A cable car ride for locals? New Muni service leaves the tourist trappings behind

I'm sitting on a cable car, halfway through its hilly loop in San Francisco, when veteran gripman Val Lupiz gets to the "cable car worker pet peeve" portion of the ride.

Like when he's watching a movie set in San Francisco and fake cable cars on wheels show up in North Beach, Noe Valley or (in one particularly egregious case) Treasure Island.

"If you're going to shoot that scene, at least do it so you don't see the little rubber tires," Lupiz says, laughing.  

This is not part of the normal cable car narration, where gripmen give directions to Ghirardelli Square and remind tourists to keep their selfie sticks inside the vehicle. But things are different on the "Hyde Ride," a limited edition route expressly meant for locals. Want to know the best tips to avoid cable car terminal tourist crushes? How exactly do the brakes operate? Or what's the deal with that frozen-in-time 1940s Swensen's ice cream parlor at Union and Hyde streets? Climb on board. 

The Hyde Ride runs about every half hour from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday through Oct. 4. It launches from the Hyde & Beach terminal near Aquatic Park, climbs up Hyde Street to the cable car barn on Nob Hill, then loops back past Chinatown on Powell Street and through Russian Hill, touching the top of Lombard Street again before returning where it started. (This part's important: It avoids the tourist horde near the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market altogether.) 

Two Market Street Railway docents are on board to welcome guests and answer questions (there's no Big Bus Tour-style narration) and experienced operators and gripmen - veteran Lupiz staffs most rides - will make you feel at home on perhaps the most touristy of S.F. tourist destinations.

With apologies to the Pier 39 sea lions, the cable car may be the most avoided major San Francisco tourist attraction. Despite the fact that it's a literal working transit line (actually three), natives often steer clear. When my first trip to Alcatraz was accompanied by a reader survey, we heard from 47 locals, some here for generations, who had never ridden a cable car. 

Rick Laubscher, a lifetime San Franciscan and president of the nonprofit Market Street Railway, which preserves local transit history, attributes that to what he calls "tourist derangement syndrome."

"A lot of San Franciscans feel like, ‘If the tourists like it, it must not be any good,'" Laubscher says. "But I don't personally believe that. You know, it got famous for a reason."

Invented by Andrew Hallidie in the 1870s, the first cable car lines were workhorses to help San Francisco's growing population get to jobs, schools, churches and stores. Fisherman's Wharf as a tourist destination was nearly a century away.

"They were built to get people from the residential districts, in those days, the most fancy residential districts, down to where the shopping was," Laubscher says. "They were built by private companies to make a profit, and you made a profit by carrying the most people you could." At their peak in 1890, there were 23 different cable car lines.

I test the new Hyde Ride on a Friday, bringing three Chronicle colleagues who have never ridden a cable car. Restaurant critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan (not a cable car newbie) arrives with two first-timers: her baby and toddler. I consider myself a low-level expert on cable car history ("I could give this tour," I thankfully never say out loud) but quickly realize how little I know.

We climb onto an original 1908 car from the defunct O'Farrell, Jones and Hyde line - one of four extra-large cars serving the Hyde Ride - and gather around Laubscher and Lupiz as they go over the basics.

Cable cars ride on endless loops, "gripping" cables that move exactly 9 mph up and down the city's storied hills. They detach only when two lines cross perpendicularly, and the gripman on the lower cable lets go and deftly coasts over the upper line.

"Take a deep breath, what do you smell?" Laubscher asks. "What you're actually smelling is wood on the brakes stopping the car. It used to be pine. Now it's another soft wood."

There are in fact three ways to stop the car: the wood-assisted main brake, a pedal backup brake near the gripman's foot, and the "guillotine," a last resort wedge that drops in the track and brings the car to a lurching halt. (Lupiz reveals he's used it just four times in 26 years on the rails.)

The best value comes later in the trip, when Lupiz takes a brake, letting the toddler ring the bell then offering inside information for locals.

Tip number one: Never line up at tourist-packed Powell and Market. Cable car operators leave a few seats open; hop on two short blocks north at O'Farrell Street and get 96% of the ride without the wait. 

Laubscher champions the $15 one-day Muni passport, a hack allowing riders to take any Muni line, including the pricey $9 cable car, as many times as they like. (Passengers with no passport hopping off and back on at Lombard, Chinatown or the Cable Car Museum will be charged again.)

Mornings before 10 a.m. and evenings after 7 p.m. are the best times to ride. Along with sparse crowds, the sunrise looking east from California and Powell is an all-time stunning San Francisco sight. I experienced this in 2018, and it remains a cherished core memory.

Things get looser as the ride continues. We learn Lupiz met his wife when she was a cable car passenger ("the job is great for single people"), and the proper way to "hail" a cable car, which will stop on most corners: Stay on the sidewalk and make sure to get the gripman's attention.

Not sure what to ask? Lupiz' thoughts on that cable car explosion scene in "The Rock" are worth your fare.

As we roll along with newfound knowledge, the sights, sounds and scents - I'll forever notice that distinct pine-y smell of wood-on-brakes again - seem heightened. San Francisco has changed, but the capacity to fall a little more in love with it, hanging on to a rail while the city flashes by sideways, is a forever experience.  

Our ride goes too fast, and my group of first-timers reluctantly departs at the cable car barn. Lupiz is still ding-a-ding-dinging the bell in the distance as they give positive reviews of the sights and stories. Tourist trap or a ride for everyone? Walking back to the newsroom, I'm feeling more like a native than ever. 

"You've got to do a cable car at least once in your life if you live here," Laubscher says. "You might actually enjoy it."

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