K Ingleside - Route Description

Route Description

The line runs from the Embarcadero Station downtown to the Geneva Avenue and San Jose Avenue in the Balboa Park neighborhood, near City College of San Francisco. The downtown portion of the line runs through the Market Street Subway, which it shares with the four other Muni Metro lines. It continues through the much older Twin Peaks Tunnel, along with the L Taraval and M Ocean View lines, emerging at West Portal Station. Fromthere, it follows West Portal Avenue to Saint Francis Circle, where it then runs on its own right-of-way in the middle of Junipero Serra Boulevard to Ocean Avenue. The K then follows Ocean Avenue until it reaches Balboa Park Station, where it circles around the Metro yard at San Jose and Geneva Avenue, with the actual terminal stop alongside the station.

Following service changes on June 30, 2007, the K Ingleside and the T Third Street lines were spliced together, though keeping their respective line designations, resulting in an upside-down horseshoe-shaped route from Balboa Park to Bayshore and Sunnydale. At West Portal Station, inbound K trains heading towards downtown change their signs to the T line; conversely, at Embarcadero Station, T trains heading into downtown change signs to the K line. The trains show the ultimate destination of the spliced lines rather than the intermediate "terminus" of the individual line.

The K Ingleside line stops at large stations for the downtown section of the line and at smaller stops on the rest of the line. Most of the smaller stops are nothing more than concrete "islands" in the middle of the street next to the tracks. Some of these "island" stops provide access for wheelchairs. Muni bus routes provide service to all stations and other systems with access to the stations are noted.