Vol. I, No. 46 · San Francisco — Monday, October 5, 2026 · Price: ground sold separately

BY SOL BREGMAN, CONSULTING ACTUARY

The Valencia Street Hotel stood four stories tall on Valencia between 18th and 19th streets. On the morning of April 18, 1906, the earthquake turned the wet ground beneath it soft, and the hotel’s first three floors collapsed and sank. The Museum of the City of San Francisco’s account says up to 200 people were trapped inside. The same ground failure broke two major water mains under the street.

The state still maps that block as ground that can liquefy. The city’s earthquake office defines that as soft soil that “interacts with water below the surface and weakens” when shaken hard. San Francisco has done most of its building this century on ground like it. Of the 48,718 homes in new buildings permitted since 2001 and now finished, 28,780, or 59 percent, stand inside the state’s liquefaction zones. Three in four of those, 21,293, are in South of Market, Mission Bay, and the high-rise blocks of the Financial District and South Beach.

Those zones cover about a fifth of the city’s land, parks and the Presidio included. The count covers new buildings only, at the number of homes each permit approved; homes added to older buildings are not in it. The share also swings with a few big projects. From 2023 through 2025 it was 44 percent, 2,535 of 5,735 homes.

Building there is legal. The state started drawing these maps under a law passed after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It mapped this part of the city in 1997 and again in 2000. Before a city can issue a permit in a zone, the law requires a study of the soil under that lot. The study must find whether the hazard is really there and, if it is, how to cut the risk to an acceptable level, through the building’s design or work on the ground. Sellers in a zone must tell buyers. A zone means weak soil is likely, the state says, and one earthquake will not strike all of it evenly.

On the 700 block of Valencia, three five-story buildings have gone up since the map was drawn. 736 Valencia was finished in 2010 with eight homes. 700 Valencia, at the 18th Street corner, followed in 2012 with nine. 3500 19th Street, at the 19th Street corner, came in 2013 with 17. Under the state law, each needed its soil study first.

The older buildings got a different fix. San Francisco’s 2013 soft-story law covers wood-frame apartment buildings with five or more homes, built before 1978, that stand two or more stories over a weak ground floor. Those ground floors, opened up for garages or shops, are much weaker than the floors above. Owners must brace them against shaking. The law put buildings in mapped liquefaction zones in its last group, Tier IV, alongside buildings with ground-floor businesses. That group got the most time: seven years to finish the work, against four for the first group.

The two city blocks on either side of this stretch of Valencia run back to Guerrero and Mission streets. The city’s list names 22 such buildings on them, all inside the zone. It marks 19 finished and three not, but it has not been updated since July 31, 2025. This paper’s July 29 count of 262 holdouts citywide came from the same list. Across Valencia from 3500 19th Street, the list calls 793–797 Valencia non-compliant. That building closed out its retrofit permits in July 2020. A second, at 3475 18th Street, finished in September 2025. The third, 2230 Mission Street, applied in 2018 and got its permits in October 2024. They are still open.

In South of Market and Mission Bay, every new home in the permit file is inside a zone. On Treasure Island, 828 of 982 are. The buildings are big: the 28,780 homes inside the zones are in 318 buildings, and the 19,938 outside are spread across 1,686.

The best-known new tower on that ground is in the count. The Millennium Tower at 301 Mission Street, 58 stories with 420 homes, was finished in 2009 inside a zone. It has since sunk and tilted as it settled, with no earthquake involved. The zones map a different failure, one that comes with strong shaking.

The desk is confident about where each building stands. Every finished permit was tested at its addresses against the state’s current maps, and the answer is the same whichever address is used. The totals are softer. The state redrew its southern map in August 2021. Fourteen buildings counted inside that map, with 443 homes, were filed before then, so some may have been planned on ground the older map left out. The fifth-of-the-land figure is a grid estimate. The count says where the city built. It cannot say how any one building would fare.

The soft-story law was signed on April 18, 2013, at the city’s yearly memorial for the 1906 earthquake. That was 107 years to the day after the Valencia Street Hotel went into the ground.

From June through August the cable cars carried 756,171 riders, down from 1,057,830 a year earlier, while Muni’s other rail lines and its buses as a whole grew. A single ride cost $9 in July and August of both years. It goes to $12 on January 4.

