contacts in the merchant groups along Market Street about how this could affect them, most especially those in the Upper Market and Castro, already hard hit by the pandemic. We have talked with Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro. We will be talking with other supervisors along the line as well. We hope they will weigh in on this issue.
Even if they are successful in expediting track replacement between Fifth and Eighth, streetcars will be off Market Street west of Fifth for the better part of a year. Muni boss Julie Kirschbaum volunteered to us that she’s trying to see if F-line streetcar service east of Fifth on Market could be retained during the project by using only double-end streetcars on the Market Street section of the F, switching them back at an existing crossover just west of Fifth. That would be augmented with shuttle service from the Wharf to the Ferry Building with single-end cars.
We are very supportive of this idea and thank her for considering it. We believe it’s quite feasible, using the seven double-end PCCs augmented by double-end vintage cars, such as the Melbourne trams and Muni’s Car 1, if needed. It helps that SFMTA board member and small business leader Manny Yekutiel wants the F-line cars to go up Market this far. Muni is addressing operating questions on this potential arrangement now.
The Market Street segment from Fifth to Eighth is only the first phase of a multi-phase project. The next phase is slated to install the long-awaited F-line track loop on McAllister Street and the northern extension of Seventh Street (Charles Brenham Place). We are also working to expedite that part of the project to avoid further disruption.
Future phases of the project stretch east from Fifth to Steuart (the foot of Market) and west from Eighth to Octavia. None of these phases is funded and capital money is increasingly hard to come by.
The city’s plan was to replace all the streetcar tracks as each segment is built. The Environmental Impact Statement for the overall project suggests that could keep the F-line from its full run on Market for up to fifteen years, unacceptable to us. Accordingly, we have asked SFMTA to look more closely at the need to actually replace the streetcar tracks in future phases. The current tracks were laid for the 1995 opening of the F-line, and carry one-fifth the streetcar traffic of the previous generation of tracks, which lasted more than 40 years. The center lane tracks before that also lasted 40 years, with up to eleven streetcar lines using them. We think the current track should last 15-20 more years with just maintenance and minor repair, saving capital money.
We will take up the future of the E-line, which does not yet have a scheduled return date, in our next issue of Inside Track.
Cable car lines
The entire cable car system was rebuilt from the ground up in 1982-84. That included bringing the cable car barn completely up to the codes of that time for seismic, electrical, and other areas. As Muni approaches the 40th anniversary of the shutdown for the rebuilding, there’s a plan afoot to shut the whole cable system down again, for at least as long as the complete rebuild took (almost two years), to replace the electrical supply for the building, which also drives the motors that pull the cables. The motors themselves, along with the big winding wheels, the underground sheaves (giant pulleys) at the ends of the lines, and most other components of the cable car machinery, have all been replaced in the last several years, requiring only brief shutdowns and then usually only one line at a time.
Like many government projects, the electrical supply replacement has grown dramatically in scope, in part because it triggers other changes that must occur when a major system is changed, and in part because other “nice to have” items got added on.
We are told that given the anticipated capital funding crunch, SFMTA is reviewing both the timing and the need for this project. Given the city’s procurement process, the start of the project would be at least two years away. We think that’s too soon to take the cable cars away again, as the city will likely still be struggling to rebuild its visitor industry. We hope SFMTA leadership will agree.
