Get the URL of a section? Similar to this question: Output URL to section

Let's say we have a section with handle 'places' which defines its URL format as 'places/{slug}'—how do I get the link to the 'places' index page? The question above goes via the entries in that section but that just gets the url of the first entry in that section.
Here's what I did. You'll need to set sectionId first.

{% set thing = craft.sections.getSectionById(sectionId) %}
{{thing.getUrlFormat()|split('/')[0]}}