San Francisco's Muni Metro: Things You Didn't Need To Know
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- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- Seriously, the average speed is depressing and so are the interiors
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I’ve lived in SF my whole life, so it’s nice to see a video about muni. One thing about the slow average speeds is that the city is actually pretty small geographically, so 10mph on average isn’t *as* bad as it would be in a larger area. That being said, they still need to get their act together. It’s hard though, because NIMBYism is super strong around here, so public transpo has trouble enacting their plans a lot of the time
That's about as fast as buses in my city (& quite a no. of others I've been to). I'd always though of MUNI as more of a premetro than a metro though, so by that standard it might not appear that slow
@@lzh4950 Muni has a ton of metro-like features. Most of the lines go through the Market street subway for nearly half of their route lengths. Now there is a second north-south subway, making it a little easier to call Muni a metro/subway service.
But most of the lines still have substantial sections where they run on the streets. And there even are sections that run in mixed traffic with cars, like a streetcar/European tram would. So there's definitely room for improvement and expansion before Muni becomes a full metro service, even though it is moving that way.
PSA if I'm correct, he's not in San Francisco right now, this video was likely filmed weeks ago when he last visited. It seems he films videos like this in advance sometimes when he's abroad (:
Btw: the Houston trams only gets 65k people a day and Houston is like 6 times larger than San Fransisco
@@outdatedtank4542 yep, Texans love their cars
This is true, he was in San Fran a few weeks ago.
@@pearson9594 As a Texan I can comfirm
@@ender3960 He was also in Houston in Dec, 2019
Government: Stay at home
2cat: If you go into space and look at this corner of the globe, you cannot see the great wall of China. But also, If you take a flight from London, and go to San Francisco, New York, Beijing, Moscow and Tokyo, then you will notice that the time is different, as demonstrated by me, in this video. Flying from Beijing to Wuhan isn't different, because China is under one timezone.
YeetusД Feetus you mean andrew/toycat?
There were dozens of feet between him and the next person so he's got our rules covered.
@@lawrencewei3583 Yes, but I call him 2cat on the second channel, toycat on the first.
@@CancerGaming56
He talking about San Francisco, I'm pretty sure he's back in the UK. So I'm guessing this was filmed weeks ago.
The quality of the sound is the best thing about the video.
Appropriate 2nd channel quality
you are the first person i've heard complain about not getting hit by a motor vehicle.
It's the crack heads and meth tweakers you have to watch for. Getting smacked by a car is the least of your worries.
The boomer at 3:40 is so confused/amazed
He made a great cameo, aye.
@@putinpunhere true dat
Ikr
You see more of him at 15:17. He was probably amazed at a non-local giving out street car history facts to a camera.
3hoursago hahaha that was great 😄😄😄
Muni Metro: I’m the slowest metro
MBTA Green Line: Hold my B Branch
There was one time I had to taje the entire B Branch from North Station to Boston College. Longest train ride of my life. (They even have stop signs for the trains [to yield to cars, of course])
Denver’s W branch is pretty slow as is the east end of Minnesota’s green line. Philly street surface trolleys are close
You must have been on a schedule adjustment train. B trains normally terminate at Park Street. SA trains almost always run intentionally slow to realign train spacing. It's counterintuitive that running trains slow can improve the network performance overall, but it actually works. Of course it's a nuisance if you're on one of these trains.
Think of it this way: SF’s real subway is BART, and their tram system is muni, which happens to go underground
Edel Man BART is more of a suburban commuter rail.
@@nelsonricardo3729 it’s still a subway as well.
@@californiamade5608 It does run underground for a wee bit of the journey, yes.
@@nelsonricardo3729 Commuter rail is typically closer to actual trains. Compare Caltrain, the commuter rail that connects San Francisco to San Jose, to the New York metro. I think BART is much closer to the NYC metro
@@gemmahudack6182 thank you!!
That guy at the bottom left 3:40 looks like its the first time he's ever seen a camera.
That entire scene was so cringy, everyone was staring at him.
It's probably because he learned something new about his city from a foreigner.
But I agree it kinda was cringy I would never be able to record a YT video on a train, even an educational one, like Toycat or Geoff Marshall do.
The reason those underground stations are so large, compared to the trains, is it's all 1 cylinder holding 12 car bart trains below, and the 2 car muni cars above .
Thank you for this comment, it totally makes sense when you say it actually
Also, the underground Muni level was originally planned for in-town BART lines, which were abandoned at the last moment. So, they didn't have enough time to change the station design.
