San Francisco Muni Shuts Down Cable Cars, Other Routes For Day Of Protests
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Among the many precautions San Francisco officials are taking for Saturday's day of protests is to shut down several public transit lines and halting the city's famed cable cars.
Mayor Ed Lee has been an outspoken critic of the the National Park Service's decision to award the alt-right group Patriot Prayer permission to hold a rally at Crissy Field near the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge.
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"The shameful, anti-American trend of hate-filled extremist rallies will unfortunately be allowed to continue this weekend in our city," Lee said. "Let us show this nation that San Francisco is a city of peace and unity. Do not engage with the members of this group, whose only priority is to incite violence through divisive rhetoric."
To make it difficult for hate groups and others to repeat the kind of violence that recently broke out in Charlottesville and also earlier this year in Berkeley, San Francisco officials have cancelled all days off for the police officers this weekend.
There will be no pedestrian, bicycle or vehicle access to Crissy Field from the Golden Gate Bridge. All streets leading to the Crissy Field area will be shut down by police officers and access to the area will be limited to a single entrance from the east at the Marina gate on Marina Boulevard near the Palace of Fine Arts
On Thursday, the city went even further, announcing all public transit bus lines in the Cow Hollow and Marina districts -- neighborhoods that border the Presidio and Crissy Field -- will also be shut down.
Many area residents like Eileen Moore plan to stay far away from Crissy Field on Saturday.
"I don't know what to expect," said Moore. "I'm going out to brunch. I'm avoiding Crissy Field at all costs and Civic Center as well."
The city's park and local agencies are digging in. Barricades are already out at Crissy Field. Barricades on streets will follow.
Even SF General Hospital said it has a plan to deal to deal with a "potentially large number of casualties."
Municipal transit officials announced they were also shutting down the city's famed cable cars and replacing them with buses, along with re-routing as many as 10 lines to completely isolate the protesters access to Crissy Field.
Here are the Muni closures and changes scheduled for Saturday.
- No Muni service in the Marina and Cow Hollow neighborhoods.
- No service for the 76X Marin Headlands route on Saturday.
- Muni lines to be operated by Muni buses: California Cable Car; Powell-Mason Cable Car; Powell-Hyde Cable Car and F Market & Wharves.
- Muni lines to be re-routed: 22 Fillmore; 28 19th Avenue; 30 Stockton; 43 Masonic and 45 Union/Stockton.
- Other Muni routes may also be re-routed, depending on changing conditions: E Embarcadero; F Market & Wharves; 5 Fulton; 19 Polk and 21 Hayes.
For more details on the Muni service disruptions, visit sfmta.com/calendar/alerts/august-26-demonstrations.