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About The Bay: Getting Ready For America's Cup Crowds

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) ---  America's Cup is sailing towards San Francisco Bay in a hurry. Although it's two years away, that's not a lot of time when it comes to urban planning, and San Francisco transportation officials are wondering how they can accommodate all those people coming to the city.

One idea being floated seems to be stuck treading water.

KCBS' Mike Sugerman Reports from his travels About the Bay:

Upwards of half a million people are predicted to be out on the San Francisco waterfront in a couple of years to watch the yacht races in America's Cup.

To move all those people, the National Park Service is hoping to expand the historic F line trolleys in San Francisco. There is an old railway tunnel under Fort Mason and the trains could possibly go all the way to the Great Meadow.

The F is a favorite line for tourists with about 40,000 people a day riding the trolleys.

Paul Rose, a spokesman for the Municipal Railway (Muni), said he would love to see the tracks extended, but there are two things that would need to happen.

"We have to identify funding and we have to make sure the environmental process goes through," Rose said.

With a $29 million price tag, some sort of private partnership would have to be struck, but no one has come forward yet, and getting an Environmental Impact Report in time for the trains to run in two years could be tricky.

Backers are still pushing the idea.

(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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