All of the trains that go through the tunnel were also supposed to link up and form one long train, but they couldn't get that to work.
@@bleepiestofbloops Yes you are right that before when MUNI started the Automatic Car Pilot as 3 cars One driver but the driver is just sitting there as the train is operating by itself station to station - as one of those cars as the door hit me on the head as the doors open, and then when they were closing by accident. - Thanks HAL-9000 - Your Welcome Dave - Anything else Dave?? I must go Dave.... (2001 Space Odyssey)
Boston uses "Inbound" and "Outbound" too
That's because San Francisco's system is based out of Boston's, which is the original.
@@00crashtest They were designed concurrently, with concessions made to the original cars to fit both system's needs. SF got the cars a couple years later, but I think that was just because of some issues they had getting the system ready.
Reminds me of Uptown and Downtown in NYC.
*Ducks*
If it goes onto the street with other vehicles, its a tram
*lightrail. Trams/streetcars have smaller cars.
Ben Mercer trolley
Ben Mercer Tbh I’m surprised it doesn’t get a separate individual lane, like wtf
Mikel Sopelana Durango, it’s due to historically how this was originally built, some parts cannot be reserved for the light rail, for locals it can block parking and businesses along small roads the light rail runs on.
@@losh330 I'd not call it light rail for it's size when it's actually shorter then buses.
My city has tram network on it's own with even longer trams, yet it's still called tram.
Also the fact that the current trains used in SF Muni Metro are around 23 meters long (if you don't connect multiple units together) would mean that according to the system that's used in my city it'd be still concidered only as "medium" sized tram.
Most purple would call it a light rail. BART is the normal metro.
QuarioQuario54321 True. He seems to struggle with the definition of a metro and thinks that they have to be underground. They don’t!
@@dat581 Bart is much more like a commuter rail than a metro. Zone based fares, long headways, and vast distances between stations make BART unideal as a metro
@@ThePurpleSquares1 What has that got to do with the point I was making? I made no comment on BART.
@@dat581 meant to reply to OP...
ThePurpleSquares I think that the commuter rail would be caltrain
What's really cool is that one of the underground metro stations in the Muni Metro is over a century old. It's one of the first underground train stations in America.
Yeah - that really helps me get to work on time.
How old is this video like where's the social distancing
About 3 or 4 weeks I I remember correctly
In the US people don’t care
@@dudamonas2450 I think they got a 2 trillion dollar stimulus package so maybe they care
Well there's like nobody there so yeah this qualifies as social distancing
It‘s obvious that it was recorded before the covid, no? 😂
The main tunnel section that goes under market was originally built to serve B.A.R.T., the regional metro who's map you briefly displayed. The original plan was to have two BART corridors stacked beneath the down town length of Market Street with one continuing south down the peninsula, and the other continuing west to serve the western half of S.F.. Unfortunately for transit developers the priorities of the city changed half way through construction and the western corridor was canceled leaving an odd stacked tunnel arrangement down town. At this time the city was upgrading it's infrastructure to accommodate light rail train sets and the upper tunnel was recruited to serve light rail instead.
I wouldn't say it's necessarily weird. That Market street tunnel was extended to connect to existing Muni tunnels to the West and became a pretty useful piece of transit infrastructure. So functionally, this BART tunnel became a four-station long transfer section between Muni and BART. It works pretty well actually. Transfer between the two systems are a lot easier than they would have been without this oddity.
A lot of rail systems that run adjacent to other rail systems deliberately build similar track/tunnel arrangements to make transfer easier.
"It's barely a metro. 90% of the stations are above ground..."
....Chicago is calling. They've got a bone to pick.
Chicago is elevated tho
Mini metro is not really a subway, it’s more of a streetcar. I think that the “subway” or San Fran is Bart which tops out at 70mph and is on its own track while muni metro shares tracks with cars in most areas like a streetcar
Aka tram
So there's 2 streetcars. But even the above ground ones are faster
@@Cloudkirb The avg subway speed is 35mph while the avg speed of the system as a whole is like 9-ish mph. That’s poised to change with the new CBTC system that should bring signal priority and automation above ground. We’ll see, it should.. given it’s going to cost $600m lol
Fun Fact: The Muni System was not built to grow or service the suburbs. It doesn’t go anywhere but San Francisco, inbound to Downtown or outbound to The Neighborhoods. The regional BART and CalTrain systems go to the suburbs.
If you get an applause from the locals, then you're doing well.
3:49 bottom left corner guy looks bewildered 😳😳
In a lot of medium size German cities we have similar systems. With Trams over and underground^^.
