Downtown - Union Square - Financial District

Un girone a piedi dopo il lavoro, un grande classico a San Francisco. Alla traccia manca circa un miglio iniziale. Il tempo in più è dovuto alla cena con birra al pub più simpatico di San Francisco (Sutter pub)e anche nel posto migliore di questo (tavolo sotto la finestra) che in genere sempre superoccupato !
Non ho interrotto la traccia perché mi piace molto la salita al 31º piano della mia stanza, che la traccia segue come 100 m dislivello e mi piaceva ritrovarla nella traccia appunto.
Il percorso tocca imposti più interessanti di San Francesco partendo a piedi dal centro (gli Union Square) e arriva a Fischerman Warfh e Pier39, interessante soprattutto per vedere i leoni marini sdraiati sui muri delle barche e anche su delle piattaforme che hanno messo apposta.
All’inizio avevo pensato di tornare con il cable car (tram tipico di San Francisco) e invece alla fine me la sono fatta tutta piedi, e devo dire che è stato molto interessante passare per chinatown, nella parte più vera di questa, dove non ci sono turisti, e solo grandi puzze e tanti cinesi.
Molto belli i negozi della frutta e dei pesci, frutta e verdura davvero sconosciuti. Ci sono anche negozi che vendono animali essiccati non identificati

Da Wikipedia
I Cable Car di San Francisco (in inglese San Francisco Cable Car System, IPA: [sæn frənˈsɪskoʊ ˈkeɪbəl kɑr ˈsɪstəm]) sono la rete tranviaria a trazione funicolare che serve la città di San Francisco, ultima rete al mondo del suo genere.

La rete, considerata un'icona della città al pari del Golden Gate Bridge e di Alcatraz, è gestita dalla Muni e trasporta annualmente più di 6 milioni di persone, molte delle quali sono turisti. Delle 23 linee attivate tra il 1873 e il 1890 ne sopravvivono oggi soltanto tre, due collegano Union Square con il quartiere di Fisherman's Wharf mentre la terza si snoda lungo California Street. Nel 1966, la rete è stata inserita nel National Register of Historic Places.

Wikipedia è decisamente più esaustivo in inglese:
The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last manually operated cable car system and an icon of the city of San Francisco. The system forms part of the intermodal urban transport network operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway, which also includes the separate E Embarcadero and F Market & Wharves heritage streetcar lines, and the Muni Metro modern light rail system. Of the 23 cable car lines established between 1873 and 1890, only three remain (one of which combines parts of two earlier lines): two routes from downtown near Union Square to Fisherman's Wharf, and a third route along California Street.

While the cable cars are used to a certain extent by commuters, the vast majority of the millions of passengers who use the system every year are tourists, and as a result, the wait to get on can often reach two hours or more. They are among the most significant tourist attractions in the city, along with Alcatraz Island, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Fisherman's Wharf.
San Francisco's cable cars are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of only two street railways to be named a National Historic Landmark, along with the St. Charles Streetcar Line in New Orleans.

History

Further information: Clay Street Hill Railroad


The Clay Street Hill Railroad in its early years
In 1869, Andrew Smith Hallidie had the idea for a cable car system in San Francisco, reportedly after witnessing an accident in which a streetcar drawn by horses over wet cobblestones slid backwards, killing the horses.[7][8] Hallidie solicited financial support in 1871 and 1872, and his primary backers were Henry L. Davis, Joseph Britton, and James Moffit.[9]: 311 
The first successful cable-operated street running train was the Clay Street Hill Railroad, which had its inaugural run on August 2, 1873.[8] The promoter of the line was Hallidie, and the engineer was William Eppelsheimer;[8] both Hallidie and Eppelsheimer obtained several patents for their work on the Clay Street line.[9]: 312 [a][b] The line involved the use of grip cars, which carried the grip that engaged with the cable, towing trailer cars; the design was the first to use grips. The term "grip" became synonymous with the operator.
The line started regular service on September 1, 1873, and its success led it to become the template for other cable car transit systems.[8] It was a financial success, and Hallidie's patents were enforced on other cable car promoters, making him wealthy.
Accounts differ as to the precise degree of Hallidie's involvement in the inception of the line, and to the exact date on which it first ran. According to the franchise granted by the city, operations were required to begin by August 1, 1873.[8] A retrospective published in 1895 stated that a single car was run over the line at 4 am on the morning of August 1 with few witnesses to ensure the franchise would not expire.[9]: 312  Eppelsheimer would later bring a suit against Hallidie and the Clay Street Hill RR in June 1877 over patents, but dismissed it voluntarily the following March.[10]: 622 
Expansion

