Read that again. A city bus — the same system that can't reliably get you from the Sunset to SoMa — used to take you to one of the most stunning coastal landscapes on the West Coast. For the price of a Muni fare.

The route was subsidized by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, meaning federal dollars covered the cost of getting San Franciscans without cars out to public lands that their tax dollars already pay for. That's the kind of government spending that actually makes sense: leveraging existing infrastructure to give people access to something they own.

And people loved it. As one local put it, "I used to put my bike on the front of the bus and take it off when the bus arrived at a higher part of Conzelman Road." Another SF resident was more direct: "It made getting to the beach so much easier without a car."

When Covid hit, the 76X got axed alongside other "non-essential" routes. Four years later, it still hasn't returned. Meanwhile, the Headlands remain one of the most car-dependent destinations in the Bay Area's federal parklands — an irony not lost on the city that never shuts up about climate goals and transit-first policy.

Here's the frustrating part: this wasn't some money pit. The feds were picking up the tab. The demand was clearly there. The route connected a car-free population to public land. It checked every box that transit planners and environmentalists claim to care about.

So what's the holdup? SFMTA has been busy pouring resources into flashy projects and pandemic-era bureaucratic inertia while a simple, beloved, federally subsidized weekend route gathers dust in the archives.

Bring back the 76X. It's one of the rare cases where the government was doing something right — efficiently, cheaply, and for the people who actually needed it. The fact that it's still gone tells you everything about how this city prioritizes.