The B was a bus service operated by

AC Transit AC Transit is the main Public transport bus service, bus transit operator in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, California. AC Transit is the third largest bus operator in California, serving the western portions of Alameda and C ...

in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

. It is one of the operator's many transbay routes, which are intended to provide riders a long-distance service across the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...

between the

East Bay The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Wi ...

and

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. It specifically served

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

's Grand Avenue corridor to the Grand Lake and Trestle Glen neighborhoods. The service was descendant of a

Key System The Key System (or Key Route) was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area ...

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

and ferry line that operated prior to the formation of AC Transit. The line was suspended in response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

History

Part of the Key System's initial plans involved a line into Oakland, and to see that through the company acquired franchises in 1906 for local lines in town, including one on 22nd Street. Construction of the line was made difficult by, swampy landscape and the 1906 earthquake. The 22nd Street line opened for service on May 16, 1906, with full train-ferry service. Rebuilt "Lehigh" interurban cars initially used on the Key's Piedmont Line were utilized for the service. The line was so busy that it necessitated the construction of a new

interlocking tower On a rail transport system, signalling control is the process by which control is exercised over train movements by way of railway signals and block systems to ensure that trains operate safely, over the correct route and to the proper timeta ...

at Oakland Junction (later Emeryville Junction), where it split from the main line to Berkeley. The

Key Route Inn The Key Route Inn was a major hotel in Oakland, California in the early decades of the 20th century. It was constructed by the Realty Syndicate of Francis "Borax" Smith and Frank C. Havens, a subsidiary of which was the Key System, Key Route tran ...

opened as the new Oakland terminal at Broadway in 1907 — it was another piece of Francis Marion "Borax" Smith's real estate and traction empire. Key Route Inn 1912 postcard

In 1919, the line was extended out Grand and Lakeshore to Wesley Way in anticipation of real estate development in the Trestle Glen and Indian Gulch areas. It was further extended through a private right-of-way to Underhills Road on November 8, 1920. For the first year of service,

trolley wire The Sydney Tramway Museum, operated by the South Pacific Electric Railway Co-operative Society, is Australia's oldest tramway museum and the largest in the southern hemisphere. It is located at Loftus in the southern suburbs of Sydney. History ...

on this section of the line was strung from trees. Real estate developers would go on to include in their subdivisions a series of walking paths and stairways to provide access to trains. Cars began running across the

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, commonly referred to as the Bay Bridge, is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 in California, Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco an ...

to the

Transbay Terminal The San Francisco Transbay Terminal was a transportation complex in San Francisco, California, United States, roughly in the center of the rectangle bounded north–south by Mission Street and Howard Street, and east–west by Beale Street an ...

upon the facility's opening in 1939. The Key System adopted letter designations for its transbay routes at this time, with the Trestle Glen Line designated as route B. Rail service ended after April 20, 1958, and motor coaches began operating on the line.

Public ownership

AC Transit took over operation of the Key System's assets in October 1960. Express trips began utilizing the

MacArthur Freeway MacArthur or Macarthur may refer to: Arts and media * INSS MacArthur, a fictional starship featured in the science fiction novel ''The Mote in God's Eye'' * ''MacArthur'' (1977 film), a movie biography of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur * ' ...

starting on May 16, 1962. The line would be rerouted to serve the

Oakland Army Base The Oakland Army Base, also known as the Oakland Army Terminal, is a decommissioned United States Army base in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. The base was located at the Port of Oakland on Maritime Street just south of the eastern entra ...

between 1963 and 1976. Service was discontinued on September 14, 1986, by which time it was referred to as the B-2 Line. By 1998, transbay service to the Trestle Glen neighborhood had been reestablished as the BX. Buses ceased serving the Transbay Terminal on August 7, 2010, and the San Francisco terminus was moved to the Temporary Transbay Terminal. The B line began running to the

Salesforce Transit Center The Salesforce Transit Center, also known as the Transbay Transit Center, is a transit center in downtown San Francisco. It serves as the primary bus terminal for the San Francisco Bay Area, and is proposed as a possible future rail terminal. ...

on August 12, 2018. The service was suspended in 2020 amid the

References

Bibliography

* * * {{refend

External links

B
— via AC Transit 1906 establishments in California 2020 disestablishments in California Railway lines opened in 1906 Railway lines closed in 1958 Public transportation in Alameda County, California Transportation in Oakland, California Bus routes in San Francisco AC Transit bus routes