[BTinSF]

http://www.socketsite.com/SF%20Central%20Subway%20Proposed%20Map.gif

San Francisco’s Central Subway project received final environmental clearance last week while Muni’s Board of Directors approved the management contract. Groundbreaking in 2010, and the first ride in 2016, if all goes as planned.
Source: http://www.socketsite.com/

Needed (are you listening Barack?, Nancy?): Some federal $$$

[alexjon]

Soooo... about Geary now...

I know they're saying "this is the first part of a subway for Geary" but you usually appropriate funds for studies on the remaining parts. I can't think of any major project that didn't include funding for studying expansions, even when they were infeasible.

Is there money to have a study by 2016? Or is that an afterthought?

[Cirrus]

I love the idea of a crosstown subway in SF, especially along Geary, but I recall reading somewhere that the platforms will only be long enough for 2-car trains. Is that true?

[alexjon]

I think that could be all you need if it's completely underground. Headways would make up for capacity.

[CGII]

edit

[CGII]

I think that could be all you need if it's completely underground. Headways would make up for capacity.

2 car trains are tiny. Maybe it's different over there but in NY a 4 car train is quite small.

[alexjon]

Eh, just giving a little glass-half-full for you guys ;)

[BTinSF]

Soooo... about Geary now...

I know they're saying "this is the first part of a subway for Geary" but you usually appropriate funds for studies on the remaining parts. I can't think of any major project that didn't include funding for studying expansions, even when they were infeasible.

Is there money to have a study by 2016? Or is that an afterthought?

A Geary subway is a distant vision I think. The reality is BRT: http://www.sfcta.org/content/view/37/70/

http://www.sfcta.org/images/stories/Planning/GearyCorridorBusRapidTransit/images/website_center-center_sim1.jpg

Environmental Study and Initial Preliminary Engineering (2008-09):

Notice of Intent / Notice of Preparation - November 2008
Public and Agency Scoping - November/December 2008 (click here for information on public scoping meetings)
Environmental Analysis and Initial Preliminary Engineering
Draft EIR/EIS
Final EIR/EIS
Future Project Phases:

2009-10: Complete Preliminary Engineering
2010-11: Final Design
2011-12: Construction & Operational Testing
2012: Start of Service

On the other hand, I believe I read the BRT infrastructure would be "LRV-ready".

[BTinSF]

I'm not there to know if it really happened, but there was also supposed to be some actual work last month:

Construction notice

Pardon our dust!

From November 10, 2008 to November 26, 2008, between the hours of 7:00am to 7:00pm, Monday to Friday, the contractor hired by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) will begin to drill borings on the north side of California Street at Stockton Street and then south side of Pine and Stockton Street. Construction at each site will last about 5 to 6 days.

The purpose of this boring operation is to collect soil and rock samples for the SFMTA Central Subway tunnel to be located underneath the Stockton Tunnel.
Source of the above and much more: http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mcentral/centralover.htm

[M II A II R II K]

Will this be part of the BART system, or a seperate subway line system altogether....

[miketoronto]

This sounds like a trolley subway, like the MUNI METRO has on Market Street.

Howcome SF never built an actual subway system in the core city?

[quashlo]

It's part of Muni Metro, which has its own subway separate from BART. Market Street has two underground levels of rail service. One contains BART, which is primarily regional. One level above BART is the "Market Street Subway" for Muni Metro, which carries six streetcar/LRV lines from other neighborhoods of San Francisco into Downtown... The Central Subway represents the first real Muni Metro line that won't make use of the Market Street Subway.

[quashlo]

Howcome SF never built an actual subway system in the core city?
To be honest, I don't think it really needs an all-out subway system within the City. Downtown SF is fairly dense and transit-oriented, but the neighborhoods are less so. The western and southwestern parts are as close to suburban-style living as you can expect in a big city. The only major subway-oriented corridors would be Mission (already has BART service) and Geary. In fact, many of the people who work in Downtown SF don't even live in the city, and come from the suburbs in the East, North, and South Bay, areas for which subway-type service isn't really warranted.

