J Church

J Church is a light rail line in the Muni Metro system, and is operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway.
Operation
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the J Church begins service at 5 a.m. on weekdays, 6 a.m. Saturdays and 8 a.m. Sundays and continues until 12:15 a.m. every night. Daytime headways are every 10 minutes, and 12 minutes on weekends.
Different from the other Muni Metro lines, there is not a corresponding overnight Owl bus during the hours that rail service is not running.
History
Construction
Track work on the J Church line was largely completed in 1916. The service from Church and 30th Street station to Market Street and Van Ness Avenue started on August 11, 1917. Service went further along Van Ness Avenue to Pine Street on August 29, 1917; service to Pine Street was discontinued on May 31, 1918, with service along Market Street to the Ferry Building the next day. The new Transbay Terminal became the inner terminus for every other streetcar line on January 15, 1939, with all service going there after January 1, 1941.
Light rail operation
As part of the creation of the Muni Metro system, streetcar operation switched to light rail operation on June 17th, 1981 - the last line to do so. While many streetcar lines switched to bus lines after World War II, the J Church avoided this due to the private right-of-way it uses between 18th Street and 22nd Street.
Extension to Balboa Park
The outer end of the line was originally at Church and 30th Streets. It was where streetcars used a triangle of railroad tracks to turn back. Studies to further the line from its southern terminus had been made in the 1920s and 1970's. In 1990-91, the tracks were extended to the Balboa Park BART station and the Metro Center (Muni light-rail base), giving J-line cars a much shorter connection to the yard than before. The extension opened on August 31, 1991. But the new section was used only by light rail cars starting or ending their runs; all-day J-line service was not use the new tracks until June 19, 1993.
Later changes
The line was temporarily through-routed with the surface section of the K Ingleside line from June 25 to August 24, 2018, due to the Twin Peaks Tunnel shutdown.
COVID-19 pandemic
On March 30, 2020, Muni Metro service was replaced with buses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rail service returned on August 22, 2020, with the routes reconfigured to improve reliability in the subway. J Church service ran only on the surface. The J terminated at the inbound platform on Church Street at Market Street, requiring passengers to transfer between the J and subway trains. A mini-high platform was to be constructed on the inbound platform at Church and Duboce, and an outbound mini-high platform will be built on Church Street south of Market Street, which was to allow the J to be re-extended slightly to Duboce Street (with additional transfer to the N Judah) in October 2020. The forced transfer at Church station -- which required J Church riders to cross two streets and use two elevators to transfer -- was criticized by disability advocates and others.
Rail service was re-replaced with buses on August 25 due to some issues. J Church service on the surface-only Balboa Park-Church and Duboce routing resumed on December 19, 2020, while full service to Embarcadero station was put back on February 19, 2022.
Station listing
Some stops have concrete boarding islands, while others require passengers to board from the street. Some stops have raised platforms for accessibility. While most other lines in the rail system can be run in two-car configurations, the J line is almost always run with a single car in order to provide enough space for the stops in the right-of-way, which are not long enough to have two light rail cars with open doors at the same time.
References
Muni Metro lines