U-Bahns that turn into Strasse Bahns? :)
@@ibx2cat well not really. But in Hannover, Stuttgart, Cologne and soon Karlsruhe Trams go underground in the city sometimes. It seems quite similar. They are called Stadtbahn but the sign is still (U) for some weird reason.
@@ibx2cat Frankfurt is like that - they call their light rails U-Bahn because there's an extra tram network, however they fall as well under the BOStrab law that makes them light rails / trams. They are high floor and have mostly priority everywhere but yeah, they call it U-Bahn (Metro) even though its a light rail (Stadtbahn).
In my homecity Hanover there's also a Light Rail (Stadtbahn) network that has three different tunnels in the city centre where lines merge. For example there are the red B-Lines (1, 2 and 8/18) that serve different areas and then come together in the B-Tunnel under the city centre and main station, and then spread again into different part of the city. And this is in Hanover three times, with different lines. There has also construction begun of a D-Tunnel, however it was abolished due to a cost explosion. Now there are two lines which only go overground to the main station (10/17) similar to a tram, however still with high-floor cars. In the night they sometimes join the tunnels in order to get a safer interchange to the other lines and train services.
@@fjellyo3261 In Karlsruhe the S-Bahn is a mixture of Regional and Stadtbahn.
@@fjellyo3261 Heard it's because the original plan was for the _Stadtbahn_ to be upgraded in the future to become a U-Bahn
The car, having to stop because of a walkway on the rails, kills the biggest advantage of a tram, being segregated and having a priority to all other vehicles and pedestrians including. I'd say this is one of the best examples of a terrible "metro" tram system!
In Prague I assume tram drivers are trained by the army in cavalry charge tactics, because they literally feel like they will rather run you over than stop. It feels like their procedure if youre on track is first ring the bells, then even more bells, then when the tram is basically on the limit of stopping safely hit the brakes so hard everyone on the tram has to hang on for dear life.
I meam it works because people buzz of the tracks the second they hear the bells ring from a hundred meters away and the trams are generally always on time, even when they have to go through central Prague without dedicated tram tracks.
Žiga Auer also they are very excited to hit or be hitten by cars, so they can take a day off, they are one of the nicest people in Czech, gotta love em
+Kristian Vasilev I guess it’s a best example of a terrible “metro system” but it’s mostly due to historical reasons our Light Rail is slow. I personally don’t have a problem with the Muni Light Rail system because historically, it was never built for a fast metro system. Also, look at the geography of San Francisco, it makes it partially difficult and some aspects to a “true” light rail system cannot be implemented in some neighborhoods. But yes, it is true that it can be improved.
In my university I've seen buses wait >1min for pedestrians to finish crossing a zebra crossing
Before I was old enough to drive to high school (ahem, some years ago), I used to take the cable car and a Muni metro. At 6:30am in winter, the cable car loses a lot of its romantic charm. Bright side: no tourists -- like Toycat. :-P
I love cities that have all different kinds of public transportation that wasn't all torn down in the 30s like Philadelphia which has the same thing as the muni metro.
You should do an episode on the Los Angeles street car system that does not exist anymore. IT USED TO BE THE LARGEST STREET CAR SYSTEM IN THE United States!!
Watch the video "Taken for a ride" on UA-cam!
Everyone's talking about how early it is, but It's afternoon in Hong Kong lol
Ay I'm from Hong Kong
It's a light rail system, and considering it supplements a historical streetcar and full metro (Bart) it serves its purpose. Of course they can probably redesign and increase the amount of trains to improve it that may come at some point.
The Muni Metro used to be worth those PCC Streetcars that are on the F and E line today. What I think why the platforms are so long in Embarcadero - Civic Center is because they were also meant to accommodate BART Services. Since Muni is much shorter than BART, people would’ve had to walk longer to just transfer. So they made it longer so they can have a shorter commute to their destination and this works vice versa. Van Ness Station is actually shorter than the other stations further inbound/eastbound. In fact Van Ness - West Portal are short platforms, only able to handle 6 trains on its platform. The reason why it’s shorter is because it was built by Muni only, not by other service. The stations are only for the streets above, so there isn’t a need for a longer platform just to get to a street.
Please know that this comment is just a prediction of why the platforms are long and could be wrong. Please take this comment kind of like a grain of salt. Just needed to get this out of the way.
The T in Boston also uses “inbound” and “outbound” as well
Boston's is the original, later upgraded to a real metro.
