Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CABLE CARS
Don't make the mistake of calling these “streetcars,” And for heaven's sake, don't
utter the word
trolley.
These burgundy, wooden, single-carriage icons run by grip-
ping onto a cable that runs continuously inside a metal slot in the road—hence,
their only truly appropriate name. You can't miss them, and their miraculous sur-
vival into the 21st century makes this archaic form of transportation—once
prevalent in nearly every American city—precious.
Unless you have a Muni pass, which makes a ride $1, a single one-way ride on
the cable cars is a whopping $5. Seniors age 65 and up pay only $1, with ID,
before 7am and after 9pm. Another way to get out of that is to have a CityPass
(p. 98), in which case rides are free.
The cable car is so important to the fabric of the city that I've chosen to
describe the system in the Attractions chapter (p. 97). The powerhouse of the
whole system is also a museum; that's covered on p. 139.
TAXIS
Outside of the Financial District and Union Square, and outside of business
hours, taxis aren't always that easy to find. Slipping a couple bucks to a hotel door-
man might ease the search. Your fare will be $3.10 for the first fifth of a mile, and
45¢ per fifth of a mile thereafter or during each minute of waiting. If you think
that's exorbitant, keep in mind that taxi drivers have to pay $91.50 per shift just
to get on the road. They pay for their own gasoline and insurance, too. You should
also tip at least 10 percent.
Given a choice between battling shinsplints on a steep hill at midnight and
paying for a cab, I'd choose cab, but not until after making sure that there isn't a
$1.50 bus that will do the job for me.
Here are a few established taxi companies:
u
Arrow Cab Co.
(
%
415/648-3181)
u
Yellow Cab
(
%
415/333-3333; www.yellowcabsf.com)
u
Veteran's Cab Company
(
%
415/552-1300)
u
Luxor Cabs
(
%
415/282-4141; www.luxorcab.com)
SF Green Cab
(
%
415/626-4733; www.sfgreencab.com)
drives Prius vehicles
that get 40 miles to the gallon in the city, but there are currently only two in the
fleet, so you've got to call if you hope to ride in one.
SAN FRANCISCO'S LAYOUT
Neighborhoods change names in short order here—what's Chinatown on one
block suddenly segues to North Beach on the next. Yet despite this fuzzy geogra-
phy, locals are unusually possessive about what they call their neighborhoods. The
practice gets rather obscure, with people parsing the names of their home turf into
some ridiculously arcane sub-descriptions—adding an “Upper” to the front or
contracting the whole name into a new coinage to, I guess, make it more attrac-
tive to real-estate agents.
The major 'hoods, though, the ones everyone seems to agree on, are described
in this section. There are many more neighborhoods around, of course—particu-
larly since locals keep renaming tiny slivers of older blocks—but the places listed
here are the generally accepted major areas, and they're the areas you're most likely
to visit as a tourist.
