[4K] Riding MUNI METRO SUBWAY K Ingleside, San Francisco, California, USA (April 27, 2024)

The K Ingleside is a hybrid light rail/streetcar line of the Muni Metro system in San Francisco, California. It mainly serves the West Portal and Ingleside neighborhoods. The line opened on February 3, 1918, and was the first line to use the Twin Peaks Tunnel. The outer terminal of the K Ingleside is at Balboa Park station, where it shares a terminal loop plus loading and unloading platforms with the J Church. The line runs in a dedicated median in Ocean Avenue as far as Ocean Avenue/CCSF Pedestrian Bridge station, then in mixed traffic to Junipero Serra and Ocean station. Surface stations are typically boarding islands located between the tracks and the outer traffic lanes. The line again has a short dedicated median on Junipero Serra Boulevard. It joins the M Ocean View at St. Francis Circle station, from where the lines run in mixed traffic to a junction with the L Taraval outside West Portal station. The K Ingleside runs through the Twin Peaks Tunnel and Market Street subway to its inner terminal at Embarcadero station. The K Ingleside begins service at 5 a.m. on weekdays, 6 a.m. Saturdays and 8 a.m. Sundays, with the end of service occurring around 12:30 a.m. each night. Weekday daytime headways are 10 minutes. Weekend daytime headways are 12 minutes. Service is provided by overnight Owl buses during the hours that rail service is not running. The L Owl serves the portion between West Portal and Embarcadero, and the 91 Owl serves the portion between Balboa Park and West Portal. The K Owl bus runs a limited number of trips during late nights and early mornings. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, on weekends, service is provided by K Ingleside Bus, which runs from 5 a.m. until the start of rail service. The bus line largely follows the rail line, but it uses surface streets to parallel sections where the rail line has dedicated rights-of-way. The Market Street Railway opened a branch – built in just six days – of its Mission Street line along Ocean Avenue to Victoria Street on December 4, 1895, to serve the new Ingleside Racetrack.[5] The line was extended to the Ingleside House (where Ocean Avenue now meets Junipero Serra Boulevard) shortly thereafter.[6] The 1906 earthquake damaged many cable car and streetcar lines; in the aftermath, the United Railroads (URR) – successor to the Market Street Railway – closed many cable cars lines and expanded the electric streetcar system. The URR resumed service on the Ocean Avenue line on May 6, 1906; the line (route 12) was soon extended to Ocean Beach via Junipero Serra Boulevard and Sloat Boulevard. The San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) opened its K line along with the Twin Peaks Tunnel on February 3, 1918. The line originally ran from St. Francis Circle station along West Portal Avenue, through the tunnel, along Market Street to Van Ness Avenue (joining the J Church at Church Street), and along existing tracks on Van Ness Avenue to Pine Street. On June 1, 1918, the J and K lines were removed from Van Ness Avenue and extended along Market Street to a loop at the Ferry Building. The existing URR streetcar service on Ocean Avenue formed a barrier to continued Muni expansion into the Ingleside district. On November 25, 1918, the city and the private URR signed the "Parkside Agreements", which allowed Muni streetcars to use URR trackage on Ocean Avenue as far as Harold Avenue, as well as on Taraval Street, in exchange for a cash payment and shared maintenance costs. The K Ingleside line was extended south on Junipero Serra Boulevard and east on Ocean Avenue to Miramar Avenue on February 21, 1919. On May 18, it was extended several blocks further east to Brighton Avenue, then two blocks south on Grafton to a stub-end terminal at Grafton Avenue. Source: Wikipedia