A lower-capacity underground system in the Downtown area offering through-service from the various neighborhoods is more appropriate, and this is exactly what it has--a subway serving surface LRV lines from the rest of the city. There's definitely room for improvement, such as by increasing train lengths to 3 cars and such, but in the long-term, I doubt SF will ever need a high-capacity subway system.

[Cirrus]

I think that could be all you need if it's completely underground. Headways would make up for capacity.
Only so much.

6 car trains running on 90 second headways get pretty packed here in DC. I can't imagine SF is that different.

[BTinSF]

:previous:

You can't really compare with DC, though. The DC Metro is like a combination of BART and Muni Metro. BART runs 8 (or is it 9) car trains that are packed in rush hour. Muni generally runs 2 car (I've had this argument before--to me they are more like 4 car but really they are 2 articulated cars) trains. And the systems are separate:

This is Muni Metro:

http://transit.511.org/static/providers/maps/SF_712200722845.gif
Source: http://transit.511.org/static/providers/maps/SF_712200722845.gif

The Central Subway under discussion here is actually phase 2 of the T-Third line--see above in red--which will take it from 4th & King directly down 4th St, across Market and under Stockton (see map in first post).

BART is a totally separate system. As quashlo said above, under Market St there are two levels of tunnels (Muni Metro above, BART below) and the new subway will have to dive under both, one of the things adding to its cost.

http://www.bart.gov/images/global/system-map-xlrg.gif
Source: http://www.bart.gov/stations/index.aspx

[Gordo]

There's no planning for a Muni subway on Geary, and hasn't been for a LONG time. Officially, there is still a plan for a BART line on Geary, though it won't be built any time in our lifetimes unless Washington starts doling out major cash. The funding structure for BART will simply never allow another BART line in SF, unless a major building boom can increase the size of the county by half a million or so. Without that, Alameda and Contra Costa will always vote down improvements in SF and vote for further extensions into suburbia.

The Central Subway? Meh. Hard to imagine a more wasteful and pointless use of $2 billion bucks. It manages to cover part of a route that is heavily used, but not enough of it to actually BE heavily used itself. And the connections with Market are atrocious. No one is going to get onto a bus, ride it a few blocks, get off, take an escalator down, wait for a train, ride that a few blocks, take an escalator out of a 150 (!!!) foot deep subway station, take a five minute walk through a tunnel to the Powell station on Market, wait for another train, etc. Just like the T, I expect this to be slower, more expensive, and have lower ridership than the bus that it will replace (sort of - it only replaces a short segment of the 30, 45, and 9x). It might be a little bit useful if there was a North Beach station, but even then...

Hopefully the Transit Effectiveness Project (a current plan in process that is "remaking" Muni) can at least yield a few decent results. I think that's the only hope for improving transit in SF that I've seen over the past ten years (besides the passage of the HSR bond, but that's intercity).

[BTinSF]

Just like the T, I expect this to be slower, more expensive, and have lower ridership than the bus that it will replace (sort of - it only replaces a short segment of the 30, 45, and 9x). It might be a little bit useful if there was a North Beach station, but even then...


We locals argue this all the time, but the above is spoken like somebody who has never had 15 little old Chinese ladies elbow their way past you to get on the 30 Stockton bus (front and back doors) at Market on the way to Chinatown.

There WILL be a North Beach station some day. Muni lines aren't built in a day but extending this one down Columbus just seems so obvious as to be inevitable. But we have to start somewhere. I'm a big fan. Lots of other San Franciscans aren't but they don't accept that the money that has been made available for this would NOT be available for their own favorite transit project if this were not built. It wouldn't, though.

[Gordo]

We locals argue this all the time, but the above is spoken like somebody who has never had 15 little old Chinese ladies elbow their way past you to get on the 30 Stockton bus (front and back doors) at Market on the way to Chinatown.

