San Francisco streetcars are again however no cable vehicles but | Bay Space
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – San Francisco’s iconic cable cars are being sidelined from the coronavirus pandemic, but officials said the city’s historic trams will start rolling again this weekend on Friday.
With tourists flocking to San Francisco again and the city reopening more of its economy, it plans to restore service to the vintage trams that run along Market Street and the Embarcadero on Saturday, the mayor’s office said in a statement .
Mayor London Breed and other city officials planned to celebrate the return of trams and other public transport on Friday afternoon with a ceremonial ride to Fisherman’s Wharf. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority will also resume operations on Saturday at subway stations that were closed during the pandemic, the statement said.
Erica Kato, a spokeswoman for SFMTA, said the iconic wooden ropeways are expected to resume operations in the fall.
Prior to the pandemic, 25 million tourists visited San Francisco annually, many of whom rode the cable cars as synonymous with the city as the Golden Gate Bridge.
Roughly 17,000 riders packed the cable cars daily before they were parked in March 2020 when the city was cordoned off and protected. The city continued to operate a skeleton network of transit lines during the closure and gradually restored service.
