Deputy Attorney General Christine Sproul recently sent a letter to the California High-Speed Rail Authority noting “the Transbay Terminal must be part of the high speed rail system.”
And Federal officials have given San Francisco “the green light…to enter the final design stage of the $1.6 billion Central Subway project.”
Unfortunately Sproul’s letter doesn’t resolve the uncertainty as to exactly where said terminal must be built (uncertainty which the TJPA fears could jeopardize federal stimulus funds), and Muni must meet a few challenges (including $164 million in non-federal funding) before being granted additional Federal dollars for the Subway.
UPDATE: In related news, a tipster notes the executive director of the California High Speed Rail Authority is steping down in March.
∙ State ruling fails to clear terminal location [SFGate]
∙ While San Francisco Might Get High-Speed Rail, Will The Transbay? [SocketSite]
∙ Central Subway gets green light [SFGate]
∙ San Francisco’s Central Subway: Make That 2018 And An Extra $278M [SocketSite]
∙ High Speed Rail Scoop: Build On Beale, Demolish The Watermark [SocketSite]
∙ High-speed rail agency pursues new director [SFGate]
This comes up every time it’s mentioned, but the central subway is a solution to a problem that doesn’t need solving.
Are they trying to peel off caltrain traffic and send it directly on a dedicated line? What the heck is the damn point of this new subway line?
Ugh. So tired of hearing people say the Central Subway doesn’t solve a problem. Try riding the 30 or 45 at rush hour every day for a week without wanting to kill yourself. If you’ve never done it: don’t complain.
“What the heck is the damn point of this new subway line?”
To appease Chinatown for the loss of the Embarcadero Freeway?
This subway is poorly planned and could have been better. I don’t understand the exact path it’s on (e.g. it will cross traffic from Caltrain before going underground), I don’t understand why it’s being dug so deep, I don’t understand why it’s not better connected to Powell or Montgomery stations (although the connection compares to other cities’ subways), I don’t understand why there will be so few cars per train, and I don’t understand why it’s not going further (especially if they’re taking the tunnel boring machines out on Columbus).
Also, Geary needs a project more than this.
@anonyman
Replacing a bus with a train doesn’t mean it will be less crowded. Adding a train will probably attract more riders, in fact, so unless they plan to run trains at a high frequency, it’ll probably be just as crowded.
I’ve ridden the T for a week from one side of downtown through to the other as a commute for a week and it’s just as bad as being crammed into the 30. Of course, you don’t have to spend more than 1.5 billion to be crammed into the 30.
UPDATE: In related news, a tipster notes the executive director of the California High Speed Rail Authority is steping down in March.
rr-
I call BS, the T is never even remotely as crowded at its absolute worst as the 30 is every single day.
And oh noez, more people might take transit if we actually improve capacity!! Better not build it!
Many in Chinatown have consistently given powerful support to the Central Subway idea. If you get enough people insisting on something then eventually the political system moves. Standing in the way is usually possible, but requires a similar mobilization. The Central Subway plan also works well with the rail line along Third that will serve Mission Bay and much future development in Hunters Point and Bayview.
The engineering of the path for the rails into the Transbay has been going on for a while, so most of the critical factors are known. Remaining questions have to do with exactly how big the tunnel box will be and what configuration will be used to enable all the expected traffic. The rest is posturing.
So is there no long range underground rail plan for the western side of the city? You would think a rail line serving the majority of the residential property tax paying population, as well as the museums of Golden Gate Park and on to Ocean Beach would be a top priority.
“majority of the residential property tax paying population”
Easy, there. It’s unclear who the majority of the residential property tax paying population is because of Prop 13. For example, have you seen the current tax value of 2507 Pacific (http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/2507-Pacific-Ave-94115/home/565878)? There are people in BMR housing in SF paying quite a bit more than that in property tax.
You’re probably right, but I’d be more careful in making the assertion without more information.
In any case, I always assumed that BART down Geary would end in Daly City.
anonyman, much of the overcrowding for the 30 is on intra-Chinatown/North Beach trips, which the CS will do nothing to help.
…as well as the museums of Golden Gate Park and on to Ocean Beach would be a top priority
The N Judah serves those places already.
Regardless, I’d agree that a Geary St subway or lightrail would be put to excellent use by the residents of the Richmond.
You just know the Central Subway won’t stop in Chinatown but will swing northwest with a stop at Fisherman’s Wharf with the final destination at the new Starfleet Academy in the Presidio.
You just know the Central Subway won’t stop in Chinatown but will swing northwest with a stop at Fisherman’s Wharf with the final destination at the new Starfleet Academy in the Presidio.
if that were the case, i don’t think anybody would be complaining. a swing up columbus to north point and then down lombard to the presido would actually make a lot of sense. instead, we have a train that goes about as far as one can walk. i may be exaggerating a bit, but really, such a short run isn’t worth taking unless you’re going to be on it for the entire way.
