Transport: Cable Cars

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Where California's Coastal Range marches down to the sea at the Golden Gate, one of the most spectacular cities in the U. S. sits upon immense hills. But though these pup mountains give San Francisco many a gorgeous view, they long retarded her development. Horses cannot pull wagons up the steep streets, only the most vigorous people care to walk them, automobiles must go into first gear to get up, into second to get down. The man who cracked this tough civic nut was a wire manufacturer named Andrew S. Hallidie, who in 1873 invented the cable car, started the first one on nearly vertical Clay Street. Overnight, property values doubled on Nob Hill and all real estate boomed for several years as the city spread from Telegraph Hill to Twin Peaks with cable cars sprouting in every direction. Today cable cars are only a small part of San Francisco's transit system, but they are still one of its quaintest and most distinctive features.

Cable cars look like the Toonerville Trolley, have open sides with seats facing out (which bothers women with short skirts on San Francisco's frequent gusty days). In the middle stands the gripman holding a lever like an oversized emergency brake. It goes through the floor and under the street through a slot, where it grips an endless line of steel cable an inch and a half wide moving at 8 m.p.h. When the gripman grips, the cable car moves steadily up the steepest hill, protected by three sets of brakes. Busiest cable car is the Powell Street line, starting on a turntable where Powell joins Market Street, San Francisco's "main stem." Passengers scurry for seats while the gripman and conductor swing the tiny car on the turntable until it faces uphill. Then with a great clanking (gripmen traditionally play tunes on their gongs) the car rolls up the sharp grade, past the swank Fairmont and Mark Hopkins Hotels while the conductor collects 5¢-fares (conductors traditionally make wisecracks. Sample: "Conductor, do you stop at the Fairmont?" "Gosh no, lady, not on my pay."). Down one side of the hill the car presently slips, while gripman and conductor heave at brakes, to famed, odoriferous Fisher|man's Wharf, where Baseballer Joe Di Maggio got his start and where his two brothers still run a stand.

One morning last week riders on this and every other San Francisco cable car folded back their morning newspapers to be jolted by a full-page advertisement j headed: A FAIR FARE TO PAY FAIR WAGES. In a long appeal to the public, the Market Street Railway Co. was explaining why it had just asked the State Railway Commission for permission to jack its fare from 5¢ to 7¢. By noon all San Francisco was jabbering, for cable cars are not the city's only unique transit pride. San Francisco is also one of the last stands of the 5¢ street car fare and presents the even more unusual picture of two privately-owned street car companies competing with a municipal system.