J Church

J Church is a light rail line in the Muni Metro system, and is operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway.
Operation.
J Church begins service at 5 a.m. 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.
History.
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 in 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 track 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.