[Rescue Muni] 5-Fulton

Peter D. Ehrlich (norcalrr@sprynet.com)
Sun, 8 Nov 1998 01:02:03 -0800

On 7 Nov 98 at 1122am, Andrew Sullivan writes:
>
>Donald asked:
>
>>New subject: A friend of mine asked me if I knew anything
>>about the 5-Fulton. (I don't, so I'm asking here.) They
>>claim that the route used to go all the way downtown, but
>>was truncated sometime in the last few weeks, and no longer
>>does go downtown. Is this true? If so, why?
>
>It goes downtown during the day (I use it all the time), but in the
>evenings it ends at Market and McAllister, which makes it distinctly less
>useful. I suspect (but don't know) that this may have been a service cut
>made when budgets were tight.
>
>Anyone with a longer memory than mine have harder facts on this one?
>
>A

When I first arrived in San Francisco, the 5-McAllister (as it was called
then) terminated at Market/Jones/McAllister every evening after 630pm and
all day on Sundays. Sometime in the 1980s, I believe, Sunday service on
the 5 was extended downtown. There have been no service cuts on the 5
since. However, there was a diesel 5-McAllister Limited service until
about 1979, which made limited stops from Market Street to Masonic. and
local stops the rest of the way. In 1993, during the general restructuring
of owl service, the 5 Owl improved from hourly to half-hourly, as part of
the policy decision to have 30 minute service on all owls--one of the best
service delivery decisions made by Muni in recent memory. To that end, the
parallel hourly 31 Owl was discontinued.

For those of you dying to know the schedule details, the last through 5 bus
from Transbay Terminal departs 634pm every evening.

Peter Ehrlich
F-Line Operator
Green Light Rail Division
<norcalrr@sprynet.com>