Cable cars’ ding also goes for your wallet
Pretty much everything related to raising kids in San Francisco is too expensive. From buying a house to renting an apartment to affording groceries and child care, it all adds up. And up and up.
Here’s one little idea for throwing that rare breed — children living in San Francisco — a bone. Stop charging them $14 for a round-trip cable car ride.
The fares for those charming symbols of San Francisco that climb halfway to the stars, as Tony Bennett so famously crooned, have blasted through the stratosphere. And unlike the rest of Muni’s public transportation system, there aren’t discounts for kids ages 5 to 18. Or transfers to get you back for free within 90 minutes.
That means that if a family of four wants to ride the cable cars, it’ll cost them $7 each way. Per person. Yes, to ride the cable cars from Powell and Market Streets to Fisherman’s Wharf and back just because it’s fun for kids and a quaint part of our city’s history will set that family back $56.
San Francisco isn’t even nickel-and-diming us anymore. Is “dollaring” a word? When it
comes to City Hall and its fees, it should be.
“It’s extremely expensive,” acknowledged John Haley, director of transit for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. “You can either eat for a day, feed your kids or ride the cable cars.” Me? I’ll feed my kids. Haley didn’t try to justify the fares, though he said the agency’s board is looking at a variety of fare adjustments. Revenue on the cable cars has actually dropped since the fare went up. I’m no economist, but gee, maybe the price should be lowered?
Haley noted that operating the historic cable cars is very expensive and that while city residents with Clipper cards do ride the California line in big numbers, the Powell lines are used almost entirely by tourists “with fistfuls of money waiting to get on.”
But why not encourage San Francisco’s kids to line up for the city’s coolest mode of transportation, too? Cable car fares have climbed steadily over the years, from $1 in 1982 to $5 in 2005. When it reached $5, The Chronicle declared it the most expensive local transit fare in the country. Here’s presuming the current $7, which went into effect in 2015, didn’t improve that unflattering designation. By contrast, London’s famous double-decker red buses cost 1.50 (in
“It’s come up, more than once, that our kids have never ridden a cable car. It’s a little thing that would mean a lot.” David Kiely, a father of three boys and a South of Market resident, on the $7 fare per person charged by Muni to ride the cable cars
pounds, or just over $2) per ride and are free for kids 11 and younger.
The cable cars could also lure more locals if the waiting lines were cleared more quickly. Haley said the cars are supposed to leave the Powell and Market turnaround every eight minutes, but often get backed up and just sit.
“Schedule adherence is an issue for us,” he said.
And then there’s the issue of cable car conductors collecting cash straight from riders rather than through machines, like on buses. Two cable car conductors were arrested last year for allegedly pocketing fares. Neither is in custody as they await trial.
But back to the kids. As loyal readers of this column know, my 4-year-old is obsessed with all things Muni. Well, nearly all things Muni. The buses, the subway trains, the F-car? You bet. The cable cars? He’s ridden those maybe once or twice ever. While he’s free until his next birthday, it would still cost $42 for his older brother, my husband and me to ride with him roundtrip.
We spend many weekend days going on Muni adventures, and as I told you last month, his Muni devotion inspired my colleague Peter Hartlaub and me to attempt to re-create the stunt performed by San Francisco Giants CEO Larry Baer in 1980 in which he rode every Muni line in one day. (Update: We think we have a feasible route! We’re working with the Giants on selecting a date so Baer and Lou Seal can join us for part of the epic adventure — we’ll report back once we have one.)
While Hartlaub and I will ride each of the three cable car lines, San Francisco kids hardly ever do. That’s why Muni should start giving free cable car rides to kids under 12 so long as they’re with a paying adult with proof of city residency.
The idea came from an email I received in response to the column on riding every Muni bus line in one day. David Kiely is a father of three boys and a South of Market resident.
“It’s come up, more than once, that our kids have never ridden a cable car,” Kiely wrote, noting his family is priced out and that kids shouldn’t be charged the full rate. “It’s a little thing that would mean a lot.”
Stacey Randecker Bartlett, a Potrero Hill mom of two kids, thinks all public transit in the city should be free for all kids. But a $14 round-trip ride on a cable car even for kids as young as 5? “That’s insane,” she said. She said San Francisco needs to decide whether the cable cars are purely a tourist attraction, in which case they should be removed from control of Muni and marketed as an amusement ride. Or if they’re actually public transportation, in which local families shouldn’t be charged the equivalent of a nice meal for riding.
“You just told that family, ‘Get in a car, get in an Uber, get in a Lyft, get in a taxi,’ ” she said. “For that rate, you could drive a family and park in the most pricey Union Square garage.”
To be fair, the free Muni program for low-income youth does allow them to ride cable cars for free, too. But it seems ridiculous that all other city kids have to pay $14 for a round-trip.
If Muni deems free cable car rides for all city kids unworkable, why not give discounts to San Francisco residents, like so many other tourist attractions do? Coit Tower’s elevator ride to the top costs $8 for non-resident adults and $6 for city residents. Kids ages 5 to 11 are charged just $2.
I finally took the boys there for the first time on Sunday (on the 39-Coit, of course), and the views were gorgeous. You can’t see dirty needles or smell urine from that high up. My 4-year-old peered out the windows on his tiptoes and said, “Let’s look for Muni buses!” The Japanese Tea Garden, the Conservatory of Flowers and the Botanical Gardens all offer reduced or free admission for residents, too.
Justin Bass would support the change. The Lower Pacific Heights resident also has a 4-year-old Muni-obsessed son. His boy, Quincy, had a Muni-themed birthday party, spends his free time either riding buses or tracking them on the Next Bus app, and knows the names of his favorite drivers. There’s Keith from the 24Divisadero, Ramsey from the 44-O’Shaughnessy and Shalisha from the 1-California.
But he doesn’t know the names of any cable car gripmen because he hardly ever rides cable cars. Let’s change that, shall we?
P.S.: Which exorbitant and ever-climbing city fees drive you up a wall? Let me know, and I may include your responses in a future column.