San Francisco Municipal Railway


The San Francisco Municipal Railway is the primary public transit system within San Francisco, California. It operates a system of bus routes, the Muni Metro light rail system, three historic cable car lines, and two historic streetcar lines. Previously an independent agency, the San Francisco Municipal Railway merged with two other agencies in 1999 to become the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. In 2018, Muni served with an operating budget of about $1.2 billion. Muni is the seventh highest-ridership transit system in the United States, with rides in, and the second highest in California after the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Operations

Most bus lines are scheduled to operate every five to fifteen minutes during peak hours, every five to twenty minutes middays, about every ten to twenty minutes from 9 pm to midnight, and roughly every half-hour for the late night "owl" routes. On weekends, most Muni bus lines are scheduled to run every ten to twenty minutes. However, complaints of unreliability, especially on less-often-served lines and older trolleybus lines, are a system-wide problem. Muni has had some difficulty meeting a stated goal of 85% voter-demanded on-time service.
All Muni lines run inside San Francisco city limits, with the exception of several lines serving locations in the northern part of neighboring Daly City, and the 76X Marin Headlands Express line to the Marin Headlands area on weekends and major holidays. Most intercity connections are provided by BART and Caltrain heavy rail, AC Transit buses at the Salesforce Transit Center, and Golden Gate Transit and SamTrans downtown.
Bus and cable car stops throughout the city vary from Metro stations with raised platforms in the subway and at the more heavily used surface stops, to small shelters to signposts to simply a yellow stripe on a utility pole or on the road surface. 70% of stops are spaced closer than recommended range of apart.

Name and logo

The system is popularly known as "Muni", a shortening of the "Municipal" in "San Francisco Municipal Railway". Muni's logo is a stylized, trademarked "worm" version of the word muni. This logo was designed by San Francisco-based graphic designer Walter Landor in the mid-1970s.

Announcements

To cater to the large Hispanic and Latino American and Asian American populations in San Francisco, bus announcements are in four languages: English, Spanish, Cantonese and Tagalog.

Route names

Bus and trolleybus lines are identified by a number and a route name that typically incorporates the street on which the route operates its longest segment, though it is occasionally a destination or landmark. For example, the 1-California line runs the majority of its route along California Street. Rail lines have letters as well as a name designation, and the three cable car lines are typically referred to by name only.

Fares

Except for cable cars, cash fares are $3.00 for adults; $1.50 for seniors over 65, people with disabilities, and Medicare card holders; and free for low- and moderate-income seniors, youth aged 18 and under, and people with disabilities residing in San Francisco. Clipper card and MuniMobile fares are $2.85 for adults and $1.40 for seniors and people with disabilities. Proof-of-payment, which fare inspectors may demand at any time, is either a Clipper card, MuniMobile, Muni Passport, or paper transfer. One fare entitles a rider to unlimited vehicle transfers for the next 120 minutes. Cable cars are $9 one way, with no transfers, unless the rider has a Muni Passport or a Muni monthly pass. As of August 2025, monthly passes cost $86 for adults, $43 for low-income residents, or $43 for seniors and people with disabilities. Passes are valid on all Muni lines—including cable cars—and the $104 adult pass allows BART transit entirely within San Francisco. Other passes and stickers are valid on all Muni lines, including cable cars, but not on BART.
Cable car fare is $9 per trip, with no transfers issued or accepted. "Passports" are folding scratch-off passes that can be purchased by mail, or at various places throughout the city; they are good on all regular-service lines without surcharge, including cable cars. As of August 2025, Passports cost $15 for a 1-day pass, $35 for a 3-day pass, or $47 for a 7-day pass.
Muni has implemented a dual-mode smart card payment system known as Clipper. The transponders have been in use since at least 2004, and replaced most paper monthly passes in 2010. BART, Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit, VTA, AC Transit, SamTrans, SMART and San Francisco Bay Ferry also utilize the Clipper system.
Fares can also be paid with a mobile app called MuniMobile since 2015. The app is developed by moovel, who have built mobile ticketing apps for a number of other transit agencies such as Caltrain and TriMet. The app is planned to be deployed until around 2021 when the next generation Clipper card mobile app is planned to launch and replace agency-specific ticketing apps.

