Riding San Francisco's Muni Metro K-Ingleside Line Balboa Park to West Portal

Riding public transit in San Francisco, California, USA

The K Ingleside is a light rail line of the Muni Metro system in San Francisco, California. It mainly serves the West Portal and Ingleside neighborhoods. The line opened on February 3, 1918, and was the first line to use the Twin Peaks Tunnel.
The outer terminal of the K Ingleside is at Balboa Park station, where it shares a terminal loop plus loading and unloading platforms with the J Church. The line runs in a dedicated median in Ocean Avenue as far as Ocean Avenue/CCSF Pedestrian Bridge station, then in mixed traffic to Junipero Serra and Ocean station. Surface stations are typically boarding islands located between the tracks and the outer traffic lanes. The line again has a short dedicated median on Junipero Serra Boulevard. It joins the M Ocean View at St. Francis Circle station, from where the lines run in mixed traffic to a junction with the L Taraval outside West Portal station. The K Ingleside runs through the Twin Peaks Tunnel and Market Street subway to its inner terminal at Embarcadero station.

The K Ingleside begins service at 5 a.m. on weekdays, 6 a.m. Saturdays and 8 a.m. Sundays, with the end of service occurring around 12:30 a.m. each night. Weekday daytime headways are 10 minutes. Weekend daytime headways are 12 minutes.

Service is provided by overnight Owl buses during the hours that rail service is not running. The L Owl serves the portion between West Portal and Embarcadero, and the 91 Owl serves the portion between Balboa Park and West Portal. The K Owl bus runs a limited number of trips during late nights and early mornings.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, on weekends, service is provided by K Ingleside Bus, which runs from 5 a.m. until the start of rail service. The bus line largely follows the rail line, but it uses surface streets to parallel sections where the rail line has dedicated rights-of-way.

Source: Wikipedia