San Francisco's Brand New 2 BILLION DOLLAR Subway! 

I take the central subway almost every day. The busses get super packed, I appreciate the extra space and experience of the subway. The subways been busier lately too.

I don’t particular love all of SF Chronicle’s reporting of the central subway but I particularly love the headline here: “S.F.’s Central Subway isn’t just a transit line. It’s a startling view of a city in flux” If you live here, you know what this means. A city that is known for non-development, and then suddenly built a skyscraper neighborhood in the East Cut, finally brought that energy to transit. We are changing and it’s happening both above and below ground.

“Moscone” is pronounced “moss-cone-eee”. There’s an “eee” sound at the end

Couple things: 1) Can’t put bus lanes in Chinatown - one of the densest neighborhoods in the US. 2) Stations are shorter than normal because the Market street stations are meant for BART trains. 3) Muni Metro hasn’t run 4-car trains since they got rid of the Boeing LRVs. 4) Muni Metro won’t run 3-car trains because the catenary can’t handle it for some reason, and surface stops can’t handle 3-car trains. 5) Central Subway cost much more because of the constant delays, exacerbated by the pandemic and SF politics. 6) North Beach station exists, sort of. The tunnel goes there already. But SF politics got in the way and managed to block construction because of street level disruption in North Beach. And then the pandemic hit. 7) The area has been called “SoMa” for well over century. 8) “Moscone” is pronounced “Mos-Co-Nee.”

Not sure if you've taken the 30 stockton bus often, but whenever I get on, and despite its frequency, it's often packed like a sardine can. Despite the problems with the new subway, I do think it's better to have it now and continue to extend the line. We do need the increased capacity in that direction.

3:40. Muni doesn't run train longer than 2 trains (4 cars), which they already do on the T/central subway. The length of the underground stations is not the only limiting factor; every stop along the T/third ave corridor cannot accommodate trains longer than 2 trains too. 4:28 And you've missed the very important context that the City promised the Chinatown community that it will build the Central Subway to make up for tearing down the Embarcadero Freeway. The City would have looked incredibly bad if they had not fulfill its promise to the Chinese community. Also, the 30/45 does have dedicated lane for most of the way from south of Market to Chinatown. For North bound: entire 3rd Ave has bus lane from south of Market to Market st.. It is impossible to make bus lane for the 30/45 on Kearny from Market to Sutter because the bus needs to go from right most lane to left most lane to turn left in two short blocks. There is bus lane on Sutter between Kearny and Stockton. For South bound: entire Stockton St after the tunnel exit till Market st has bus lane. There is bus lane on 4th Ave from Market until Folsom when more right turn lanes are needed for cars to turn onto the highway. It is pretty much impossible to add more bus lane without major rerouting of either highway entrances or reroute the 30/45 to not go through the heart of south of market. Transit Signal Priority might work great on most stroads in US, it is very impractical in city centers like SF with high traffic of vehicles and pedestrians. The light can't suddenly turn red on pedestrians while people are crossing because a bus is coming. And if the light turn green for the bus every time a bus comes by, it will decrease the throughput of major intersections, which in this case, will cause major traffic backups on 3rd/4th ave, the Bay Bridge, and the i80. I agree with you in the most part that the Central Subway is a pretty big waste of money at its current state, and the solution is to extend it further. But there is just so many factually wrong things said in the video that yells lack of research on the topic.

It seems like a good start. Four stations isn't much, but as you said if they extend it further it will only get more popular the more people it reaches. SF already has a great mix of modes of transit and I think you're always going to run into that issue when adding anything new. Doesn't mean they shouldn't strive for it.

As a sf resident and a stadium employee at chase center and oracle park wait until baseball season begins

I like the Central Subway. It's not the best use of funds as of now, but I like it overall. It's pretty convenient to get to Chinatown and Union Square. The station is literally underneath Union Square. Also convenient to get from hotels and the downtown area to the Chase Center for events. Although it's new and shiny clean, they are really big stations with a lot of walking. It goes right by Metreon which is convenient if you don't want to walk from Union Square area across Market to 4th and Brannan. Unfortunately the depth and walking makes it sometimes take more time than just walking surface streets or the bus. I think the extensions will make it more usable for people because using the F Line and the 30 Stockton is not enough to get from Market to Fisherman's Wharf, especially when there's hoardes of tourists everywhere.

5:00 Dedicated bus lanes cannot be added on Stockton Street in Chinatown. The street is not wide enough and it cannot be widen. It is simply too congested.

In the 90’s, Muni identified 4 corridors that they wanted improvement on: Geary, Van Ness/Mission, and Stockton/Colombus. These were all supposed to be subways, but ofc, cost was too much and most were downgraded to BRT at best. While the Van Ness/Mission corridor should definitely be a subway, the BRT they built is incredibly useful, almost as good as a subway. However, this could only be done because Van Ness itself is essentially a stroad. There are still two whole lanes open on each side for car traffic, even with two bus lanes and platforms. Same with Geary. Stockton on the other hand is wayyyy too narrow. Plus, even with three frequent bus routes, they are all at over capacity. Investing in those routes wouldn’t work, because the street is simply too small, and buses are way too full. While it’s true that Rose Pak strong armed city hall into building it, the subway was-and is- definitely needed. However, it’s too short, limiting its capacity and usefulness. If they were to at least extend it to Stockton/Columbus it would 100% justify the cost, let alone Fisherman’s Wharf, let alone the Marina. This isn’t a sunken cost fallacy- this is just plain common sense from what I’ve observed as a daily rider on those lines.

