A journey back in time
While San Francisco’s little cable cars are busy “climbing halfway to the stars” (as the classic Tony Bennett song goes) most residents rely on a bus and streetcar system known as MUNI. Though MUNI is comprehensive enough to make living in the city without a car a real option, it is also famous locally for running late or breaking down. One critic noted that MUNI is emblematic of the city’s “Italian Complex,” which is a nod to the contrast between the city’s resplendent beauty and dysfunctional administrations.
But there is one light in the MUNI fog: the six-mile-long F-line, a heritage streetcar service created in 1995 to replace a much faster bus line. The old streetcars come from around the world, each with the name of its original city still in the window.
Info
Address Inbound toward Fisherman’s Wharf, Outbound toward Castro District, San Francisco, CA, www.sfmuni.com/F | Tip The fare is the standard $2.25; Clipper cards are accepted too.
The F-line features a panorama of retro designs. For example, there’s an Art Deco “torpedo,” built in the 1950s, which looks like a two-tone Ferragamo shoe. And then there are the famous Peter Witt cars, in their bright orange livery. Witt, who was from Cleveland, was known for being “rebellious and outspoken,” exactly the temperament of San Francisco. Witt’s design was adopted by Italy and became popular in Milan in the 1920s. The design featured a layout with an exit in the middle of the car manned by a conductor; passengers could therefore enter in the front and pay either upon exiting or when they moved to a better seat in the rear.
The F serves both residents and tourists as it stretches along Market Street north from the Castro District through downtown, past the Tenderloin, the Palace Hotel, and all the way down to the Ferry Building, then west along the piers on the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf.
The beauty and elegance of the streetcars evokes a time when the public and communal ritual of traveling through an American city was as much about the journey as the destination.
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