Cable Car Restoration To Shut California Street Line For 6 Months

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- A portion of one of San Francisco's most popular tourist attractions will be shut down for six months, beginning in January.

San Francisco's cable car system is over 130 years old and is due for the biggest restoration in 25 years.

The last major retrofit was back in the early 1980's, when the entire system was shutdown for two years.

KCBS' Barbara Taylor Reports:

Now, the City is embarking on a $20 million project to replace components of the California Street Line. Municipal Transportation Agency Executive Director Nathaniel Ford said the work will halt service on that line for six months.

"It gets to a certain point that we really need to shut the system down, to do the heavy lifting and hard work that needs to be done to totally overhaul the system," he said.

Ford said because the system is unique, the parts needed are not readily available.

"You can't just go down the street and purchase a cable car," he said. "A great deal of this work is hand-fabricated components that are one-of-a-kind in the world."

Buses will replace the California Street cable cars during the repair work and the street will be reduced to one lane in each direction during construction.

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