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The 21 Hayes and its Traces of the Past

  • Writer: kalianieg
    kalianieg
  • Jun 28
  • 3 min read
Streetcar on the corner of Bucanan and Hayes
1939 Streetcar on Hayes and Bucanan

The Hayes Valley has a long history of transportation cars; Roughly 160 years of transportation services. It all began with the horse drawn cars and has evolved into the electric buses we see today. With scenic views and steep hills, the Hayes Valley bus route carries a history of travels to and from work to residential neighborhoods. Back in the 1860’s, Thomas Hayes built the first horse car line to bring value to his residential properties. Thomas Hayes was an Irish born American landowner as well as a franchise owner of the Market Street Cable Railway. His mission was to bring “the land to the Market”. Along with several property owners he devised a plan to connect the main part of the city to an old mission settlement. Thomas Hayes was given the franchise Market Street Rail Road Company. By 1883 the market street cable car inaugurated a 5-line cable car, beginning at the ferry building and branching out towards Mcalister, Hayes, Haight, Castro and Valencia. The cars serving these routes were the largest cars with a capacity of 130 passengers. In 1906 the great quake happened which destroyed the rail car system but the tracks were quickly fixed, and the 21 Hayes was restored in less than two months. Electric street cars took over the cable cars.



The 21 Hayes had many lines. After fixing the railway cable lines the streets between Pierce and Scott were too steep for the electric street cards that they decided to divide the route into two. One to serve Ellis and Market Street and Ellis to Divisadero, then Divisadero to Hayes, then Hayes on Stanyon then to a terminal on Fulton. This route was later numbered 21 in 1911. The second route was the Hayes-Masonic that ran from Market Street to Hayes and Fillmore, then it ran on existing Fillmore tracks down to Oak and Page and down Masonic Street, up a hill to what we now know as Parnassus. This bus was later numbered 6. Later when the tracks on Hayes Street were fixed, the lines reshuffled and the 6 began to serve Haight Street and the 21 served Hayes Street and extended its route down to the Ferry Building. The 21 also received other extensions through the years. It wasn’t till the pandemic that the 21 Hayes was discontinued for 27 months. 

A parade of buses in 1948 on Market Street
Buses on Market and Stockton in 1948

In 1948 buses were soon taking over the streets, replacing the electric street cars. Which was due to the modernization of the city and decline of ridership on routes like the 21 Hayes. Early buses were expensive to run and maintain and had a shorter life span compared to streetcar lines. Yet they were inexpensive to purchase. Through the years the image of the bus was upgraded various times with many color schemes and bus body shapes. Today we see that Muni is struggling with ridership and collecting enough funds to pay for the Muni service, this has caused them to change a couple routes in the city to focus on bus transfers. Buses are convenient and sometimes quicker to get to places where parking is limited like downtown. I feel If Muni buses were more reliable it could get people to consider taking Muni more.

the 6 Hayes Parnassus
New 6 Hayes/ Parnassus taken 9am 6/26/25

References:

Such information is a little more reassuring knowing that the vintage Hayes route still stands. The 21 Hayes has been changed to 6 Hayes / Parnassus but in my heart it’s still the 21. Thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed this post!


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