Would someone be able to give me a suggestion on how to get from one point to another in San Francisco? I guess I could take a cab but wondered about the cable cars, etc. I got the directions from Mapquest but don’t think I want to walk a mile. Do the cable cars run on Sunday mornings?
I would be going from the Harbor Court Hotel (165 Steuart St.) to Glide Memorial United Methodist Church (330 Ellis Street).
I’m going to be in SF for 4-5 days just for fun–my husband has a business trip.
I’m no expert on this, but when I was in SF, I made use of the streetcars that went along Market Street to the Wharves. I think they would come within a few blocks of your destination at both ends, making your trip quite a bit shorter. It looks like they run on Sunday mornings, too. Look here.
Try a Cable Car for sight seeing. For getting around use MUNI.
Cabs are an option but scarce in SF.
There’s a nice trip planner here. I plugged those addresses into it and it suggested taking the #14 bus from the Ferry Building. The fare is $1.25. Exact change is needed.
It’s a nice flat walk. Give it a try.
Thanks everyone!
Whenever I’m in San Francisco, I buy either a 3-day or a 7-day passport, depending on the amount of time I’m staying there. These are good for unlimited rides on MUNI as well as the cable cars. Unless you plan on driving yourself, which I don’t recommend, parking can be a real hassle, or using cabs, you’ll probably be using the public transportation a lot in SF. These passports will pay for themselves in a couple of days. Have fun there, it’s a great city. 
They’ve got one of the best public transit systems in the country. Buses, trains, and trams run everywhere and all the time. You should rarely have to wait more than 15 minutes unless you’re out in the boonies somewhere.
I usually find walking is the easiest way. Traffic can be awful and the city is teensy. Of course, I have a passion for walking that I have discovered most people do not share. Obviously essvee is joking about the “nice, flat walk” but I promise if you wear good walking shoes the hills probably won’t kill you. MUNI is also useful.
Never take a cable car if you’re actually trying to get somewhere. They are for tourism purposes only. (I’m a native San Franciscan and I’ve ridden a cable car exactly once, when my cousin was in town visiting.)
I usually drive when I’m in San Francisco, but everyone tells me to just use mass transit instead. My only problem with that is keeping track of all the changes between the subway and the MUNI and the cablecars and whatnot – at least with a car, I can just point myself in the intended direction and go.
Hope you have a wonderful visit to SF, Lilith Fair!
As others have said, it’s a great city for public transit. Particularly if you’re going to be exploring on your own while your husband is working. Some thoughts:
[ul]
[li]Pick up a MUNI transit map for $2 at the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market. If you’re going to be exploring the city it’s a useful thing to have. An online version is here (warning:large PDF file), but the hard-copy map is better when you’re out and about.[/li].
[li]I’ll strongly second bclouse’s recommendation of the 3-day ($15) or 7-day ($20) MUNI passport, which includes unlimited rides on cable cars (usually $3 per ride) as well as regular buses, streetcars, and light rail. The best tourist bargain in SF![/li].
[li]For the particular case of your OP (i.e. Harbor Court Hotel to Glide Memorial on a Sunday morning) I’d actually recommend walking four easy blocks to the Transbay Terminal at Mission & Fremont, then taking the “38-Geary” (a bus every 5 or 6 minutes even on a Sunday morning) to Geary and Taylor (about 8 minutes travel time on the bus), then walk two blocks down Taylor to Ellis, and Glide Memorial’s right there on the corner. The advantage of this over the #14 (Dewey Finn’s post, #4 above) is that the #38 lets you off two blocks uphill from your destination, whereas the #14 puts you six blocks from Glide at the bottom of the hill.[/li].
[li]Harbor Court Hotel to Glide Memorial is about 1.7 miles, with about 50 ft of climb overall – it’s a very gentle slope. Still, maybe more than you are happy doing on a Sunday morning on your way to church! A nice walk back, however.[/li].
[li]The Sunday morning services at Glide are at 9am and 11am, and they get really packed (that’s part of the excitement), so plan to get there at least 30 mins early. That’s what they recommend on their website, at least.[/li].
[li]You can get out to the Pacific Ocean in a single ride using either the #38-Geary bus (this can take a while when traffic is bad), or the L-Taravel or N-Judah MUNI metro (i.e. light rail) trains from the Embarcadero station (two blocks from your hotel). The trains are faster as they go underground downtown and through tunnels on their way out West, then travel on surface streets out near the ocean. For example, the N-Judah will get you out to Ocean Beach in about 30-40 minutes.[/li].
[li]Ignore rjung and his car-lovin’ SoCal ways! 
By all means rent a car – if you really need to – to go on trips outside SF, but transit coverage within The City is excellent and you’ll see a lot more than you would driving around on your own.[/li].
[li]Please feel free to ask further questions; SF area Dopers will be only too happy to help you out. I use transit pretty much exclusively within SF (and when I lived on Russian Hill and Nob Hill I used cable cars on a daily basis to get places, unlike Kyla!).[/li][/ul]
Depends on what time on Sunday. Glide’s not in a particulary good neighborhood, but if it’s light and there are a few people around it’s no problem.
There isn’t really any cable car that would take you from your point A to point B.
You could take the 38 Geary as someone suggested, or you could walk a few blocks and take the 14 Mission (and then walk a few blocks on the destination end).
Contrary to what our friend from Oak-town said, there are lots of cabs in SF. It’s almost never a problem getting one downtown except maybe early Sunday morning (before 7 or 8 maybe) or if it’s raining hard. A cab would be maybe 7 to 9 dollars. Bus is $1.25.
Oh… nearly forgot… you could take a nice old-fashioned electric street car down Market street. That’s nice. Better (and certainly faster) than a cable car, I think. You’d have to walk about 3 blocks from your hotel, and then another 3 or 4 from the trolley to Glide. Also $1.25.
Have fun!!!
Actually, now that I think about it some more, the cab might cost more like 12 - 15 bucks (not as cheap as Manhattan, but waaaay cheaper than say Topeka).
My suggestion is the electric street car down Market street with a short walk on either end of the ride.
SF has a bunch of different old street cars from all around the world. It’s pretty neat-o.
Definately get the MUNI map. And the MUNI pass if you’re staying 3 or more days and will be sight-seeing.
I heard they’re raising the price to $5 a ride. Yeeow!
That’s what MUNI wants to happen, at least, but it still has to get past the Board of Supervisors and Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is against such a large fare increase.
SF residents who use MUNI frequently will probably use a monthly Fastpass (currently $45 for adults), which includes cable cars, so won’t feel the 60% increase from $3 to $5 per single cable car ride. Visitors to SF who are staying for a few days are better off using one of the 1-, 3-, or 7-day Passports, so the $5 fare would really only hurt the “let’s just ride the cable car once” tourist. Given how much a stay in SF costs per day, I’m not sure that it’s a terrible price to pay. Cable cars (at least the Powell/Hyde and Powell/Mason lines) run packed to the gills most of the time anyway. Perhaps they could implement a peak/offpeak fare system just for the cable cars, so that families on tighter budgets could still get to ride.