Special services

Muni operates 14 express lines, 5 Rapid lines, and 12 Owl lines, which run between 1 am and 5 am. For San Francisco Giants games, additional "baseball shuttles" supplement N Judah and T Third service to Oracle Park.
Express lines only run during peak hours; during mornings they run towards downtown and during the evening they run away from downtown. All express lines have an "X", "AX", or "BX" following the line's number. Some lines are divided into A and B Expresses. The B Express line is shorter and has stops that are closer to downtown, while the A Express makes stops further away from downtown and will make few or no stops in the area where the B Express stops. The 8 Bayshore, as the 8X Bayshore Express, was the only Express route that ran daily until April 25, 2015, the date when it was no longer an Express route.
Rapid lines are limited-stop services. They stop at only a subset of the stops of their corresponding "standard" linetypically every third stop and at transfer points.

Cable car system

Muni also operates the San Francisco cable car system, a heritage streetcar system descendant of a larger network of manually operated cable cars. The first city-owned line was acquired in 1906, although the current configuration is an amalgamation of several former lines and has operated as such since in 1952. The system was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. There are three cable car lines being the Mason-Powell line, the California State line, and the Powell- Hyde line. Popular areas from the Embarcadero to Fisherman's Wharf are served by cable cars. In the system, there are 62 allocated stations. The system accrues five million annual riders and has always been a tourist destination as well as a convenient means for travel around the city.

Heritage streetcars

Additionally, Muni operates two heritage streetcar lines distinct from the Muni Metro: the E Embarcadero and F Market & Wharves, however the former has been suspended since April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Formerly run for the Historic Trolley Festival, in the 1980s, regular service of heritage equipment began in 1995. Streetcars do not utilize tunnel segments and the F line utilizes infrastructure optimized for trolleybuses along Market Street.

Statistics

The longest Muni line is the a nighttime-only route that blends several other routes together, while the longest daytime route is the . The shortest route is the peak-hour only at, while the shortest off-peak route is the at. The steepest grade climbed by Muni vehicle is 23.1% by a diesel-electric hybrid bus on the line, 22.8% by a trolleybus on the line and 21% by a cable car on the Powell-Hyde line.
The busiest Muni bus corridor is the Geary corridor. The two major routes that operate on the corridor, the and, travel in the east–west direction along the Geary corridor, and has an average speed of only, taking over 50 minutes to travel from the Richmond District to the Transbay Terminal when operating on schedule. As of 2015, the corridor has a total of 55,270 average daily boardings, making it the second busiest transit corridor west of the Mississippi after the Los Angeles Metro Wilshire transit corridor.
At Powell and Market Streets and California and Market Streets, three types of rail gauges come within a few hundred feet of each other: Bay Area Rapid Transit's broad gauge, Muni Metro's , and the San Francisco cable car system's narrow gauge. The F Market and Wharves, a heritage streetcar line, which is also standard gauge, is also present here, at street level on Market Street. The rail lines, however, do not physically intersect.

Fleet

Muni operates about 1,200 vehicles: 550 diesel-electric hybrid buses, 300 electric trolleybuses, 250 modern light rail vehicles, 50 historic streetcars and 40 cable cars. All vehicles, except for cable cars, are wheelchair accessible.
The electricity to run all of Muni's trolleybuses, light rail vehicles, streetcars, and the cable car powerhouse comes from the hydroelectric dam at the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park.
All of Muni's current internal combustion buses use diesel-electric hybrid powertrains, fueled with renewable diesel fuel made from bio-feedstock sources, including fats, oils and greases. The combination of hybrid technology and renewable diesel fuel helps reduce fuel consumption and cut vehicle emissions.

Performance

In November 1999 San Francisco voters passed Proposition E setting standards for performance of having at least an 85% on-time record In July 2012 Muni vehicles were on-time 60% of the time and in August 2012, they were on-time 57% of the time. A report conducted by the San Francisco Municipal Transport Agency in early 2013 noted that Muni was on time only 58% of the time. It delayed its customers a total of 172,195 hours and reduced the city's economic activity by US$50 million per year. In 2013 the performance hit an all-time low of 57%, the on-time performance improved to 60% in January 2014, 60% in February 2014, and 60% in March 2014.
Muni Metro on-time performance as of June 2022:
LineOn-time trainsLate or very late trains
N/AN/A
61.7%25.2%
/ 51.3%36.8%
64.5%28.6%
58.3%27.8%
All Lines57.7%29.7%