There WILL be a North Beach station some day. Muni lines aren't built in a day but extending this one down Columbus just seems so obvious as to be inevitable. But we have to start somewhere. I'm a big fan. Lots of other San Franciscans aren't but they don't accept that the money that has been made available for this would NOT be available for their own favorite transit project if this were not built. It wouldn't, though.

This project has one Chinatown station. One. That should cure the 30 bus, I'm sure :rolleyes: The Chinese ladies will still be riding that 30 bus, so that they don't have to go down into a subway only to come out in Chinatown and have to walk five blocks. And remember - the Central Subway doesn't even have a stop at Market!

Sure, all of the money would not be available, but more than $400 million of the dough is LOCAL money that could go towards other projects. I'll take $400 million in worthwhile projects over $2 billion in crappy projects any day - even if a billion or so dollars is "free" money from the feds. Spend that money on something good in another city - I like other cities to have good transit too.

I'm not convinced of the eventual North Beach station either. It would seem obvious that an empty theater in North Beach would be redeveloped into something else, but that's still vacant after what, 20 years? A subway station might be deemed "out of character" for the neighborhood, or perhaps the neighborhood will only consider the station if the trains are from some nice local company, not a nasty chain company like Breda ;)

No offense meant BT - it's been a long day, including a ten minute stop on the N in the Sunset Tunnel this morning (and of course, no reason was given to us).

[OhioGuy]

No offense meant BT - it's been a long day, including a ten minute stop on the N in the Sunset Tunnel this morning (and of course, no reason was given to us).

Ooooh, that's one of the quickest ways to get me absolutely furious while on transit. :hell: Stopping for lengthy periods with no explanation from the train conductor nearly sends me over the edge. The CTA has gotten better about making announcements, but still there are some train conductors that just don't seem to have the common sense to make a brief announcement regarding what's going on.

As for the new subway, I'm assuming the T line will be the one that runs through it? So that means it will no longer run through the Market Street subway? Customers who typically ride up 3rd Street to the Embarcadero station will need to transfer to the N train at 4th & King once the new subway is completed.

[zilfondel]

The Central Subway? Meh. Hard to imagine a more wasteful and pointless use of $2 billion bucks. It manages to cover part of a route that is heavily used, but not enough of it to actually BE heavily used itself.

I dunno, $ 2 billion doesn't seem that high when PDX is going to spend $1.4 billion for 6.5 miles of at-grade light rail. That line is probably going to have pretty decent frequency too, right?

[BTinSF]

I'm not convinced of the eventual North Beach station either. It would seem obvious that an empty theater in North Beach would be redeveloped into something else, but that's still vacant after what, 20 years? A subway station might be deemed "out of character" for the neighborhood, or perhaps the neighborhood will only consider the station if the trains are from some nice local company, not a nasty chain company like Breda ;)


Prediction: SF will wake up and go back to city-wide elections for supervisor and the days of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers determining all our fates will be over.

[BTinSF]

I'm assuming the T line will be the one that runs through it? So that means it will no longer run through the Market Street subway? Customers who typically ride up 3rd Street to the Embarcadero station will need to transfer to the N train at 4th & King once the new subway is completed.

If they are going to Embarcadero Station, yes. But not that many people are likely to be going there as compared to the Union Square shopping area or the Financial District. Those who are going to Union Square (or its vicinity--to shop) will be able to just stay on the train and get off at the new Union Square station. If they are going to the Financial District, they may want to just walk 3 or 4 blocks down Market or Post rather than going to the trouble to transfer.

Of course Muni will always have the option of extending the N line out 3rd St. Somewhere in my head I've even got a notion that extending it as far as Mission Bay may be part of the plan.

And then there's the E-Embarcadero line (4th & King to Fishermens' Wharf along the Embarcadero). The tracks are there--Muni just needs the money to buy some more cars and hire some more drivers (or so they claim).