8:15 There was actually a survey on the seating debate for the new trains and some controversy over the final decision. In the end a narrow majority of San Franciscans voted for the longitudinal layout. As you’d expect, the majority of people living in the outer districts voted for more seats and people living in downtown voted for more standing room.
I sort of get it but it sucks that ppl think their only options are to cram more ppl in a cart rather than have more open space precovid I was thinking zombie virus would make ppl think twice if it ever happened
@@thatwastakenagain Covid is over. Just like the Influenza/flu epidemic from the 1917, it came and went. Life went on and we still need to move massive amounts of people. Car aren't the solution so we need to figure out how to do it with trains.
Dude. You were one stop away from America's fastest Metro. The BART
The DC Metro is faster than BART.
@@dreamyyx_3762 Yeah it is pretty fast but BART maxes out in the Transbay tube as around 130km/h in emergency situations. Otherwise it's 110/h. Rest of the network is comparable to the DC Metro but edges out to be faster due to longer stop spacing
Wait, I believe WMATA & BART Trains go around the same speed. I believe Barts go around 75Mph. & Wmata goes at the same Speed, but Bart does have more space between stations unlike WMATA, but WMATA have some stations that are pretty spread out.
@@dreamyyx_3762 Agreed. The section between Whelie-Reston and Spring Hill especially
Yea, thats the longest section between two stations on the DC Metro.. Another thing, do Bart & Wmata use the same Track Guage? If I'm not mistaken.
In Vienna we have a proper metro, but It was only begun building in the 1970 and they built a tram tunnel (Unterpflasterstraßenbahn)before that is basically the Same as the Muni metro and its really weird
This is basically the same in San Francisco. BART is the real regional subway line that goes through the city. Muni is a transitional light rail system that runs in underground tunnels in the city center and on the surface in the suburbs. Similarly, BART was built in the 70s to replace a much more expansive but pretty archaic rail system. Muni was built in the 90s to make use of some of the remaining old tunnels and rail right of way.
Ive lived in SF for over four years and i grew up in a town about an hour away and visited the city frequently. Over the years, the muni has gotten more and more expensive and less reliable. I cant tell you how many times I would be late for class or work because the train got delayed for over 30 minutes for some reason. They are finally expanding the muni trams north through chinatown and maybe into the piers to make some improvements but the nimby situation is fierce. I really loved this video and it totally sums up the way i feel about this damn system that runs in a completely different time line lol sad i didnt run into you but hope you had a good time
Chicago’s Metra commuter rail system uses “inbound” and “outbound” terminology. Nice video!
Not a train, but the buses for MST uses IB/OB when posting service alerts on FB/Twitter (Now X, though the switched to only posting alert on the Transit App not X anymore). They still uses FB though.
A few things...
1. The "Metro" part of Muni Metro is really only the underground streetcars under Market Street from Castro Station to the Embarcadero. The rest of the underground parts were used by the old streetcars pre-Metro. Muni Metro went into service in 1981-82. Before that, it was streetcars on the surface of Market Street like the historic streetcars that are painted in the liveries of different cities' transport systems. There's even a boat-like tram from Blackpool in the UK that only gets run on holidays. These historic streetcars are akin to the cable car system, i.e., they go to Fishermans's Wharf and the tourist like them, but they are a part of Muni.
2. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is a different system that sort of shares four stations with Muni Metro and is more of a true metro (a lot of underground, and always with its own right-of-way). BART went into service in 1972. The Muni stations it shares didn't open until 1981, as stated earlier.
3. Muni (the San Francisco Municipal Railway) doesn't go to the suburbs. Okay, a couple of bus lines go out of the city limits, but not very far.
4. Muni Metro's on-time record is abysmal as is the whole Muni system (buses, streetcars, cable cars) because it has to mix it up with regular vehicle traffic. Plus, San Francisco has grown in population since 2010 from about 800,000 to about 900,000 now because of the tech boom.
5. The streetcar (Metro) you stepped out in front of and found surprising that it stopped, had to stop. In California, pedestrians have the right of way in a crosswalk. Muni drivers also get into massive trouble if they are involved in a preventable accident.
I Agree to that MUNI drivers are just idiots, and NO respect to the passengers AT ALL, and when trouble comes they DO NOT HAVE THE BALLS TO PRESS THE 911 BUTTON to call for HELP. all they care is their Pay checks as they are the most OVER PAID EMPLOYEES in the State of California... Have no pride to the Muni System. Even to the Shelter in place as they just whiz by, and does not pick you up - Hear that - that is the 9 & 9R San Bruno line a bunch of Wussies...
