What street do the cable cars run up and down? Do they compete with traffic? From the (old) TV ads, it sure looked just as steep…
Never been to San Fran…and I never been to Spain…
- Jinx
Try DE, the sea-level state!
…highest peak is like 100 ft, or so? I mean, hell, even the drainage runs uphill just to seek sea level! (Well, ok, maybe not…) We’re talking 99% flat, here…
- Jinx
Oklahoma certainly isn’t. Travelling north from Dallas (which is flat), things get really hilly around the border. I think there are even some small mountains, as I remember parking at some site and being able to see for a long distance. The hills don’t really continue for long though.
There is flat and there is elevation. Did you look at the pictures in your links for KS and OK? Sure they were at 4,000+ ft elevevation, but they were also featureless plains, no hills, no rises, just flatness all around. I guess it is a difference of opinion regarding the definition of the word flat, and the perspective of where that viewer is from.
To a central Iowa dweller such as myself, the Loess hills at 200 ft high are a distinctive change in the local topography. To someone from western Colorado, they look like minor speed bumps. 
There are three cable car lines:[ul]
[li]California Street - just a straight shot from the Financial District to Polk Gulch / Van Ness via Nob Hill.[/li][li]Powell / Hyde - Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf (Aquatic Park, i.e. the classy part) via Nob and Russian Hills. This stops at the top of the Lombard Street “twisty block”.[/li][li]Powell / Mason - Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf (tacky part) via Nob Hill & the edges of Russian Hill and North Beach.[/li][/ul]So, most trackage is along California, Hyde, Powell, and Mason Sts, with shorter runs on Jackson and Washington Sts (between Powell and Hyde), and along Columbus Ave and Taylor St at the northern end of the Powell/Mason line.
Yes - and they usually win in a collison since they’re pretty heavy. For most of the lengths of the runs, the track-bed is off-limits to cars, but there’s a risk of collision at every intersection. In general, unless they are facing a red stoplight, cable cars have priority in all cases and you mess with them at your peril.
The Hyde Street Hill between Lombard St and Aquatic Park is very long and steep, and rather photogenic. Powell St is also pretty steep. Still, they’re not quite the steepest hills in San Francisco; see this parallel thread for further discussion.
I used to live on Washington between Jones and Taylor (Nob Hill). The cable-car gripmen would often release the cable (which runs at a constant 9.5 mph) at the top of the block, picking up speed as they freewheeled down the hill, and I’d hear the WHEEEEEE! of the passengers as they rode on down…