F Line, originally uploaded by plemeljr

Geary Street in San Francisco runs from Market Street in the east through the western suburbs to the Ocean and is a vital east-west corridor. So A Tale of Geary Street is a great concise history of the unique transit issues on Geary Street:

As was true all over San Francisco, transit on Geary Street began not with the streetcar, but with the cable car. In 1880, the Geary Street, Park & Ocean Railroad commenced cable car service.
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We simply do not have the luxury of waiting decades to fix Geary. An outbound 38-Geary bus begins its westward journey at the Transbay Terminal, but a mere three or four stops later, the long, articulated bus may already be standing room only.
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Whatever you want to call it: Geary and Van Ness are both in the midst of study and review — not for subways this time around, but for bus rapid transit. Coupled with the amenities that typify modern light rail construction, BRT’s dedicated bus lanes would capture some of the benefits of rail at reduced cost, freeing up money that could then be applied to other transit corridors in need of improvement. The possibility of building light rail in a future phase is kept on the books; but what’s more likely is that Geary and Van Ness, two of the highest ridership corridors in the City, will become centerpieces of a citywide network of rapid buses, functioning as a complement to the Muni Metro light rail system that the B-Geary was not lucky enough to have already become part of.

Nine years ago I lived on Geary and Van Ness and regularly took the 38 Geary home until I got tired of being a sardine and began taking the California Cable Car to and from work. Where the 38 (and 1 California) were sad, claustrophobic tin cans, the cable car was a joy to ride daily; trundling up and down the hills, in and out of morning fog, the wood carriage groaned with every start and stop.
Even back then, Geary needed a dedicated transit right of way – namely a subway (be it light or heavy rail). San Francisco being San Francisco, nothing moves quickly. So nearly a decade later, the problem persists.