BY INES CALLOWAY, TRANSIT DESK

San Francisco’s cable cars carried 756,171 riders this June, July and August, by the figures Muni reports to the federal government. Last summer they carried 1,057,830. The cars ran 7 percent fewer miles this summer, and riders fell 29 percent.

Muni’s other rail lines, and its buses taken together, gained riders over the same months. Muni Metro, the light-rail system, carried 17 percent more, after a 25 percent gain the summer before. The historic streetcars and the buses each rose 2 or 3 percent. The cable cars are the city’s best-known ride, and this year they are the only one of Muni’s rail lines losing riders. For two of those three months the price did not change: a single ride cost $9 in July and August of both years. In April, Muni’s board voted to raise it by a third in January.

The drop runs past the summer. From January through August, the cars carried 1.97 million riders, 12 percent fewer than in the same months of 2025 and 27 percent fewer than in 2024. Every month this year ran below the same month of 2024. Ridership stands at 53 percent of 2019’s, the lowest share of any Muni mode, just under the historic streetcars. Part of that gap is service, since the cars now run about a third fewer miles than in 2019.

The decline began long before the pandemic. The cable cars carried 8.8 million riders in 2002 and 5.5 million in 2019. In 2025 they carried 3.2 million. Reported service miles fell over those years too, though the way Muni counted them appears to change around 2010.

The price climbed along the way. A ride cost $7 from 2015 through 2019, $8 from January 2020, and has cost $9 since at least July 1, 2025. On April 21, the SFMTA board, which runs Muni, approved a two-year budget that raises the single ride to $12 on January 4, 2027. On January 3, 2028, the single ride ends. The only cable car ticket will then be an $18 “Cable Car Plus” pass, which also covers other Muni rides and lets two youths ride free with each paying adult. The agency says it faces a $307 million shortfall this fiscal year.

The ridership file cannot say why riders are leaving. The fare does not explain this summer’s drop: July fell furthest, by 35 percent, at the same $9 as the July before. Fewer visitors could be a reason, and this file does not count visitors. But the historic streetcars, whose F line runs to Fisherman’s Wharf, carried 3 percent more. That points to something about the cable cars themselves, which the file cannot name. Many riders board on day passes or monthly passes, which the figures include, so not every rider pays $9. Monthly figures in the file jump around, and some look rounded, so these comparisons use whole seasons. The drop is large and steady enough to be real. Its cause is a guess, and the desk holds it loosely.

Next summer will be the first at $12 a ride. The same federal count will show what that does.

ON THE CALENDAR

Ship it & Sip it: Software Factories Night. An evening on “software factories,” setups in which AI agents run a whole software project, from plan to release, often several at once. As of early Sunday, 667 people had registered, up from 3 when the desk’s calendar first saw the page on September 4, and the page lists no spots left. That is 664 sign-ups in a month for a free one-off evening with six hosts.

Monday, October 5, 6:00 PM · Corgi Cafe, Union Square · free · lu.ma/copilo-y6wx

From the desk’s calendar: public Luma pages, counts as of 1:52 AM, October 4. Tell the desk about the gathering it missed.

