Forty-five years ago on January 31, 1978, San Francisco Muni and city officials along with members of the press took an inaugural ride in the brand new Market Street Subway from Castro Station to Embarcadero.
Seventy-five years ago, San Francisco’s cable cars were viewed as more of a costly nuisance. A few city leaders wanted to tear out the 1870s-era transit system of wooden vehicles towed by an underground cable system. Pioneer of civic activism, Friedel Klussmann led the charge to preserve this moving landmark that draw visitors from around the world looking to fulfill their dream of riding the cable car over our hills.
In September, our sister agency San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, celebrated its 50th anniversary. BART service changed transportation in the Bay Area forever, connecting communities in a way that hadn’t been done before. For San Francisco, the construction of BART not only provided new travel options within the city and to the East Bay, but also built the Muni Metro system.
Over the 110-year history of the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), our transit vehicles have been painted in six main color schemes or liveries. Here’s a short look at those paint jobs, from the oldest streetcars to our newest buses.
