A few years back while visiting San Francisco, I purchased a pass for public transportation that include the cablecars, the Muni and BART. From some fairky recent post here, it seems that the three day pass you can purchase does not include BART,has this changed or is this a different kind of pass?

Anybody?

Last I visited (last Fall), the three-day pass was for MUNI only. In fact, I've never known of a pass that included both MUNI and BART over the last several years. BART is a separate system. See www.bart.gov for "discount" tickets.

But, I'll check over on the AOL boards and let you know.

As far as I know, BART passes have always been seperate from the MUNI/Cable Car passes but I could be mistaken. I don't know of any BART/MUNI passes, but if they are available, I would be very interested.

There is a BART Plus ticket, which gives you a fixed amount of BART fare plus unlimited travel on MUNI and some other local bus lines. But it's probably more than you want -- it's good for half a month and the cheapest one gets you $15 on BART plus unlimited bus rides for 20-something dollars. Details on www.bart.gov.

Well, here's an example of one benefit of registration on Fodors.. a post about San Francisco that has been up for an entire day and a half that has not degenerated into fierce argument over the safety of the Union Square area. Very refreshing.

The BART plus ticket is very cool - I think it is definitely geared more toward commuters than tourists though.

The monthly MUNI fast pass ($35) includes BART within the City of San Francisco.

You can also get a BART Plus card, but as someone else already mentioned it's over $20. I could see going across the Bay ONCE on BART, I don't see it's usefulness unless the visitor is staying in SF but visiting friends & family who live in the East Bay.

Additionally, much as I love BART, the only reasons I can think of tourists having for BART within SF is a DIY tour of the murals near 24th/Mission St station, or to hit some of the restaurants/clubs near 16th/Mission. The airport is outside of SF city limits, so the visitor would still have to pay extra.

(my point being that visitors don't really NEED to have BART on their multi-day tranist card, it doesn't get you much).

What we bought was during October, about 4 or 5 years ago. We took the cablecar up to Market and either took the bus or the subway down Market. Is this subway not a part of BART?

Maybe, maybe not. Seriously, both BART and Muni Metro trolleys run underground along Market street as far as Van Ness (then they diverge). So you may well have been on MUNI.

MUNI? BART? this is all very confusing to me...
What is the difference between the two? From my impression MUNI was trolley cars and BART was the bus...
Could someone please clarify this for me?

Melissa, one way to explain the difference is to compare it to Paris and their Metro versus their RER. The Muni serves the city of San Francisco, while BART is the way to travel from the ciy to other parts of the bay area, i.e. Berkeley, Richmond, Fremont, Dublin, etc. While it is possible to use BART to get from point A to point B in the city, it is more used by commuters to get into and out of the city. Muni will get you everywhere you need to go IN the city. N'est pas?

More info available at www.transitinfo.org.

Merci, Spike.

Don, it's confusing for visitors - both MUNI and BART have underground subway. Most likely you remember taking underground MUNI lines J,K,L,M,N.