I loved that ending 🥰
I absolutely LOVE your videos!! It's always fantastic to see you going on and on about facts I wish more people knew! The praise you got from the passengers on the heritage streetcar was well deserved. Keep it up!
He's so excited
Yea a bit of a dick!
Amazing review of my hometown’s public transport history. Though Muni is the slowest network in the country, I’m still immensely proud of the number of modes of transport we’ve been able to preserve and the history that created them. (Diesel and hybrid bus, trolley bus, modern and heritage streetcar/tram, cable car, heavy rail rapid transit, commuter rail, and ferry) More than any other city in North America for sure.
Just a small note, the Muni busses are some of the slowest in the country. The Muni Metro part is actually reasonable. Both are encumbered by waaaaaaay to many stations, sometimes just a couple of blocks apart. But removing a stop is a bit a of titanic struggle even if it would benefit the vast majority of riders.
Also, the Muni Metro has a big problem with all the lines running through the Market street subway. All the transportation engineers said that this was the stupidest idea in the world even before the system opened. But again, a few loud "activists" forced the city to accept this ridiculous running pattern with all the associated delays and complications that that creates.
Muni is moving the T into the new Central Subway and they are trying to move at least the slower lines onto surface tracks on Market street. But as you might imagine, this process is like pulling teeth due to the same "activist" opposition.
It is what we call a light rail system here in the USA
You should do San Diago It’s really weird because only in downtown it goes on the streets but then when it goes out of downtown it goes up on elevated rails except for one part or then goes underground it’s really weird
Its not elevated most of the way south to the border.
7:10 In an ideal world the T would be going outbound toward Sunnydale (to which you are pointing). However because of a strange quirk in which Muni run the K and T as one continuous line (see the map), Sunnydale which arguably should be outbound is referred to as inbound. Outbound T go towards Balboa Park as K trains from Embarcadero station. This keeps the terminology in sync with the other lines on the market street subway to avoid confusion. That means someone who commutes into downtown SF on the T goes outbound toward the city and inbound when going home. When the central subway extension of the T opens, this will ideally be corrected and directions fixed as the T won’t share a tunnel with the other lines and the K will run as a separate line once again
But seriously, this was a cool video. You should do more of these.
Fun fact: this is based on the Boston Green Line model of a subway system, where trams serving the surface would all merge in one underground tunnel that serves the centre city.
Some other legacy streetcar-subway systems that exist in the United States include:
1. Philadelphia's Subway-Surface lines
2. New Jersey's Newark Light Rail System
3. Cleveland's RTA Light Rail System (Green, Blue & Waterfront Lines)
4. Pittsburgh's Metro Light Rail-Subway (Dispute, tunnels originally not used fro streetcars)
5. Cleveland's Detroit-Superior Subway (Abandoned)
Some Modern Streetcar-Subway Systems that exist in the US and Canada:
1. Buffalo's Metro Rail (New tunnel)
2. Edmonton's ETS system
3. St. Louis' Metrolink (utilizes old freight railroad tunnels)
4. LA's Metrolink
5. Seattle's Red Line
6. Eglinton Crosstown LRT (Future, potential branching)
7. DART light rail system
For Pittsburgh, you refer to the Mt. Washington tunnel right?
LA Metro, not Metrolink. Metrolink is locomotive hauled commuter rail. Confusing, I know. Names are too similar.
St. Louis is entirely grade-separated in its own ROW, though
Third most used?
The Chicago L, SEPTA subway lines, SEPTA surface lines, the MBTA subway, the MBTA Green Line, BART, PATH, and MARTA would like a word with you : P
This reminds me a lot of the metro in gta5
Hey toycat. it may be 3 am (i have online school tmrw), but i shall watch your video first.
Lowkey tom scott vibes from this vid 😳
@@jaeyounglee5410 all he needs now is a red t-shirt to complete the illusion
@@joemiller947 fr
Same
Where are you that school is open?
About the thing he says around 9:30 - I'm sure most of you know already, but the rail lines to Edinburgh's main trains station go right through the city's main park, Princes Street Gardens
When the market Street tunnel first opened, multiple trains would be combined into 4 and 5 car trains when entering the tunnel, then be split back up at the end. This practice was fased out alongside the beoing vetrol lrvs in the late 90s and early 2000s, but the longer platforms remain.
I think the longer platforms are also an artifact of the Market street subway being essentially a BART tunnel adapted for Muni. Hence the super-long BART-style platforms.
It is pretty bad right, I’ve been on there. Me living in Melbourne Australia with ‘metro trains’ that are coated in graffiti thinks that this is better, however.