SOURCES & RECEIPTS

1. Valencia Street Hotel: Museum of the City of San Francisco, sfmuseum.org/1906/valhot.html, read October 5, 2026: “four-story,” “on Valencia between 18th and 19th street,” “collapsed with the earthquake as a result of liquefaction,” “the first three floors collapsed and sank,” “Up to 200 people were trapped,” “broke two major water mains along Valencia Street.”2. Zones: California Geological Survey, Seismic Hazard Zones, liquefaction layer (ArcGIS FeatureServer CGS_Liquefaction_Zones), queried October 5, 2026; 57 zone polygons fall in and around the city. The 700 block of Valencia is in the San Francisco North map, first released April 7, 1997, revised November 17, 2000; the San Francisco South map was revised August 17, 2021. Rules quoted from CGS, conservation.ca.gov/cgs/shma: the soil study must “determine whether a significant hazard exists at the site and, if so,” recommend “measures to reduce the risk to an acceptable level”; liquefaction is soil that fails “during strong ground shaking.” Homes: DBI Building Permits, DataSF i98e-djp9, new-construction permits filed January 1, 2001, or later and marked complete, each counted once (the file repeats a permit for every street address it covers): 48,718 homes approved, 28,780 in 318 buildings inside a zone, 19,938 in 1,686 outside. In buildings of 50 or more homes, 65 percent are inside. South of Market 9,891 inside, 0 outside; Mission Bay 7,420 and 0; Financial District/South Beach 3,982 and 2,860; Treasure Island 828 and 154. Finished 2023–2025: 2,535 of 5,735 inside. Placing each permit by its first address, by most of its addresses, or by any address gives the same totals. San Francisco South map (revised August 17, 2021; previous edition November 17, 2000): 14 permits with 443 homes inside it were filed before the revision. Millennium Tower: 301 Mission St, permit 200210239696, 420 homes, 58 stories, complete August 26, 2009, inside a zone; sinking and tilting, made public in 2016: Wikipedia, “301 Mission Street,” read October 5, 2026. Block 3588: 736 Valencia (permit 200602084114, complete 2010), 700 Valencia (200504140087, 2012), 3500 19th St (200605010369, 2013). Land: 6,716 of 34,715 grid points across the 41 DataSF Analysis Neighborhoods (j2bu-swwd) fall inside a zone, 19.3 percent. Queries in receipts.json.3. Soft-story law: City and County of San Francisco, Earthquake Safety Implementation Program, sfgov.org/sfc/esip/soft-story (signed April 18, 2013; criteria, including “two or more stories over a ‘soft’ or ‘weak’ story”; Tier IV includes “any building in a mapped liquefaction zone”; liquefaction definition). Deadlines: the signed ordinance, Building Code Table 34B-A, in years from 90 days after the law took effect June 17, 2013: work completed in 4 years for Tier I, 7 for Tier IV. List: DataSF Soft-Story Properties, beah-shgi, last updated July 31, 2025: 4,678 complete and 262 non-compliant citywide; 22 on blocks 3588 and 3589, all inside a zone, 19 marked complete. Marked non-compliant: 3476 19th St, the same parcel as 793–797 Valencia (DBI permits 201809140221 and 201809140222, complete July 10 and July 16, 2020); 3475 18th St (202109309562, complete September 22, 2025); 2230 Mission St (201809140331 and 201809140336, filed September 14, 2018, issued October 23, 2024, open).

2. National Transit Database, Complete Monthly Ridership (data.transportation.gov 8bui-9xvu), SFMTA (NTD ID 90015), queried October 5, 2026. Counts are unlinked passenger trips, each boarding counted once. Cable cars (mode CC), June–August: 1,057,830 (2025), 756,171 (2026); vehicle revenue miles 52,121 and 48,675; July alone 380,480 and 246,911. January–August: 3,738,719 (2019), 2,711,506 (2024), 2,241,105 (2025), 1,966,618 (2026); miles 193,379 (2019), 129,350 (2026). Full years: 8,822,100 (2002), 5,524,031 (2019), 3,227,000 (2025). June–August, 2025 to 2026: Muni Metro (LR) 8,933,621 to 10,442,765 (7,146,923 in 2024); historic streetcars (SR) 997,411 to 1,024,259 (F line to Fisherman’s Wharf: sfmta.com/routes/f-market-wharves); motor and trolley buses (MB, TB) 32,307,075 to 32,963,374. January–August as a share of 2019: cable cars 52.6%, streetcars 53.4%, Metro 79.3%, buses 82.6%.5. Fares: SFMTA, “Cable Car and Passport Fare Changes Beginning January 1,” December 6, 2019 ($7 to $8; unchanged since 2015); SFMTA, “Muni Fare Changes Effective July 1, 2025” ($9.00 cable car single ride); SFMTA fares page, read October 5, 2026 ($9); SFMTA press release, April 21, 2026, and “SFMTA Approved Budget FY 2026-27 and FY 2027-28” ($12 single ride effective January 4, 2027; $18 Cable Car Plus with two free youth; single ride ends January 3, 2028; $307 million shortfall in FY 2026-27).

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