[Chicago3rd]

I so don't want any public funding going into this subway. I don't think the nation should be paying off a political debt made by the city of San Francisco to a certain neighborhood that thought it would go out of existance when they pulled the old Embarcadero down. Note that was 19 years ago and the neighborhood is still thriving.

San Francisco could probably get a subway out Japantown for the amount of money the city is going to waste on this subway.

[alexjon]

^^Whoa, explain!

This sounds dramatic and fun

[Gordo]

^^Whoa, explain!

This sounds dramatic and fun

Chinatown went nuts when the Embarcadero Freeway was being torn down. A "deal" was made at the time to ensure that the 3rd St/Central Subway alignment was the first of the major corridors (ahead of the Geary, Van Ness, and Mission corridors - all of which have and will continue to have MUCH higher ridership and potential ridership) to be upgraded to better service. In exchange, the Chinatown merchants sort of stopped complaining about the teardown of the freeway.

Something does need to be done about Stockton St, but this thing doesn't address any of the crowding problems there - and is mostly political payback.

[BTinSF]

I so don't want any public funding going into this subway. I don't think the nation should be paying off a political debt made by the city of San Francisco to a certain neighborhood that thought it would go out of existance when they pulled the old Embarcadero down. Note that was 19 years ago and the neighborhood is still thriving.

San Francisco could probably get a subway out Japantown for the amount of money the city is going to waste on this subway.

Sorry, but that's a ridiculous argument against any public works. They are all political in one way or another. The last large addition to the Muni LRV system, the T-Third line, was political--Willie Brown's way of doing something for African-American constituents in the Bayview (whether or not they thanked him for it). We don't already have Geary transit in part for political reasons--it's not that popular along Geary itself (putting in a transit line means reducing parking spaces on Geary and the merchants are fighting it). I don't know New York politics well enough to quote the details but I'm sure they are involved with the 2nd Ave. line.

What matters is whether the project is actually worth the money to the city as a whole. I've said there isn't universal agreement on that in SF, but I think there is a severe lack of cross-town transit in SF. There's not really a cross-town line between the Polk bus on 7th St and the 30 Stockton on 3rd except the impractically crowded Powell St cable car. And as I've said the 30 is almost as crowded as the Powell car.

To my mind the main sensible objection to the new subway is that it doesn't go far enough--to Washington Square in North Beach at least. But, again, as I've said, I'd bet it will eventually because that is just so obvious--in fact it's so obvious they are going to do the tunnel bore that far or almost that far when they build the phase being planned now. They've even talked of leaving the tunnel boring machine in the ground ready to go.

[Chicago3rd]

^^^Gordo and I are sticking to our guns on this one. Calling something that is factual....ridiculous is ridiculous....dontcha think?

Don't worry...I have the same disdain for public transportation needs in Chicago being given out because of squeaky wheels and not transportation needs.

[quashlo]

I have to agree with BTinSF...

I will add the following point:

While the Central Subway may look like a "boondoggle" to some people now, remember that there is an incredible amount of future development slated for the southeastern parts of the City:

Visitacion Valley redevelopment
Executive Park
Candlestick Point / Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment
India Basin
Hunters View public housing
Cow Palace redevelopment
Brisbane Baylands development

There's also the Central Waterfront rezoning, the continuing development of Mission Bay, and future potential development up and down Third Street. Frankly, the scale of all this development eclipses pretty much everything except perhaps the Transit Center / Rincon Hill areas. While I can sympathize with Richmond residents, there simply isn't this level of development potential (nor neighborhood support) along Geary.

There is a real opportunity for a medium- to high-capacity transit corridor stretching from the southern city limits north through the Bayview and Mission Bay into Downtown, Chinatown, North Beach, and Fisherman's Wharf. The Central Subway represents the first step towards establishing that corridor.

[Gordo]

I have to agree with BTinSF...