What is it with subway sytems being so derelict in 1st world countries? In São Paulo, the subway is pretty clean and well maintained.
@@sohopedeco because the first world countries invest in highways and haven't invested in public transport in 50 years :(
@@MetroManMelbourne Also, some of them are very old and the wear and tear has taken a toll for some of them. The newer ones are also built to a better standard which makes maintenance easier. Most of the Sao Paulo's metro is built in the last 20 years.
MetroManMelbourne - I’m a San Franciscan who went to Melbourne last year- have to say, very comparable ‘metro’ systems hah. Love both cities though
The subway platforms are as long as they are because they were actually built for the much longer BART trains. Muni only “rents” these upper tracks because the expected additional BART lines have not yet been built.
I’ve been stuck inside a packed Muni Metro car inside a tunnel between stations during rush hour. Was coming home from work. Good times.
The outtake in the end is adorable. 😍😍
US is the largest developing country in western world. The bus in SF is like the Hong Kong bus in 1980's. The design of this train was applied in Hong Kong railway system MTR 30 years ago. BTW, the trains in SF have 5G yet?
I think I’m going crazy I heard Chicago at the beginning of the video and was so confused until I rewatched the beginning...
I have lived in San Francisco for more than thirty years and the MUNI Does get me around! i do not own a car so it is a must for me. I like riding the above ground portions the most!
Everyone’s saying go to bed but it’s 8:00am in the UK lol
Yeah, people don't seem to consider there are people around the world
I'm getting second hand social anxiety
XD the old man that was behind toycat!
This is fascinating! Boston doesn't even have a schedule for the subway: they operate on "wait time." E.g. the Red Line has a scheduled wait time of 6-7 minutes, so it's considered late if passengers have to wait longer than that.
Fun fact (stolen from wikipedia): The MBTA and Philadelphia's SEPTA are the only US transit agencies that operate all five major types of terrestrial mass transit vehicles: light rail vehicles; heavy rail trains; regional rail trains; electric trolleybuses; and motor buses.
Fun fact - Since the Covid outbreak Muni shut down all trains and now the lines are run by buses on surface streets.
Don’t be too hard on Muni. The amount of shit it has to put up with boggles the mind, and it’s honestly a miracle it’s weathered the garbage-tornado of SF politics as well as it has.
apparently this is slower than the Tyne and Wear Metro
I was binge watching your second channel a few hours ago at 4am and now we have another upload :)
its so cute and quirky and works good enough. i hope not too much changes about the mini metro.
While the tunnel under Market was planned in the early 1960s, Bart (regional rail) opened 1st. Muni Metro did not open until 1980. The stations were finished in the 1970s, but not opened until 1980 has they had lots of problems running the trams in the Market tunnel. I can remember in 1978 when I lived in the Castro that the station (Muni Metro only) it had been finished for a couple of years, but the station was not open.
This looks a lot like the Hannover tram, it has an underground section in the middle with high platforms, and some overground sections with high and low platforms, they also have the system that lowers the door platform in some road height stations
Apparently, the Market Street Tunnel has such large platforms because all of the trains that go through it were supposed to link up and form one long train throughout the tunnel. However, the original Boeing LRVs (designed for both MUNI and Boston's MBTA) had so many issues that the headways to make that happen couldn't be maintained. Really, a whole video could be made about all of the problems that MUNI had from both its first and second LRV fleets.
Some trains do still link together, particularly in the Twin Peaks tunnel (which has some underground stations that always existed, long before the Market Street Tunnel).
Muni is definitely NOT the third busiest metro. It's dwarfed in comparison to the likes of DC, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, LA, New York obviously, and its own neighboring BART.
Also I don't know much about San Francisco's transit but from what I can tell Muni Metro is effectively a light rail. Just because it goes underground doesn't make it a Subway and just because it goes on the street doesn't make it a streetcar/tram. It's a light rail which is right in the middle of both. Most American light rail systems have at least two of if not all of street running, underground, and surface level tracks. Some even have elevated tracks or stations. I'd also point out that San Francisco is one of like 3 cities that have all forms of public transit so it's easy to make comparison. BART is a metro, the cable car is a streetcar/tram, and Muni Metro is a light rail.
