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Re: #7 streetcar on Haight Street - Questions...
Author: mook
Date: 09-02-2008 - 18:31
Ah, but "mistake" in this (nuking the B line as well as a number of other Muni lines) as in many historical cases is a matter of applying hindsight from a particular viewpoint. Even now, you would get a lot of resistance if you tried to do something that would disrupt traffic on Geary. There was nearly a small war when it was torn up a couple of years for the Masonic tunnel.
By the end of WW2 the trolleys were worn out. "Progress" was defined as removing them, making room for more private cars, and providing much lower-cost (to the transit line) buses to carry the remaining transit users. Remember, this was well before the Freeway Revolt, and the Embarcadero and Central Freeways had only recently been opened to great civic rejoicing (and quite a bit of muttering on the part of those who lived on the streets leading to them). Transit usage dropped rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, and not entirely because of buses replacing trolleys - buses and private cars (for those who could afford them, and even in SF affordability rapidly increased in the late 1950s) really were faster, more convenient, and MUCH more comfortable than old worn-out trolleys. One-man PCCs fought a valiant (and ultimately successful in SF) rear-guard action - they were competitive in cost and speed with buses, though the cost of keeping the tracks and wires together more than offset their other benefits for most systems. After all, somebody else paid for the roads (somebody else's budget that is), so by definition buses had to be cheaper - no r/w cost (do public agencies pay license fees and fuel taxes?). The truly amazing thing was that any streetcars at all were left by the 1960s - it took a dedicated band of visionaries (revolutionaries?) to keep the J K L M N even in the minimal form that remained.
As far as Geary Street is concerned, the Powers That Be had already decreed that it should become an expressway as part of the Western Addition urban removal project. Mistake? Maybe, but you wouldn't have found anybody credibly making that argument at the time. The streetcars had to get out of the way - not compatible with a modern urban arterial. Despite the fact that the K and M got along fine in the median of Junipero Serra and 19th Ave. but you don't expect logic in such circumstances. A subway along Geary has been planned for almost 100 years, but cost and disruption always killed the idea. If BART had gone to Marin, part of the subway probably would have been built (far enough to get BART to a point where the bridge could be reached easily, and generating a bit of local traffic along the way), but that of course never happened and the City had neither the money nor the desire to do anything with its own subway (Muni Metro) at the time.
At least if a Geary subway were to be done today, despite the fantastic cost, it would be modern and able to handle full-size LRVs. A streetcar subway (which a 1930s version would have been) would be a bear to rehab for modern needs. And these days local businesses that would be inconvenienced (at best - many probably would get forced out of business by a multi-year subway job - it took 20+ years for Market Street to mostly recover from the BART construction and resulting closed businesses) and NIMBY types have much better access to lawyers and politicians than was the case in the 1950s and before, so I suspect a Geary subway would cost more to get approved and "mitigated" than it would cost to actually design and build. BART at least had the status of a voter mandate in the 1960s (slim as the margin was) so it had money and could get away with more than the Muni could then or can now on its own.
Incidentally, it's interesting that the Market St. Railway lines that were converted to trolley bus by MSRwy in the 1930s and Muni in the 1940s are still around in mostly their original form and number (#7 was one of those) as trolley buses. Muni lines that were eliminated almost all went to diesel buses, and only in recent years have some gone back under wires. Trolley buses of course are almost unique to SF in the western US (except for a few routes in Seattle), and make sense largely because the City has to burn the power it gets from Hetch Hetchy for municipal & public purposes (can't let PG&E sell it). In a way, it's like free gas - using it for transit is a no-brainer.
At least, if the 3rd St-Chinatown subway has to go way deep to get under BART, let's keep it deep enough still at Geary that a Geary subway can easily go over it. A connecting station should be allowed for at that point.
By the end of WW2 the trolleys were worn out. "Progress" was defined as removing them, making room for more private cars, and providing much lower-cost (to the transit line) buses to carry the remaining transit users. Remember, this was well before the Freeway Revolt, and the Embarcadero and Central Freeways had only recently been opened to great civic rejoicing (and quite a bit of muttering on the part of those who lived on the streets leading to them). Transit usage dropped rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, and not entirely because of buses replacing trolleys - buses and private cars (for those who could afford them, and even in SF affordability rapidly increased in the late 1950s) really were faster, more convenient, and MUCH more comfortable than old worn-out trolleys. One-man PCCs fought a valiant (and ultimately successful in SF) rear-guard action - they were competitive in cost and speed with buses, though the cost of keeping the tracks and wires together more than offset their other benefits for most systems. After all, somebody else paid for the roads (somebody else's budget that is), so by definition buses had to be cheaper - no r/w cost (do public agencies pay license fees and fuel taxes?). The truly amazing thing was that any streetcars at all were left by the 1960s - it took a dedicated band of visionaries (revolutionaries?) to keep the J K L M N even in the minimal form that remained.
As far as Geary Street is concerned, the Powers That Be had already decreed that it should become an expressway as part of the Western Addition urban removal project. Mistake? Maybe, but you wouldn't have found anybody credibly making that argument at the time. The streetcars had to get out of the way - not compatible with a modern urban arterial. Despite the fact that the K and M got along fine in the median of Junipero Serra and 19th Ave. but you don't expect logic in such circumstances. A subway along Geary has been planned for almost 100 years, but cost and disruption always killed the idea. If BART had gone to Marin, part of the subway probably would have been built (far enough to get BART to a point where the bridge could be reached easily, and generating a bit of local traffic along the way), but that of course never happened and the City had neither the money nor the desire to do anything with its own subway (Muni Metro) at the time.
At least if a Geary subway were to be done today, despite the fantastic cost, it would be modern and able to handle full-size LRVs. A streetcar subway (which a 1930s version would have been) would be a bear to rehab for modern needs. And these days local businesses that would be inconvenienced (at best - many probably would get forced out of business by a multi-year subway job - it took 20+ years for Market Street to mostly recover from the BART construction and resulting closed businesses) and NIMBY types have much better access to lawyers and politicians than was the case in the 1950s and before, so I suspect a Geary subway would cost more to get approved and "mitigated" than it would cost to actually design and build. BART at least had the status of a voter mandate in the 1960s (slim as the margin was) so it had money and could get away with more than the Muni could then or can now on its own.
Incidentally, it's interesting that the Market St. Railway lines that were converted to trolley bus by MSRwy in the 1930s and Muni in the 1940s are still around in mostly their original form and number (#7 was one of those) as trolley buses. Muni lines that were eliminated almost all went to diesel buses, and only in recent years have some gone back under wires. Trolley buses of course are almost unique to SF in the western US (except for a few routes in Seattle), and make sense largely because the City has to burn the power it gets from Hetch Hetchy for municipal & public purposes (can't let PG&E sell it). In a way, it's like free gas - using it for transit is a no-brainer.
At least, if the 3rd St-Chinatown subway has to go way deep to get under BART, let's keep it deep enough still at Geary that a Geary subway can easily go over it. A connecting station should be allowed for at that point.