edit


A preserved Sutter Street Railway car
The next cable car line to open was the Sutter Street Railway, which converted from horse operation in January 1877.[8] This line introduced the side grip, and lever operation, both designed by Henry Casebolt and his assistant Asa Hovey, and patented by Casebolt.[9]: 312, 315  This idea came about because Casebolt did not want to pay Hallidie royalties of $50,000 a year for the use of his patent. The side grip allowed cable cars to cross at intersections.
In 1878, Leland Stanford opened his California Street Cable Railroad (Cal Cable).[8] This company's first line was on California Street, and is the oldest cable car line still in operation. In 1880, the Geary Street, Park & Ocean Railway began operation.[8] The Presidio and Ferries Railway followed two years later, and was the first cable company to include curves on its routes. The curves were "let-go" curves, in which the car drops the cable and coasts around the curve on its own momentum.
In 1883, the Market Street Cable Railway opened its first line.[8] This company was controlled by the Southern Pacific Railroad and would grow to become San Francisco's largest cable car operator. At its peak, it operated five lines, all of which converged on Market Street to a common terminus at the Ferry Building. During rush hours, cars left that terminus every 15 seconds.[12]
In 1888, the Ferries and Cliff House Railway opened its initial two-line system.[8] The Powell–Mason line is still operated on the same route today; their other route was the Powell–Washington–Jackson line, stretches of which are used by today's Powell–Hyde line. The Ferries & Cliff House Railway was also responsible for the building of a car barn and powerhouse at Washington and Mason, and this site is still in use today. In the same year, it also purchased the original Clay Street Hill Railway, which it incorporated into a new Sacramento–Clay line in 1892.[8]
In 1889, the Omnibus Railroad and Cable Company became the last new cable car operator in San Francisco.[8] The following year the California Street Cable Railroad opened two new lines, these being the last entirely new cable car lines built in the city. One of them was the O'Farrell–Jones–Hyde line, the Hyde section of which still remains in operation as part of the current Powell–Hyde line.
In all, twenty-three lines were established between 1873 and 1890.

Evolution of motive power

Originally, the cables were powered by stationary steam engines.[22] For its initial three cables, the Ferries & Cliff House Railway constructed a three-story structure to house two 450 horsepower (340 kW) coal-burning steam engines.[22] The building was complete with a 185-foot-tall (56 m) smokestack to vent away the heavy black smoke created by the Welsh anthracite coal that the company burned.[22] Expansion of service required two additional 500 horsepower (370 kW) coal-fired steam engines in 1890.[22] Coal consumption in 1893 was about 10 tons per day.[22] The system was converted from coal to oil burning in 1901, and the lessened amount of smoke allowed the smokestack to be shortened to 60 feet (18 m). This shortened smokestack still stands at Washington-Mason car barn today.[22]
Electric energy was introduced in 1912, when a 600 horsepower (450 kW) General Electric motor came online.[22] By 1926, all steam operation of the cable ended when a second electric drive was installed, a 750 horsepower (560 kW) General Electric motor.[22] With the reduction in the number of cable car lines, the single 750-horsepower electric motor was eventually able to take over the job of running all of the lines.[23][24] The limitation with that configuration was that if one cable car on one line broke down, all lines had to be stopped.[24] Consequently, during the 1984 reconstruction, each of the four cables (California, Hyde, Mason and Powell) was separately powered by its own 510 horsepower (380 kW) electric motor.
Decline

edit
The first electric streetcars in San Francisco began operation in 1892 under the auspices of the San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railway.[8]
By the beginning of 1906 many of San Francisco's remaining cable cars were under the control of the United Railroads of San Francisco (URR), although Cal Cable and the Geary Street Company remained independent. URR was pressing to convert many of its cable lines to overhead electric traction, but this was met with resistance from opponents who objected to what they saw as ugly overhead lines on the major thoroughfares of the city center.[8]
Those objections disappeared after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The quake and resulting fire destroyed the power houses and car barns of both the Cal Cable and the URR's Powell Street lines, together with the 117 cable cars stored within them. The subsequent race to rebuild the city allowed the URR to replace most of its cable car lines with electric streetcar lines. By 1912, only eight cable car lines remained, all with steep grades impassable to electric streetcars.[8] In the 1920s and 1930s, these remaining lines came under pressure from the much-improved motor buses of the era, which could now climb steeper hills than the electric streetcar. By 1944, five of those cable car lines had survived: the two Powell Street lines – by then under municipal ownership, as part of Muni – and the three lines owned by the still-independent Cal Cable.[8]
Fight to remain open

