Years before any bus line stretched across the City, many residents of the neighborhood rode the old Visitacion Valley streetcar, a 2.5 mile single-track line stretching from the corner of Geneva Avenue and Mission Street to the Six Mile House once located at what is now Bayshore Boulevard and Sunnydale Avenue.

Along the numberless line, which United Railroads commenced on Oct. 25, 1909 as an attraction to promote the sale of real estate in the Valley, streetcars ran through tall grass and up dirt roads, where several turnouts allowed one car to pass another.

From what is now Geneva Avenue, the track turned left at Schwerin Street and right at McDonald Avenue just beyond the county line before winding around to its eastern terminal.

Most unfortunate was an accident one early Saturday morning during World War I on July 13, 1918 when a streetcar overloaded with workers commuting eastbound to the shipyards lost its brakes on an incline before rounding the curve at Schwerin Street. It tipped over onto its side, killing eight passengers and injuring 70.

Streetcars on the Visitacion line operated for nearly 30 years before their final day on July 31, 1937. Service had to be suspended and the track removed after the center right-of-way cars had been operating on was needed to widen the former Wallbridge Street into an eastern extension of Geneva Avenue. On Aug. 1, patrons having once ridden the quaint cars found the 50 Crocker-Amazon bus operating in its place.

Valley residents traveling downtown could either catch the 16 Third-Kearny line at the Six Mile House through 1941, or the 25 San Bruno at the Five Mile House at San Bruno and Wilde avenues until late 1937. Like the Visitacion line, both had been part of the old Market Street Railway. After the private company's 1944 merger with the San Francisco Municipal Railway, the H Potrero was extended down San Bruno to Arleta Avenue for a short time after World War II before service was eventually replaced by busses.