SFO Day 4- Tourist Stuff.

After yesterday’s unremarkable day in the life of San Francisco, we decided we had better do the tourist thing before we leave the City. So we rose a little early and caught the Muni Metro downtown.

San Fran has a very multi-modal public transportation system. For a (relatively) small city surrounded on three sides by water, the options are astounding. It costs $2 to get pretty much anywhere (notably, for the most part it is a proof-of-payment system like TransLink, although some of the downtown stations have faregates). We rode on Muni Metro and on traditional buses while we were there.

The Muni Metro is a traditional electric streetcar, which is at grade for most of the time, except for a couple of underground stations under the Financial District. It is a unique blend of original 1930s streetcars and modern streetcars, and of old lines and new (5 of the lines were built before 1928, with the 6th line coming on line in 2007!). The modern trains are smooth and comfortable, but lacked the panache of the trams.

San Francisco also has busses (hybrid diesel, electric, articulated, etc.), CalTrain (heavy commuter rail that connects San Francisco to the Silicon Valley – think WestCoast Express), BART (a medium-weight subway system that connects San Francisco with Oakland under the Bay), and, of course, cable cars.

The Cable Cars cost extra, and are, I suppose, really just maintained for tourists (or, potentially as a taxpayer subsidy to certain Rice-a-Roni interests), but they represent a pretty innovative way to deal with San Francisco’s hills. Street cars can’t climb 10% grades like we have in New Westminster, never mind the 20% grades that are common in San Francisco. 

The cable cars are more like gondolas than trains: they are gondolas with wheels. Just like a gondola, there is a power station with a big wheel, turning a long cable, except the cable is underground, not in the air. The Cable cars have a gripping arm that reaches out of the bottom of the cable car, through a slot in the road, and grips the always-rolling cable. Or un-grips it when the car wants to stop. 

Tig, looking at the cable.

It is an ancient technology by mass-transit standards: more than 130 years old, but they keep it running, more out of tradition than good thinking, as no other City has operated a system like this for about 80 years.

With all of these transport options, it appears most San Francisans still prefer to drive. Elevated Freeways still blot out the landscape right in the middle of town, one of those quaint touches that Vancouver just seems to lack.

Back to the Muni. We rode to where the Embarcadero Highway famously used to be, caught up with the rest of the tourists, and took the short ferry ride to Alcatraz.

Yep, old prison. Almost everything you think you know about it (including almost every scene in every movie ever made about, around or on Alcatraz) is wrong. Typical for an American Historical Site.

Nice views, though.

We then rented a couple of bikes from a perky tenant at one of the dozen or so bike rental places within a 100ft of Fisherman’s wharf, and peddled past a bunch of Americas Cup type activity and the Presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge, which was living up to its Foggy theme.

Smooothest ride ever.

The bridge is beautiful, Art Deco but a contemporary to the (also steel) Pattullo, and (completely unlike the Pattullo) under almost constant maintenance. It was seismically upgraded, and the bike/pedestrian paths are smooth and wide.

It was also cold, windy and foggy.

“Coldest winter I ever spent was Summer in San Francisco” –Apparently not Mark Twain.

The way back through the Financial District took us past the office building owned and operated by the maker of my favourite movie of all time. This ties together really well with our last vacation, when we drove by his airstrip in Belize. Nice building.

For our last night in Lotusland South, we went to about the most vegan restaurant we could find. The food was actually phenomenal, and the spirit was groovy, though I’m not sure if it was the conversation or the piped-in vibrations and triple-filtered air...

The next morning we caught a Homobile to the Airport, and I was at work by 9:30am.