Tourists and locals hoping to ride a cable car along Hyde Street on Wednesday afternoon were instead offered a discount and bundled onto a shuttle bus after an alarm warned workers that a cable had been damaged and needed to be repaired.
“Many of the passengers on that line are undoubtedly tourists, as it goes to Fisherman’s Wharf,” Municipal Transportation Agency spokeswoman Kristen Holland said. “There would be a loss of revenue, but our priority in this case would be to get our customers to their destinations.”
Riders were also told to try a different line. Angela Jackson of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau said visitors are affected when a cable car goes down. “But the wonderful thing about cable cars,” she said, “is that we have many different lines.”
The cable car is expected to operate normally today. Around 9,000 trips are taken every day on the Powell and Hyde streets line, according to Holland.