I will add the following point:

While the Central Subway may look like a "boondoggle" to some people now, remember that there is an incredible amount of future development slated for the southeastern parts of the City:

Visitacion Valley redevelopment
Executive Park
Candlestick Point / Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment
India Basin
Hunters View public housing
Cow Palace redevelopment
Brisbane Baylands development

There's also the Central Waterfront rezoning, the continuing development of Mission Bay, and future potential development up and down Third Street. Frankly, the scale of all this development eclipses pretty much everything except perhaps the Transit Center / Rincon Hill areas. While I can sympathize with Richmond residents, there simply isn't this level of development potential (nor neighborhood support) along Geary.

There is a real opportunity for a medium- to high-capacity transit corridor stretching from the southern city limits north through the Bayview and Mission Bay into Downtown, Chinatown, North Beach, and Fisherman's Wharf. The Central Subway represents the first step towards establishing that corridor.

Ok, I could see your point if the Central Subway had good connections to Market - but it doesn't. My problem with the Central Subway is MOSTLY its design, not the fact that we're building a subway where we are. Its design is TERRIBLE and will not particularly improve transit from 4th & King to Chinatown - perhaps for people going straight through from one end to the other, but not the vast majority of trips that start somewhere outside of that zone, end somewhere inside of that zone, or start and end within the zone.

Also, it is unlikely, even with all of the development that you mention, that this line will ever approach the potential ridership along Geary, Van Ness, or Mission, because the density for a half mile on either side will never be as high - even with no more development in those other corridors! (and no development is impossible, since there is already quite a bit happening along Van Ness, a lot of potential in the next few years along Geary especially in the Japantown area, and a little along Mission). The amount of units built along the 3rd St line sounds like a lot - but it's really not compared to what already exists in those other corridors (and some of those projects, like Candlestick and Hunters Point, will require some kind of change in the 3rd St line to actually make the line useful to them - those areas are too far from the line to use it now on any meaningful level)

[lawfin]

Good for San Francisco. I really think this is great for SF, and as a further symbol for the country / world. LA got the wilshire a while back, Even Baghdad looks like its going to get one.

Now...if we could only get the circle line here in Chicago, or even a more ambitious Ashland or Western subway...so we are not left in the transit dust :)

[krudmonk]

So that makes two Bay Area cities getting cool new subways with questionable practicality...

[BTinSF]

Central Subway's Next Stop: North Beach or Bust
Tuesday, March 3, 2009, by Andy J. Wang

http://sf.curbed.com/uploads/2009_03_centralsubway.jpg

With the Central Subway finalized and out of the way, the MTA can finally start talking about what they weren't supposed to before: the extension to North Beach. According to Dave Snyder, the transpo guy at think tank SPUR, formally discussing an extension for the subway line beyond Chinatown would have risked having the project considered "misrepresented ... as smaller than it actually is" by the Federal Transportation Authority, since the original proposal had no talk of North Beach. Politics, friends. Politics. But now that the FTA has already signed off on the project, we can talk all we want about North Beach. For one thing, the MTA's already planning on taking its tunnel-boring machine out where a possible North Beach station might be— so why not, many ask, just bore the damn thing? Bore it! But why stop there? If you've got rainbows in your eyes like the chair of SPUR's Central Subway Task Force, the line will one day extend through North Beach, west past Van Ness along Lombard, and into the Marina and Cow Hollow. Cue wistful sigh.
Source: http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2009/03/03/central_subways_next_stop_north_beach_or_bust.php#reader_comments

[OhioGuy]

Extend it! It would be faster getting to In-N-Out (just 2 blocks from the Leavenwirth station) than taking the old slow trolley cars along the Embarcadero from downtown. Afterall, if faster more direct travel to In-N-Out doesn't make the extension worthwhile, then I don't know what will... :D

[Cirrus]

Just build a Five Guys at Union Square. You'll never have to worry about getting to that In-N-Out again, and it'll be way cheaper.

[Frisco_Zig]

I have to agree with BTinSF...

