K Ingleside

K Ingleside
Overview
Type	Light rail
System	Muni Metro
Locale	San Francisco, California
Termini	Embarcadero Station (inbound) West Portal Station (outbound; continues as T Third Street) Balboa Park Station
Stations	23
Daily ridership	32,746
Operation
Opened	1918
Owner	San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
Operator(s)	San Francisco Municipal Railway
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Electrification	overhead catenary
Route map Legend Changes signs from outbound EmbarcaderoBART MontgomeryBART PowellBART Civic CenterBART Van Ness Church Castro Eureka Forest Hill West Portal West Portal and 14th Avenue St. Francis CircleSloat Blvd. Junipero Serra and Ocean Ocean and San Leandro Ocean and Aptos Ocean and Cerritos Ocean and Victoria Ocean and Jules Ocean and Miramar Ocean and Lee Ocean and PhelanCity College outbound Ocean and San Jose inbound Balboa Park StationBART

The K Ingleside is a Muni Metro line in San Francisco, California, mainly serving the West Portal and Ingleside neighborhoods. It was one of San Francisco's streetcar lines in the early 20th century, and was converted to modern light rail operation with the creation of the Muni Metro system in the late 1970s. While many streetcar lines were converted to buses after World War II, the K Ingleside remained a streetcar line due to its use of the Twin Peaks Tunnel.

The outbound end of the line was originally at the Phelan Loop (at Ocean and Lee), but it was later extended to Balboa Park Station. Eureka Station in the Twin Peaks Tunnel was originally a stop on the K line, but the station was closed and replaced by Castro Street Station when the Metro system opened.

Route Description

The line runs from the Embarcadero Station downtown to the Geneva Avenue and San Jose Avenue in the Balboa Park neighborhood, near City College of San Francisco. The downtown portion of the line runs through the Market Street Subway, which it shares with the four other Muni Metro lines. It continues through the much older Twin Peaks Tunnel, along with the L Taraval and M Ocean View lines, emerging at West Portal Station. Fromthere, it follows West Portal Avenue to Saint Francis Circle, where it then runs on its own right-of-way in the middle of Junipero Serra Boulevard to Ocean Avenue. The K then follows Ocean Avenue until it reaches Balboa Park Station, where it circles around the Metro yard at San Jose and Geneva Avenue, with the actual terminal stop alongside the station.

Following service changes on June 30, 2007, the K Ingleside and the T Third Street lines were spliced together, though keeping their respective line designations, resulting in an upside-down horseshoe-shaped route from Balboa Park to Bayshore and Sunnydale. At West Portal Station, inbound K trains heading towards downtown change their signs to the T line; conversely, at Embarcadero Station, T trains heading into downtown change signs to the K line. The trains show the ultimate destination of the spliced lines rather than the intermediate "terminus" of the individual line.

The K Ingleside line stops at large stations for the downtown section of the line and at smaller stops on the rest of the line. Most of the smaller stops are nothing more than concrete "islands" in the middle of the street next to the tracks. Some of these "island" stops provide access for wheelchairs. Muni bus routes provide service to all stations and other systems with access to the stations are noted.

Operation

The K Ingleside begins service at 5 a.m. weekdays, 6 a.m. Saturdays and 8 a.m. Sundays, with the end of service occurring around 12:30 a.m. each night. It operates a headway of 9 to 10 minutes during the day, and 12 to 15 minutes at night. Late night service is provided by the 91 Owl diesel bus line on West Portal and Ocean Avenue, and by the L-Owl diesel bus line from West Portal Station to Market Street and Steuart Street, near Embarcadero Station. There is also a K-Owl diesel bus line that runs from Market Street and Steuart Street to Balboa Park. This line makes a limited number of trips between the times owl service stops and the underground subway stations open.

External links

• Muni Metro and San Francisco rail map (268KB PDF)
• K Ingleside route information from the SF Muni Map Project