My connection: a grandfather who retired as a conductor from the Muni when the B shut down - Muni converted to all one-man crews (yes, it was almost all men at the time) after than. afaik he never had a drivers license.

In a way, the B may have been the sacrifice that saved the streetcars elsewhere in town. There were advanced plans for bustituting the JKLMN and cable cars, but they died at least in part due to the reaction to loss of the B line to buses (a well-developed set of local, limited, and commuter express options, but really no better than the streetcar overall because they weren't a subway separated from all the traffic), though "Save the Cable Cars" got most of the press. One might wonder if the community that built up around saving what remained of Muni rail led to the "Freeway Revolt." Muni was, in fact, officially the "Municipal Railway" even if most of it was buses until at least the late 1960s; "Muni" branding seemed to start about that time, but when did the "Railway" part get dropped officially?

But consider the times: that was also when SF was bulldozing the Western Addition for the "Geary Expressway" (which never really lived up to the name despite a couple of vastly expensive grade separations) and "redevelopment" in the guise of forcing the blacks out. They were trying to make it attractive for whites who otherwise were fleeing to the suburbs. They failed, but that was the purpose and fate of most of the "redevelopment" projects of the era not just in SF.

Of course, for a long time in the early-middle 20th Century, SF was considered to be a "city that works" - which was true, though the government of the time would be considered hopelessly corrupt today. It has evolved to being just another place with too much money flying around for its own good, and no care for the people who actually make the place function (and who usually need public transit and a relatively inexpensive place to live).

I think it's unlikely Muni will, at least within most of our lifetimes and on its own, spruce up those old subway plans and do what should have been done in the 1960s if not 1930s - a subway under Geary Street, from Market to, probably, at least 25th Ave. If the only way to do it is to deal with the @#$%& (e.g. BART), then so be it, but the local politics also make that unlikely. So the only thing they can do for now is fiddle with some improvement for the buses, trying to extract at least some of them from the clogged traffic on the erstwhile "expressway." The things they're talking about are hardly "BRT" as it's conventionally described (e.g. LA Silver & Orange Lines, or Curitiba); more like some localized enhancements to enable more reliable and slightly faster schedules similar to LA's "Rapid" bus lines.

BART seems to be running out of interest in (and money for) more suburban extensions, though, so perhaps the time is nearing when some attention might be paid to the central parts of the Bay Area. Is there a tiny glimmer of hope for some work there, where the 1960s-era system has run out of capacity and needs at least major rehab?