I will add the following point:

While the Central Subway may look like a "boondoggle" to some people now, remember that there is an incredible amount of future development slated for the southeastern parts of the City:

Visitacion Valley redevelopment
Executive Park
Candlestick Point / Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment
India Basin
Hunters View public housing
Cow Palace redevelopment
Brisbane Baylands development

There's also the Central Waterfront rezoning, the continuing development of Mission Bay, and future potential development up and down Third Street. Frankly, the scale of all this development eclipses pretty much everything except perhaps the Transit Center / Rincon Hill areas. While I can sympathize with Richmond residents, there simply isn't this level of development potential (nor neighborhood support) along Geary.

There is a real opportunity for a medium- to high-capacity transit corridor stretching from the southern city limits north through the Bayview and Mission Bay into Downtown, Chinatown, North Beach, and Fisherman's Wharf. The Central Subway represents the first step towards establishing that corridor.


I guarantee you with all this development you list the T_third will never come close to carrying the number of passengers who ride buses in the Richmond to downtown.

I also think you are overstating the connectivity some of these developments will have with this line. Brisbane Bay Lands, Cow Palace and the whole HP/India Basin are not within walking distance and the trip to downtown is quite far on this line.

Excluding the HP shipyards how many units do you think net out of all of this?

The issue isn't that transportation improvements were was needed its why do you need LRT that is slower than a bus and why a subway to Chinatown?

[Frisco_Zig]

If Caltrain is ever electrified and brought to the TransBay this T_third will be further neutered. Depending on cost I imagine many people in BayView (with a new station) and Viz Valley and the Brisbane Baylands will choose the modern high speed service that takes them downtown rather than the very slow option.

[quashlo]

I guarantee you with all this development you list the T_third will never come close to carrying the number of passengers who ride buses in the Richmond to downtown.

This area of San Francisco is particularly constrained in terms of roadway capacity, both east/west and north/south. If development is done right, transit has an enormous opportunity to capture ridership.

Funny that the Richmond was brought up... Too many naysayers keep trying to position the Central Subway as a west-side (Richmond + Sunset) vs. east-side competition of sorts. It's really rather ridiculous how provincial some of us can be even in our small 7x7 "burg." This isn't China where we can have multiple large-scale transit projects in various stages of construction occurring simultaneously. Our transit network will be built one small step at a time. It just so happens that the Central Subway is the next in line, but I will welcome a Geary subway when its time comes, even if I myself may rarely end up using it.

I also think you are overstating the connectivity some of these developments will have with this line. Brisbane Bay Lands, Cow Palace and the whole HP/India Basin are not within walking distance and the trip to downtown is quite far on this line.
It's called feeder bus service. People will take the bus to rail stations if it is frequent and convenient... Just take a bus on any of the four lines (9X, 29, 43, 54) traveling westbound on Geneva to Balboa Park during the mornings or eastbound on Geneva from Balboa Park during the evenings.

Eventually, the T-Third should be extended west down Geneva to connect with the rest of the Muni Metro network and the existing LRV maintenance facility at Balboa Park, putting it right in front of the Cow Palace developments. This route would also take it closer to Baylands, perhaps through it depending on what the alignment would be after Sunnydale and the interface with Bayshore Caltrain.

If Caltrain is ever electrified and brought to the TransBay this T_third will be further neutered. Depending on cost I imagine many people in BayView (with a new station) and Viz Valley and the Brisbane Baylands will choose the modern high speed service that takes them downtown rather than the very slow option.

While it's natural to expect some people to take Caltrain, I wouldn't say that it would "neuter" the T-Third. They serve different markets, they each have their niche. It's also worth mentioning that the possibility for Caltrain to capture trips on this corridor depends on how often trains will stop at that station and the connectivity with the neighborhood. The existing Bayshore Station is deserted for these very reasons.

