Cable Cars Seek to Climb Back Toward On-Time Reliability

His right hand moving in a blur of improvisation, gripman Stephen Dickson bangs the cable car bell with the syncopated clang of a street-cool jazz percussionist.

“I call this riff my ‘Get out of the way ‘cuz I’m coming through the intersection--in B-flat,’ ” he says. “I’m playing my vintage 1873 bell, so I hope they’re listening.”

Working his hand brakes, playing tour guide and stand-up comic to a steady stream of picture-taking tourist passengers, the Vietnam veteran smoothly maneuvers an instantly recognized icon of hilly San Francisco.

Dickson’s lumbering eight-ton cable car, pulled along by a whirring underground cable, is a 19th century throwback to an era when “there was nothing but horse and buggies, chickens and cows.”

Today, scores of cable cars still do daily battle against the mayhem of 21st century traffic--bolting cabs, a reckless commuter rush and double-parked trucks.

The grind has taken its toll.

The cable car fleet--run by the city’s municipal railway, known as Muni--recently fell so drastically off-schedule that locals have abandoned them as reliable transport, relegating them to what the late newspaper columnist Herb Caen dismissed as “tourist toys.”

When the on-time rate dipped below 20%, voters revolted, passing an initiative to press officials to step up the reliability of the city’s buses, cable cars and light rail.

And now, officials must meet the first deadline mandated by Proposition E, raising local public transit to a 65% on-time rate. That rate must reach 85% by 2003. Activists say that merit raises for transit workers are tied to their on-time performance.

Despite an ambitious program to speed up the cable cars’ erratic pace, long lines still often form at the end points on each of the system’s three lines--mostly impatient tourists who wait half an hour or more for a cable car. The wait used to be longer.

Dickson says operators shoulder too much of the blame for the system’s tardiness. He’s heard all about that Streetcar Named Desire. Dickson’s vehicle is a Cable Car Named Back-Breaking Labor.

“People run their mouths about making schedules, but I say, ‘Come out here and try to drive this baby, just for one day,’ ” he says, yanking the hand brake to ease the car down a treacherously steep hill. “Then you can talk.”

For a city that prides itself on user-friendly public transportation, such tardiness is something of a civic embarrassment.

“San Francisco’s reputation as a great public transit mecca is the city’s big lie,” said Andrew Sullivan of Rescue Muni, a transit riders group. “There may be lots of public transportation here but unless it’s reliable, it’s not useful.”

Carrying 720,000 passengers a day, the system is the nation’s seventh largest--boasting a fleet of 1,000 diesel and electric buses, an array of light-rail trains and scores of cable cars along eight miles of track--all scaling the city’s considerable hills at any given time.

Cable Cars’ On-Time Rate Plummeted to 17%

By the mid-1990s, the on-time rate of city buses had plummeted to 50% and light rail an even more-embarrassing 42%, transit officials acknowledge. But nothing rocked San Francisco’s proud tradition of elite public transport more than the cable cars, which were on schedule a mere 17% of the time.

When Mayor Willie Brown took office in 1996, he brashly pledged to fix Muni’s woes within 100 days. The task proved too daunting and a citizens committee began to meet to map out a strategy.

Along with setting ambitious on-time goals, Proposition E--passed in 1999--gave Muni guaranteed funding and a panel of directors who no longer served under the city’s Board of Supervisors.

To the post of Muni’s new general manager, Brown appointed Michael Burns, a veteran of Boston and Philadelphia’s transit systems. What Burns found in San Francisco--especially with the city’s cable car fleet--appalled him.

“Quality service was a phantom; it didn’t exist,” he said. “Everybody who’s looked at the problems of Muni, including me, has underestimated the depth of the culture, the practices and traditions that are hard to break.”

Along with aging equipment dating back to the fleet’s infancy on Aug. 2, 1873, Burns found that passengers often waited an hour or more for cars that lagged behind a schedule designed to have them arriving every six minutes. Empty cars stacked up at turnaround points while operators played cards or ate sandwiches.

“I got letters and calls from all over the country from people who had visited here and found the situation intolerable,” Burns said. “But the union was very strong and it took us awhile to develop a relationship that worked for both management and workers.”

Gripman and union steward Walter L. Scott III said blaming operators for the long waits is a cheap shot. He says the six-minute intervals were unreasonable in today’s clogged streets, as was any suggestion that operators should work without a break.

“Those operators work hard and they deserve a break or a trip to the bathroom,” he said. “It’s not their fault people line up.”

Activists say officials have written off the cable cars as a tourist extravagance. But even visitors have begun to turn their backs on the system. Annual ridership has dropped by 500,000 since 1999, from 9.7 million to 9.2 million boardings--even though more people visit the city every year.

“People got tired of waiting--and I don’t blame them,” said Jim Chappell, president of the San Francisco Planning and Research Assn., which helped draft the voter initiative that gave the system its new performance goals.

Chappell said Muni’s emphasis has focused on the employee rather than the customer. “They figure tourists don’t have to be someplace in five minutes, don’t vote and they’re here for three days before they’re gone,” he said.

“I wonder how the Disney folks would run this system. These cable cars could be a huge money-maker if operated correctly.”

10% of Muni’s Revenue Comes From Cable Cars

With $2 tolls, the cable cars brought in about 10% of Muni’s total revenue last year.

Some cable car riders say they’re happy with the system.

“Where else can you ride a cable car?” said Mississippi tourist Soni Buckalew. “No matter how long I have to wait, I wouldn’t miss the experience. It’s one reason I came to San Francisco.”

Susan Hsieh has commuted by cable car for eight years. “As far as I’m concerned, the trains run on time,” she said.

As part of its rehabilitation, Muni has begun several programs to boost operator morale--including a physical therapy gym to help cable car workers avoid back injuries.

Dozens of cable car workers are hurt each year from the constant workings of the hand brakes and their job of manually swiveling the heavy cars on turntables at the ends of each line.

Muni also worked with union officials to extend the scheduled intervals from six to eight minutes and posted traffic-checkers to move the cars along. As a result, cable cars are now on time 64% of the time. The on-time rates of buses and trolleys also has risen, Burns said.

San Franciscans have reacted. A Chamber of Commerce poll shows that satisfaction with Muni has soared in the last year.

That new popularity suits Stephen Dickson just fine. He is proud to operate what he calls “America’s only moving national monument” and believes his job should command more respect.

For Dickson, who started in 1967, the challenge is keeping order among the chaos of his cable car--”baby-sitting” passengers who lean dangerously into traffic to catch that perfect photo.

As he works his brakes and keeps an eye on traffic, Dickson runs a tight ship. He gently scolds the two drunken British women who threaten to jump between two passing cable cars, then poses for pictures with a few Japanese tourists, even kidding them in their own tongue. Dickson knows a few phrases in several languages.

For Dickson, courtesy is king, just as long as passengers know who’s in charge on his cable car.

“Now, all you nice people have got to move back,” he croons. A heavy-set man refuses to budge until Dickson fixes him with a drill sergeant’s glare.

“OK, I’m going,” the man says finally. “You’re the boss.”

Dickson smiles darkly to himself: “You got that right.”