Well this was interesting to watch and learn more about San Francisco’s transport. I’ve been on the Hudson Bergen Lightrail in NJ which is similar. It has Japanese cars and it’s quite convenient. The majority of Hudson County (the county it’s in) uses public transit
Inbound/outbound is also used for buses. Since the vast majority of buses and trains go from downtown in the northeast to either the southeast, southwest or northwest districts, it made more sense to refer to them as inbound and outbound. Back in the day few services ran between the city’s residential districts. They all went from residential to downtown. Nowadays there are more bus lines that don’t service downtown, so inbound and outbound are assigned seemingly at random. Usually inbound is more northerly (such as on the 44 O’Shaughnessy) or goes to the older part of the city (like on the 22 Filmore) but it can depend
10:10 The reason why the J Church does not continue along Church Street and goes into an S-shaped right of way track is that Church Street becomes too steep for streetcars to climb.
The trains were supposed to meet up in the tunnel as 1 car trains and couple to form 3 car trains. That plan got scrapped and now they only run as 1 and 2 car trains with an excessively long platform. There is a plan to extend train to 3 car trains on the N Judah with the new LRV4 vehicles (the new shiney curvey ones with the sideways benches).
Also, MUNI is pronounced with emphasis on the U so pronounced m-you-ney.
There used to be three-car trains in the underground portion of the railway-say, N, N, J or L, L, M. The three-car trains would decouple right before exiting the underground portion and two cars, linked together, would go one way and the other car the other way. (You had to be careful to get on the right train or else you’d end up somewhere you didn’t want to be.)
MUNI is definitely not three syllables, if that's what you're trying to say at the end. He pronounced it correctly, but didn't need to say *the* MUNI.
Cole Johnson, I meant the pronunciation. mYouNy instead of moony.
@@shaferkam3907 Ah, guess I glossed over that.
Jeff W, There used to be with the old LRV1 vehicles. When the new Breda cars were introduced they couldn’t do 3 car trains because they were so heavy. That’s why only 1 and 2 car trains run.
It's just a Premetro or a rapid tramway. It has nothing to do with metro, except the name.
Great video toycat! I would love to see one of these for boston (my city!) Someday! When the whole corona thing is over, of course.
Who is your CamaraMan? (Btw congrats on 100K!)
That part of Muni was only underground because of BART. Since 1973. Before then it was all above ground. BART was approved in 1958 but wasn't open until 1972. The cable cars were the original service built in 1873.
BART used to have carpet in the trains
@@paulhartson1 And cushioned upholstered seating.
8:24 "When people have to be standing right next to each other."
Now they're not. Also, greetings from San Francisco.
There's a book called "Inside Muni" A good read if you want to get quite a lot of history on Muni
Muni metro is really just a first generation streetcar system that’s been diverted into a zippy little tunnel downtown. Other than for that tunnel, the name “metro” is misleading 😟
Worth noting is that all Muni bus and train lines have both a number and a name, and the vast majority of San Franciscans will refer to lines using both the number and the name. Instead of ‘the N line’, we’d say ‘the N Judah’. Same for bus lines, like the ‘1 California’. Lines are usually named for the major street of their route, but are also named for neighborhoods like the K Ingleside, and for landmarks like the 39 Coit
Nah, the vast majority just refer to lines by either the number or letter. No need to include the street names or the word "line", unless maybe you're trying to make things more clear to a visitor.
I find the cars and their stations to be so cute! I've never been to San Francisco, but I'd really like to go there and hop on some public transportation. It seems fun, even if not really for actually getting on on a daily basis though... the many stops don't sound like the best of ideas.
When the trains are above ground, they don’t stop at every stop unless someone’s there waiting. It’s kind of like a bus that way
@@Skydog6301 Nice. I hope people waiting at every single stop isn't a thing then!
@@70n24 There are passengers waiting at every stop on the street during commute hours. However, the stops are every three-to-four blocks.
It's important for people to realize San Francisco is a small city geographically, it's only 47 square miles, and has a population of 880,000. London has the area of 607 square miles and a population 10X that of San Francisco. Also the city of San Francisco was basically all laid out before freeways and other transportation infrastructure was needed. Should have mentioned the Cable Cars, which were designed to move people up the steep hills without accidents from slippage. Also part of the MUNI system. The Cable Cars are designated on the National Registrar of Historic Places, even though they're transportation related.
I’m from San Francisco and Muni is not our main metro for the San Francisco Bay Area, we have Bart(Bay Area Rapid Transportation) for that which is one of that fasted rail lines in the country. It goes through 4 of the 9 counties in the SF Bay Area. That’s also the 2 story stations you talked about which is why the stations are so long, the trains are usually 10 car.
BART now serves 5 counties when Milpitas and Berryessa/North San Jose in Santa Clara County opened
1:22: They've got the same ticket barriers as London.