[Gordo]

Funny that the Richmond was brought up... Too many naysayers keep trying to position the Central Subway as a west-side (Richmond + Sunset) vs. east-side competition of sorts. It's really rather ridiculous how provincial some of us can be even in our small 7x7 "burg." This isn't China where we can have multiple large-scale transit projects in various stages of construction occurring simultaneously. Our transit network will be built one small step at a time. It just so happens that the Central Subway is the next in line, but I will welcome a Geary subway when its time comes, even if I myself may rarely end up using it.

I'm not going to get into this much, but the comparison is always brought up for a couple reasons:

1. The Geary corridor has much higher current and potential ridership than the T corridor will likely ever have. If transit priority were simply based on where better transit is needed to benefit the most people, Geary would come long before the 3rd St/Central Subway corridor.

2. There has been a Geary subway proposal on the board in one form or another since the 1930's. Suddenly, after the 1989 earthquake, a Chinatown subway was added to the board and bumped the Geary subway down a notch from the spot that it had first for a Muni subway, then for a BART subway, then for a Muni subway again, now for a BART subway again, without any real uptick in need from the 3rd St/Chinatown corridor or downtick in need from the Geary corridor. Any time that blatant politics is so clearly involved, you'll get complaints from people.

That's why it's always brought up. It's not some kind of "wait in line" thing.

[KVNBKLYN]

I don't know New York politics well enough to quote the details but I'm sure they are involved with the 2nd Ave. line.

You guess correctly. When the TA began building the second avenue subway back in the sixties, it was designed with a spur under the East River to Queens that was intended to be used by trains coming from a new line parallel to the Queens Boulevard line, which in turn was intended to relieve overcrowding on that line. When the fiscal situation turned dire in the seventies, pressure from Queens politicians resulted in this spur being the only thing to actually get built, although it made only one stop on the Queens side of the river and the new line parallel to Queens boulevard never materialized. It opened in the late eighties as a tunnel to nowhere but was later (2000s) awkwardly connected to the Queens boulevard line (at great cost) and now carries the F train. The unused lower section of the tunnel will be used by the East Side Access project.

In the late nineties, early 2000s, when the MTA proposed building the second avenue subway only to 96th street (serving the densely populated Upper East Side and relieving the most overcrowded section of the 4/5/6), it was derided by outer borough politicians as the "second avenue snobway" and the MTA was forced to come up with a plan to build the line the full length of second avenue (albeit in phases) with future planned connections to the Bronx, Queens (via the existing 63rd street tunnel) and Brooklyn.

[BTinSF]

You guys just so love beating dead horses. This is no longer about whether we should have this or a Geary line. We are getting this or nothing for a long time. Of course a Geary line makes more sense, but the political decisions have been made. In fact we all know they were made a decade ago. And those of us who've been watching know there's not even a consensus along Geary that better transit is desirable which explains why they were made as they were--it's likely even BRT will have to be forced on the Geary merchants. IMHO this is a good project which will serve plenty of people, but the extension will make it much better.

[Gordo]

You guys just so love beating dead horses. This is no longer about whether we should have this or a Geary line. We are getting this or nothing for a long time. Of course a Geary line makes more sense, but the political decisions have been made. In fact we all know they were made a decade ago. And those of us who've been watching know there's not even a consensus along Geary that better transit is desirable which explains why they were made as they were--it's likely even BRT will have to be forced on the Geary merchants. IMHO this is a good project which will serve plenty of people, but the extension will make it much better.

You're right about most of this, but I don't think the Geary merchants would have a problem at all with a subway built in the same manner as the CS is being built, with tunnel boring machines - meaning very little disruption on the street. All of the projects put forth for Geary over the years would have (and will) caused massive disruptions during the construction phase, regardless of the what the final product is. I don't agree with the Geary merchants on things, but to say that they complain while Chinatown said "Bring it on" is disingenuous - we're talking about vastly different circumstances.

And as I've said many times before, I'd be fine with this corridor being chosen before Geary if a decent design was in place. This thing is a disaster in pretty much all shapes and forms that will only become slightly better after the extension is completed in 2030 or so. The only thing worse than not spending any money on transit infrastructure is spending lots of money on BAD transit infrastructure.