“intra-Chinatown trips”?
The 30 is crowded with people going from North Beach/Chinatown to the BART station at Market Street. The bus is slow because of people getting on (and occasionally off) the bus along Stockton, but it is not the case that the bus is crowded because of “intra-Chinatown trips”.
I take this route every day, twice a day. It’s no joke that it’s congested and beyond unpleasant, though I’ve heard both Kathy Griffin and Margaret Cho include jokes about the 30 in their routines (and, of course, there’s the famous YouTube video of the fight…).
I don’t know if the proposed subway will address the problem or not, but that it’s a problem is clear to anyone who has ever taken the 30 or 45 between 7:30 AM and 10:00 AM. I would love to be able to take the underground to Caltrain, and would welcome more riders on a more efficient system unencumbered by traffic.
We need more transit options on this route AND the Geary subway. The latter was blocked for many reasons, among them the fact that residents on some sections of Geary screamed that they’d lose parking during construction.
The Geary subway would of course cost much more and we are scrambling to come up with the relatively modest cost for this subway.
The Geary line also has a small but vocal minority that fights every attempt to improve Geary street, witness the attempts by the grandiosely named “Greater Geary Boulavard Merchants and Property Owners Association” to stop the BRT. As far as I can tell, this group is only one guy, but he spends a lot of money and time on making slick web sites.
I’ve taken the 30 several times, usually from Market to North Beach and never found it much more crowded than the 21, T and N lines are on a regular basis, or even more crowded than the F is trying to get out of fisherman’s wharf.
I think getting more people to ride transit it a better idea, but the idea that this will make it less congested is bogus.
If I were a chinatown business owner, I would not stop with the line as planned. Are there any tourists who are now going to visit because the line is now there who wouldn’t before? How many new people are you going to encourage to come on a subway line that doesn’t even share stations with the existing lines?
How many people are going to take it from one end to the other? This is a line designed to take people to/from market. The Caltrain side is already well covered, with the N and T lines (albeit indirectly) as well as several bus lines.
So, we’re basically building it to cover the market to china town section, at no net gain, in my opinion. This is a waste of money. If you are going to spend nearly $2 billion, build a line that actually goes where people want to go (which is not from caltrain to china town).
I wouldn’t ride this line or a Geary line, but the Geary line makes more sense to me, since it would cover a much larger section of town, be long enough to serve intra-route trips, and put a train in a section of town that is far from the rest of the MUNI train lines. I wouldn’t mind seeing a train run from Market east to the water front through the mission either.
At the very least, the new chinatown line should intersect with the existing underground stations. It’s a complete joke otherwise.
Anyone happen to know how much money and time needs to be spent by the California High-Speed Rail Authority before they figure out that it would be absolutely stupid to try to fight San Francisco in order to build a second train station one block east of the Transbay Transit Center? I’m a supporter of high-speed rail, but I gotta wonder why they’re so willing to piss off the owners of 424 condos in Rincon Hill and South Beach pursuing the study of an option almost everyone agrees will never happen (Beale Street Alternative).
This line will have an underground walkway to the Powell St lines. What more do you want rr?
“This line will have an underground walkway to the Powell St lines.”
NVJ has it right. The connection between Union Square station (T-Third) and Powell St. station (other Muni Metro + BART) will be comparable to many other subway transfers in other cities. Ever been on the London Underground (e.g. King’s Cross St. Pancras) or the NY Subway (e.g. Times Sq/42nd St station)? It would be nice if as much of the underground path as possible is under fare control to keep out the hobos.
Another one I thought of is Bank station on the London Underground. Some of the transfers are really far apart there too.
Or try the transfer from Metro 1 to RER-B at Chatelet station in Paris. That walk must be at least a quarter mile and 3 flights of stairs.
I don’t visit Paris enough to remember so I get fooled by that one nearly every time on the way out to the airport, laden with luggage.
Ugh.
It would be nice to avoid such long underground transfers if possible. I have a hunch that ADA requirements will ensure that any transfer is not too strenuous.
Now just a minute, don’t forget that Chatelet has about five different metro lines and at least three RER lines(I think),so no wonder it is large and confusing. That sprawling station is partly a result of various lines running in all different directions which will hardly be the case with Transbay. (I have been lost there myself, but all is forgiven for you ARE in Paris after all!)
I was just looking at the historic images and maps on the Transbay site, and this region actually had a better organized and functioning urban rail and streetcar transit system 60 years ago than we have today. What a shame so much was destroyed in the past.