edit


A cable car being turned around at the end of the line, August 1964
In 1947, Mayor Roger Lapham proposed the closure of the two municipally owned lines. In response, a joint meeting of 27 women's civic groups, led by Friedel Klussmann, formed the Citizens' Committee to Save the Cable Cars. In a famous battle of wills, the citizens' committee eventually forced a referendum on an amendment to the city charter, compelling the city to continue operating the Powell Street lines. This passed overwhelmingly, by 166,989 votes to 51,457. Klussman led another campaign in 1948 to have the city acquire Cal Cable, but the referendum fell short of the required 2⁄3 majority, with 58% in favor of acquisition; a second referendum in 1949, requiring a simple majority, passed and the city began negotiations with Cal Cable.[25]
In August 1951, the three Cal Cable lines were shut down when the company was unable to afford insurance. The city purchased and reopened the lines in January 1952, but another referendum that would have funded maintenance for the California Street tracks and the powerhouse and car barn at Hyde and California failed in November 1953. The amendment to the city charter did not protect the newly acquired Cal Cable lines, and the city proceeded with plans to replace them with buses; in addition, businesses in Union Square and downtown began advancing plans to convert O'Farrell to automobile traffic, which would remove service through the Tenderloin district via the inner section of the O'Farrell Jones & Hyde line.[25] The result was a compromise that formed the current system: the California Street line from Cal Cable, the Powell–Mason line already in municipal ownership, and a third hybrid line formed by grafting the Hyde Street section of Cal Cable's O'Farrell-Jones-Hyde line onto a truncated Powell–Washington–Jackson line, now known as the Powell–Hyde line.
This solution required some rebuilding to convert the Hyde Street trackage and terminus to operation by the single-ended cars of the Powell line, and also to allow the whole system to be operated from a single car barn and power house. Despite the changes, much of the systems infrastructure remained unchanged from the time of the earthquake.

Brakes

edit


Cable car brake blocks in three different states of usage, from new (bottom) to near end of life (top)
Apart from the cable itself (which limits the speeds of cars when going downhill), the cable cars use three separate braking systems:[39]
* Metal brake shoes on the wheels. The single-ended cars used on the Powell–Mason and Powell–Hyde lines have a foot pedal, controlled by the grip operator, that applies the brakes on the front wheels and a handle, operated by the conductor, that applies the brakes on the rear wheels. On the double-ended cars used on the California St. line, there are pedals near both grips, one controlled by the grip operator, the other by the conductor.[39]
* Wooden brake blocks pressed against the track when the gripman pulls a lever.[7] The four blocks are made of Monterey Fir and can produce a smell of burning wood when in operation.[40] They have to be replaced after just a few days.[39]
* An emergency brake consisting of a piece of steel, around 1.5 inches (40 mm) thick and 18 inches (460 mm) long, suspended beneath the car and pushed into the track slot when the gripman pulls a red lever.[39] It wedges tightly into the slot and often has to be removed with a cutting torch.[39]
Electrical system

edit
Over the years, the cable cars have been retrofitted with several electrical components, including headlights, interior lighting, a GPS tracking system and cameras. However, unlike most modern trains, the cable cars have no method to generate power on board and instead must use large batteries that are recharged in the car barn. In 2018, the incandescent bulbs used for the headlights and interior lighting were replaced with LED bulbs which increased visibility for operators and had a lower drain on the batteries.[41]
Network

