Wouldn’t it be convenient if you could just walk a few blocks and get on a bus that would take you directly to the airport? That’s what city planners thought too in the 1970s and 1980s, when you could actually do just that. Picture below is of the intersection at Ellis and Taylor in 1982, which hosted an airport bus terminal after the previous one at Ellis and Mason was torn down to make way for the Hilton hotel. Today, the closest thing to an airport bus is probably the private shuttles that run to nearby hotels and hostels, or maybe Powell Street BART. You can learn more about the intersection, and history of surrounding blocks, at our favorite local blog Up From the Deep written by our friend Mark.
Source: San Francisco History Center, S.F. Public Library. Photo by Larry Moon
5 Comments until now
Thanks for the hat tip, kids. When I first arrived in SF in September 1968, it was at the Airporter Terminal in the good ol’ Tenderloin. It was love at first sight.
BART seems fine to me.
I always take the BART and love it (esp when I go to the international terminal), but if you don’t live close to it and have a big suitcase I imagine it’s not great.
How about the SamTrans KX. It Picks up at 7th and Mission dummy.
BART to United terminal 3 is fine, too. Don’t get conned into taking the airtram thing. Just walk through the international terminal. Much faster than waiting around for the stupid train.