NOTE: You're not imagining things; I originally posted this review on September 3. Yelp mistakenly merged my two reviews in the original 8X-Bayshore Express listing. They have now been disentangled, and this is a review of the 8-Bayshore, no express.
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As the 8X-Bayshore Express was once useful to me for pushing off north from Market Street to a particular place even though I resisted it at first, so was the 8-Bayshore, but in the opposite direction, and in 2022, before the realignment of the T-Third.
What's all this poppycock, you ask? Probably poppycock.
I was excited to see the Black Heartthrobs at Hotel Utah (https://www.yelp.com/biz/hotel-utah-saloon-san-francisco?hrid=HV9LjwGqM6Yd_2bkqiZw5A&utm_campaign=www_review_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)) the night after seeing them at Winters Tavern (https://www.yelp.com/biz/winters-tavern-pacifica?hrid=tuBKGBX610maLyIr2Q672w&utm_campaign=www_review_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)), and I wouldn't have to drive this time!
But I'm always leery of SOMA even though SOMA's not as dangerous as some other places I'm not as leery of even though it is dangerous, so my SOMA-leeriness is actually perfectly calibrated, so I needed a quick way to get from Market Street down 4th Street to Hotel Utah without having to deal with any major skeeviness or disgustingess or physical danger. Google told me I should take the 8-Bayshore and get off at 4th and Harrison before walking under the freeway to Hotel Utah. What? There's no way--but it was Dave Benitez! So I did it.
And you know what? It was totally fine. If I still lived where I lived in 2022 before a fire destroyed my flat and wanted to see the Black Heartthrobs at Hotel Utah, I would do the same thing to get to Market Street, but I would then take the T-Third along its realigned route and exit at Fourth/Brannan Station and walk north. In fact, I thought about this on that very day after seeing the Black Heartthrobs at Hotel Utah; I was walking south on 4th Street (because I wanted to hit up the Safeway near the Caltrain station before taking the N-Judah all the way home), not the fire that I would have no way of predicting, but the fact that soon I could take the T-Third to Hotel Utah, because that station was under construction in fall 2022 when I walked past it.
That was my sole ride of the 8-Bayshore, but it is pretty useful. It's one of the few Muni buses that travels on the freeway--and for quite a distance, too--and because of that, if you live in the southeastern part of the city and want to get downtown quickly, it might be your fastest public-transit method (Caltrain might be faster, but its San Francisco stations are in some random places.) And it goes all the way to City College, but not in the way you would expect, so if you live in or near Sunnydale and attend City College, the 8 is your thing.It also gets you right across the street from the Cow Palace. Man, this really is a sneaky useful bus line!
One other cool (and possibly confusing) Muni oddity about this bus line is that because of the alternating one-way numbered streets in SOMA, it travels south on 4th Street but north on 3rd Street, but SOMA blocks being much larger than most San Francisco blocks, north of Market Street, the southbound 8 travels on Stockon Street, while the northbound 8 travels on Kearny Street. Keen-eyed San Franciscans know that Grant Avenue is between Stockton and Kearny Streets. Crazy, huh? So if you ever see an 8-Bayshore bus stop for a bus headed in the wrong direction near Union Square, you'll need to walk an additional block to find the 8 going in the opposite direction. read more