edit
The current cable car network consists of three routes:
* The Powell–Mason (Line 59 or PM)[42] line, follows a common route with the Powell–Hyde line, running north and steeply uphill from a terminal at Powell and Market Streets, before crossing the California Street line at the crest of the hill. Once California Street has been crossed, cars coast downhill, off the cable, for three and a half blocks until the lines split as they turn left onto Jackson Street (as this is one-way, cable cars in the opposite direction use the parallel Washington Street). This line turns North, merges, and continues downhill along Mason Street, briefly half left along Columbus Avenue, and then down Taylor Street to a terminal at Taylor and Bay. This terminus is two blocks south of Fisherman's Wharf and is the closest to Pier 39. As with the Powell–Hyde line, there are manually-powered turntables at each end to reverse the cars. The Powell–Mason line has been in operation since 1888.[43]
* The Powell–Hyde (Line 60 or PH)[42] line, follows a common route with the Powell–Mason line, running north and steeply uphill from a terminal at Powell and Market Streets, before crossing the California Street line at the crest of the hill. Once California Street has been crossed, cars coast downhill, off the cable, for three and a half blocks until the lines split as they turn left onto Jackson Street. As this section is one-way, cable cars in the opposite direction use the parallel Washington Street. The cars on this line continue uphill on Jackson/Washington to a crest at Hyde Street. Here the line turns North past the "crooked" Lombard Street, then runs steeply downhill (at 21%, the steepest grade in the cable car system)] along Hyde Street, to the Hyde and Beach terminal, which is adjacent to the waterfront at the San Francisco Maritime Museum and Ghirardelli Square. As with the Powell–Mason line, there are manually-powered turntables at each end to reverse the cars. The line was spliced together in 1957 using portions of the O'Farrell, Jones & Hyde line and the Washington–Jackson line. Because this line offers iconic views of Alcatraz Island, passes Lombard Street and terminates near popular tourist destinations, it is the most popular with tourists and often has long waits to board.
* The California Street (Line 61 or C)[44] line runs east and west on California Street from a terminal at California and Market Streets, close to the famed Embarcadero to Van Ness Avenue. The California Street cable cars use double-ended cars with "grip" levers at either end of the longer cars which are operated in each direction without the cars being turned at the ends of the line, where the double tracks converge into a single "stub-end" track. The line once ran a much longer distance from Presidio Avenue to Market Street but service west of Van Ness Avenue was discontinued in 1954. Calls to restore the route to its original length are heard from time to time but nothing serious towards this end has been proposed. This route runs only on California Street, running at first uphill to the summit of Nob Hill, then more gently downhill to a terminus at Van Ness Avenue. This line is used to a greater extent by commuters, with the majority of passengers on weekdays being commuters.
There is also a set of non-revenue tracks from the California Street line along Hyde Street to join the Powell–Hyde line at Hyde and Washington. This connection exists to enable California Street cars to reach the car barn.
A small signal tower controls the crossing of the lines at the intersection of California Street and Powell Street. It has been rebuilt in 1907, 1937, 1967, and 2020–2021.[47]
The system generally starts operating at 5:30 am each day and shuts down at 1:30 am.[38]
The cable car system connects at both its terminals on Market Street with the F Market heritage streetcar line. The Taylor and Bay terminal, and the Hyde and Beach terminal, are both short walks from the F Market line. The system connects with other Muni lines and BART at the Powell & Market and California & Drumm terminals.

La strada più ripida di San Francisco:
Dal sito https://thebolditalic.com/the-essential-guide-to-san-franciscos-steepest-streets-21ee8fdb5ee4

San Francisco is a city of hills — big ones, small ones, curvy ones, ones with stairs, ones that make your stomach drop, and ones featuring views so picturesque they stop you in your tracks in wonder.
I grew up near the peak of one of these treacherous slopes in my grandparents’ three-story flat in Nob Hill (on Jackson Street between Jones and Leavenworth). At the top of one of the city’s most famously steep streets, I lived the kind of life where, at home, quite literally everything was “all downhill from there.”
Sign up for The Bold Italic newsletter to get the best of the Bay Area in your inbox every week.
While a pain at times, I admired the back-breaking, calf-straining hills of my youth. In adulthood, I haven’t been able to find any sort of city-sanctioned list that categorically defines San Francisco’s steepest streets. The Department of Public Works does have a comprehensive map with the grade calculations of almost every street in the city, but they never bothered to collate into any sort of official ranking.
Fortunately, I came across the work of Stephen Von Worley, a fellow data nerd who operates the visualization website Data Pointed. He took the time to comb through some topographical maps in search of San Francisco’s most intimidating inclines, and thanks to his diligent fieldwork, we finally have a real list.
The streets on this list may not be the ones you’re expecting.
Time to get climbing.
Broadway Street above Taylor (31% grade)
High atop the city on Nob Hill, Broadway provides more than just a difficult march upward; it also works as a sort of time capsule for those tired of seeing the city’s new-age high-rises dominate the skyline. Here, you can get a mesmerizing, unobstructed glimpse of the Bay Bridge, Transamerica…

Insomma, il 31% è davvero notevole !!! Anche in discesa !!