[BTinSF]

NEWS

Central Subway's $147 Million Tab Hits Budget Hard
by Chuck Finnie
March 9, 2009 7:03 AM

San Francisco transit officials have tapped a joint-venture that includes former Muni chief Emilio Cruz to lead construction of the Central Subway--but the cost of the deal is raising questions about the projected price tag of the project.

Under a contract approved by the Board of Supervisors earlier this year, the Municipal Transportation Agency will pay $147 million to Central Subway Partnership to take over management of Central Subway, nearly twice what the MTA said the services would cost when it got permission to outsource the work in the first place.

"In the course of evaluating the proposals and negotiating with the highest ranked proposer," wrote MTA Executive Director Nathaniel Ford in a memo explaining the increase, "the SFMTA determined that it had underestimated the range of program management and construction management activities and hours ... necessary to complete the Central Subway Project."

That is a long way of saying that the MTA staff didn't quite grasp just how much work will be involved in managing all aspects of the Central Subway tunneling, station construction and train installation project.

In February 2008, Ford got approval from the MTA board of directors to hire a project manager through a competitive bid and to negotiate a contract that wasn't supposed to exceed $82 million.

In June, the agency received two responses to its Request for Proposals (RFP). One came in at $156 million from Central Subway Partnership, a joint-venture between AECOM USA Inc. and EPC Consultants, where former Muni General Manager Cruz is vice president for business development. The second--from a joint venture of Parsons and Hatch Mott McDonald--was comparably priced at $137 million, according to MTA spokesman Judson True.

After a committee assembled by the MTA evaluated the proposals and rated Central Subway Partnership the top bidder, the two sides began negotiating and produced the final contract worth $147 million, or 79 percent more than anticipated.

For backers of Central Subway, which would link Chinatown to Union Square, South of Market, Caltrain and Muni's Third Street light-rail line, the final number is worrisome.

It makes sense for public agencies to outsource construction of major projects rather than maintain the necessary in-house talent year after year. But all told, the MTA has forecast Central Subway to cost $1.5 billion and take six years to build, starting in 2010. Now, with the project management contract coming in so far over estimates and slated to consume 10 percent of the overall budget, officials are wondering what to expect when contracts are issued for the actual tunneling, station construction, and railroad system installation.

"What does that generally say about the MTA and the RFPs it puts forward?" asked Supervisor Sean Elsbernd at a Dec. 17 hearing on the management contract before the supervisors Budget and Finance Committee.

At the hearing, True, the MTA spokesman, acknowledged that his agency had missed the mark by a long shot but that it didn't intend to repeat its mistake.

"We are doing everything we can to prevent that from happening again," True told Elsbernd.

There's plenty of room for improvement. According to a report by Board of Supervisors Budget Analyst Harvey Rose for the supervisors committee hearing, the MTA grossly underestimated several aspects of the contract. For example, it will pay 407 percent more than expected ($3.1 million instead of $620,000) for "design management," 325 percent more ($10.6 million instead of $2.5 million) for "community outreach," and 250 percent more ($4.3 million instead of $1.2 million) for "start-up testing and commissioning," which presumably involves making sure the subway works once tunneling, station construction and railway system installation are complete.

And it isn't just the cost side of the equation that concerns observers.

As Rose noted in his report, the majority of the money for Central Subway is supposed to come from the federal government but the city has yet to secure guarantees from Washington.

And that was before the Obama administration pushed through hundreds of billions of dollars in spending to revive the U.S. and the full scope of the Wall Street bailout began to come into focus.

Perhaps that is why the MTA also agreed to pay Central Subway Partnership a bit more than initially expected for one other key component of the management job: nailing down sufficient Federal Transit Administration funds to pay for the project.

Source: http://sfappeal.com/news/2009/03/central-subways-147-million-tab-hits-budget-hard.php

[CityKid]

^^^ How embarassing. Is there any good news out of this project?