The Five Greens of Happiness

O grasshopper, the five greens of happiness are a wonder to behold when leaving Embarcadero Building Three at Davis and Sacramento on the 1 California! I was blessed with a leaving time of 4:58 p.m. and I could make it to Kearny at the foot of Chinatown before the masses descended from the downtown towers at 5 p.m. Begin my turn at 4:57 p.m., and I am gaining extra green lights, and five more blocks!

My follower turned in to a major crybaby about leaving time, believing I was intentionally making his life hell by leaving early. My escape velocity with a leaving time only four minutes ahead of his 5:02 p.m., made a huge difference in passenger load. If I left one minute early, as I can do without getting in trouble, this made the difference in whether or not I could make the five greens of happiness: green lights at Davis, Front, Battery, Sansome, and Montgomery. If I had less than six people at Montgomery, I could make Kearny just as this light too, would turn green. Because I reached Montgomery at 5:04 p.m. or as late as 5:06 p.m., the number of intenders would change, and thus reduce predictability of a green at Kearny. Hallelujah, Mother of Pearl, this difference was not too fretful because I had passed the area of tall buildings on the flats.

The downtown area is built on the carcasses of old wooden vessels of all types. Boats were sunk and the bay was filled in to create downtown as it now stands. Montgomery Street was on the old shoreline and you can detect this subtle difference as the land begins to rise from this point outbound. Chinatown’s Portsmouth Square is on the old shoreline. This is where the shot heard round the world was made my US Army General Sheridan, There’s Gold in them hills! This gold rush has been replaced by the daily outbound transit peak period rush away from work downtown!

All the small, old, brick turn of century buildings above Montgomery, are of a different era than the skyscrapers that shoot skyward from Montgomery all the way down to the Ferry Plaza. Commercial Alley is the last reminder of where the dock extended all the way out to where Ferry Plaza now stands. If you stand on Kearny at Commercial, and look to the new shoreline, you will see the first steel reinforced building of our city; and the clock tower atop the Ferry Building. Saving this view was intentional when designing the Embarcadero office complex.

ed. note: Currently, the Ferry Building is wrapped in a large scaffolding and “blanket.” Read John King, SF Chronicle story Feb 21, 2023 updated Feb 23, 2023 and visit:

https://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=aaplw&p=the+ferry+building+under+construction

The five Embarcadero buildings architects’ genius included an open walkway between the towers, from Chinatown to Justin Herman Plaza, so the historic walkway remains. Designed in the mid-to- late 1960’s, these five buildings proudly display their outlines with white Christmas lights during the holidays. They appear fresh and modern as any other newer building in town. The plaza tile is kept immaculate and looks like it was laid last year, even though this complex is now over forty years old.

Imitating computer chips or boards stacked vertically together in parallel staggered fashion, they presaged San Francisco’s tech importance with a style and design that fits in perfectly today. You can look down Commercial from Chinatown and see the Ferry Building just as you can see it when you look down Market Street from the Union Square area. Indeed, one of the joys of being a transit operator is the breathtaking beauty that appears in many places on many lines.

On the 1 California, seeing sunrise at Jones and Clay on Nob Hill as the street plunges to the old shoreline, energizes a gratitude of living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. My other favorite vistas on Muni are seeing Alcatraz at Leavenworth on the 45 Union. Alignment of the penitentiary view with Leavenworth Street may be a coincidence hard to ignore from an inmate’s view! Cresting Lone Mountain inbound on the 5 Fulton at the University of San Francisco at sunrise is also breathtaking. Saint Ignatius’ twin towers stand majestic to be seen for miles around. The crosstown routes such as the 24 Divisadero have many such vistas: between Waller and Duboce as Castro Street becomes Divisadero, at Duncan and Noe, and at Jackson and Pierce. Atop Liberty Hill, the Castro can be seen inbound after crossing 22nd Street. The 22 Fillmore has a great panorama of the downtown skyline crossing 280 Freeway at Pennsylvania and 18th entering Dogpatch from Potrero Hill outbound. The alignment of the Sacred Heart tower on Fell is first glimpsed when passing Jackson and Fillmore after passing Mrs. Doubtfire’s house on Steiner at Broadway. There are stunning views everywhere! With 43 hills over 49 square miles, a vista is never too far away.

Choosing a run on the 1 California in the afternoon with the Five Greens of Happiness is a blessing to behold and cemented my mastery of the Presidio Barn runs. For me, choosing the 30 Stockton in the morning and the 1 California in the afternoon was the smart choice. Doing the 1 in the morning and the 30 in the afternoon was not my cup of tea. Pass ups on the 1 and traffic on Third Street along with the trash trucks blocking a lane in Chinatown after 6 p.m. made for a long day.

All the produce refuse is collected on the last day shift trip on the 30 Stockton, and this can be a drag after a long 12 hour range. I timed this down to the minute when leaving Cal Train on Townsend. I had to leave on time not later than 41 minutes after the hour if I was to make Sacramento outbound before the first trash truck turned on to Stockton from Grant Street at 6:10 p.m. I am writing this chapter ten years after I did this run, and I still recall the time down to the minute! Chinatown is reduced to one lane if two opposing trash trucks are nearby and this can be intense. I quickly learned to put any stress I may encounter at the beginning of the shift such that as time wore on in the shift, things would get easier. Finding the Five Greens of Happiness was the final confirmation I had found Zen while driving a trolley!

dao, (Chinese: “way,” “road,” “path,” “course,” “speech,” or “method”) Wade-Giles romanization tao, the fundamental concept of Chinese philosophy. Articulated in the classical thought of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods of the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE), dao exerted considerable influence over subsequent intellectualdevelopments in China.

Another influential interpretation of dao conceives of it as the particular “way” of a thing or class of things. As the universe has its own natural way of emerging and acting, so too does each thing or class of things have its own manner of development. The dao of each thing is incorporated into and implicated within the Cosmic Dao, and it flourishes or stagnates depending upon the degree to which it harmonizes with or strays from the Dao. Humanity flourishes when the human way (rendao) attunes itself to the Cosmic Dao. Similarly, government flourishes when the kingly dao (wangdao) accords with nature’s way.

The symbol above is closely linked to the definition of Tao / (Dao) romanticized whereby crisis and opportunity are one and the same.

Stefon, Matt. “dao”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Apr. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/dao. Accessed 1 June 2023.