OMG YOU MADE A VIDEO ABOUT THE MUNI METRO. Legit I have been in the MUNI metro, and it was incredibly good. BART is also epic, like going in a car to San Francisco is basically sitting in a parking lot. This video did feel incredibly random, since no big UA-camr talks about it.
Lol, come back again but do a whole review of SF Muni (Buses, Trolley Buses, Light Rail again since it’s changed slightly, Historic Streetcars and Cable Cars). It’s fun to ride a trolley bus up a steep hill, they just roll right up with no issues. Also; as of Mar 7, 2022, all Muni Metro trains are usually 2-cars long except for the J Church.
A lot of metro systems came into existence as tram tunnels (pre-metros), but then later got converted into a proper metro system.
The Stockholm tunnelbana came into existence by converting tram tunnels between ”Slussen” and ”Medborgarplatsen” into a proper metro.
A lot of the later suburban tramways were built on elevated rails in order to be converted into metro tracks later along the line.
Badically all Swedish tram systems got demolished when we switched which side of the road to drive on exept for the tram networks in Göteborg and Norrköping which were mostly kept intact due to local politics, as well as a couple of Suburban tramways in Stockholm which didn’t drive on streets, but weren’t built for conversion into metro tracks.
Basically only two tramways in Stockholm survived, and while they used to be connected into a larger tram network, now they just feed into the metro system.
Only in the 2000’s did we start seeing new tram and light rail systems again when they opened the Light rail line ”Tvärbanan”.
Basically, our public transit network is still recovering from the near complete demolishion of our tram network, and currently politicians are in heated debates on whether or not to rebuild the old Tram line 4, which is currently the most popular bus line in Stockholm.
Basically line 4 serves as the inner city ring line (Tvärbanan is the semi suburban outer ring line), and it’s way past the ridership count where most systems would convert it into a tram line, due to the sheer cost of having so many buses serve a single line.
So yeah, if you’re going to close a tram line, just make sure it doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass later, I guess.
Oh, and also convert tram tunnels into proper metro systems at some point, especially in bigger cities, since that’s what’s profitable.
They recently replaced the directional terminology with Eastbound/Westbound, instead of Inbound/Outbound, probably for the extension of the T.
One time I waited 25 minutes for an F train. Then four F trains showed up together.
If you ever have a chance, Boston's light rail/streetcar systems and the whole transit system are pretty nuts (uses inbound/outbound too). There's even a line running trolleys from the 1940s because the bridges can't handle heavier cars.
Boston's is the original, which Muni Metro is based off of.
The mattapan one?
I mean, the city is like 7 miles by 7 miles. If it went faster than 10 miles per hour, you'd start your trip on the N in the Sunset, you blink and then you're halfway through the city.
On top of MUNI there's also at least 3 other metros in the Bay Area (BART, Caltrain, VTA). Then there's also ACE and Capitol Corridor that run through the Bay Area and SMART which is just across the Golden Gate bridge. A large part of the reason is that every city in the bay seemingly wanted to get in on the public transport thing, but they all picked incompatible types of rail for one reason or another. So for example Caltrain (which is the major north/south line between San Jose and San Fransisco) is commuter rail, but BART is heavy rail and Muni is light rail -- as a result you can't directly connect the lines. Then in San Jose and its suburbs the local train is VTA, which is also light rail and can't be connected up to Caltrain.
"Streetcar" vs "tram" - I've always thought of trams as *hanging* cars.
I did need to know this, i was considering maybe using that one day
3:44
What do you want old man!?
40,000 riders per day is pretty high for a single American light rail line, and the trains get crowded as hell during rush hour, late trains or not (pre-pandemic, at least. The metro is closed for now). It's a similar number to the busiest bus lines in the western US (also in SF), and is about one quarter of the entire daily Muni metro ridership. Remember, the Muni system serves only the 47 square miles of the city of SF, with only two bus lines offering insignificant suburban service, just beyond city borders. Muni metro is also eclipsed in daily ridership by the Muni bus system, which is how most San Franciscans get around most of the city. Around 160,000 daily light rail riders vs 550,000 bus riders (plus tens of thousands on BART within the city limits, most likely).
the stations do have occasionally multiple trains stop at a station I've seen it when malfunctions and delays happen ppl can get off
I used M line muni when I had my internship in SF. It was so annoying.
I love the SF public transport. He's right it's not punctual, but that's my only complaint. It's clean, it works, it's comfortable. I only complain about how Google and apple maps isn't efficient with telling me where the exact stops are.
I'm not a fan of the longitudinal seating on the new MUNI METRO cars.