There's one important piece of context you left out in this video and that was the teardown of the Embarcadero Freeway. The *demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway* is what really got the wheels rolling for this project. Chinatown was fiercely influential in getting this project done because that neighborhood felt like it was owed something given that Chinatown lost an "important" transportation connection also that neighborhood opposed demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway, (but in my opinion they're wrong to oppose it). The Central Subway was exactly that replacement though that's not to say the other reasons were wrong because they were true as well, but the teardown of the Embarcadero Freeway was the main catalyst to this. The Chinatown Station includes Rose Pak's name because she fought hard to insure the Central Subway happened as a result although including her name in it was really controversial.

As good as the 30 is, an underground subway line is definitely needed. Some oof the hills are too steep and some roads are too narrow for only bus service. Even if transit lanes were added i doubt they could handle the amount of people needed in the future. Also as much as i love busses i do admit that on a very narrow street walkability and business access need to be the priorities. In the future i think they should focus on adding frequency with the extensions also.

I don't see a problem with the cost. It's actually about what the Regional Connector cost in Los Angeles. However, the Regional Connector resulted in actually improving the system through consolidation of 3 lines into 2 lines. That resulted in less transfers amd quicker speeds and frequencies. So it was definitely worth it.

Muni T line need to extend to Fishermen Wharf

You missed two of the biggest purposes of the Central Subway: to connect CalTrain riders Downtown and to connect Dog Patch to downtown. I’ve seen first hand the T Line turns San Francisco’s semi-derelict eastern shore to vibrant high density development, with a building boom still in progress. The Central Subway shortens each of those trips dramatically by not having to round the Embarcadero and wait 5+ minutes for signals at 4th+King intersection. The elders of Chinatown prefer one steps up to the buses instead of a hundred steps down to the subway, and I don’t blame them. North Beach does not have enough housing now nor in the future to increase ridership. The ultra wealthy on Nob and Russian Hills aren’t people who ride public transit. The future rise in Subway ridership will come from south, not north, of Downtown. There’s another reason this Subway is worth it. Now that it’s in place, if it can run with decent frequency of 6-10 minutes, then for the foreseeable future it can preempt having to build the (for nie) $6 billion rail extension. CalTrain passengers can get use it to get to Downtown directly, and HSR won’t get to San Francisco before 2038-2040. The prime contractor is Tutor Perini, capitalized by Richard Blum. Mrs Blum was well known in San Francisco.

Having the shorter platforms to save money was the one thing they did right. You can always extend them if necessary.

You don’t seem to know that this was built not due to transit needs, but more to resolve political backlash in Chinatown that came with the demolition of the Embarcadero highway embankment that neighborhood businesses and leaders wanted to retain

Maybe the issue of the current underground stations being built for shorter trainset could be mitigated by Muni moved away from separated cars, at least on the Central Subway, & beginning to use longer, fully walk-through trains, similar to the DLR in London with its new rolling stock, where the new trains are roughly the same length as 3 of the old units coupled together. Therefore, longer trains could serve the existing stations using Selective Door Operation, that would require passengers in the end segment to move forward to alight. Hypothetically, two longer walk-through trains could be run together, with only the doors on the adjoining segments opening for even more capacity but that could cause problems with passengers trying to board/alight through two end doors, possibly a third central, on a single segment.

To be fair, $2b for a three-station extension to a subway in a major, high-cost US city sounds like really, really good value.

Your pronunciation of Moscone 🤧

The Richmond needs a metro line and so does Marin County.

I have taken the central subway multiple times. Its ease of access from the Bart is a great transfer point to go both north and south. Think education is the problem. A good example is that google maps won't show the new T line on it. A lot of people use that or Transit to know which to take.

I've used the central subway a number of times, and I absolutely love it, the fact I can hop on a MUNI train basically anywhere in the city and it links up with the T line at the Powell station, after a small walk, absolutely excellent way to get into Chinatown, or to go to the 4th street station to hop on Caltrain (if needed) or watch a baseball/basketball game, or vice versa. I prefer the undergrounding much better than buses because buses still need to drive in traffic and are stuck with traffic issues everywhere except the 2 mile length of Van Ness where they built a true bus only lane. Now whether or not it's worth the money, I honestly don't know I'm not paid as a bean counter for Muni so not going to worry myself over that, but I do find it's very useful to me as a resident. As for the station length I feel that is being way overblown. There may not be enough room for 4 train cars, but there is room for 3 train cars, but here's the thing, Muni LRVs don't ever run more than 2 train cars because the trains also go on city streets and there are no lines that are true subway-only routes, so it's really a non-issue. Now multiple 2 car trains you might ask? Perhaps, but I can't see that as a problem since currently the T-line is the only train to use that track way compared to the others, and if Muni ever does expand further north and run multiple additional lines, the issue will be maybe a minute delay for one train to leave the station. I will say for other underground platforms in the city it absolutely sucks to come down the escalator and see the train you need way the hell down near the tunnel exit and you need to turn into Usain Bolt in order to catch it before it leaves, i.e. you're not going to catch it, and I've been on a number of trains that were partially in the tunnel when arriving due to another train at the platform even though there was plenty of space, so I think it is largely a separation/safety issue so the extra platform length really doesn't matter.

What I really want to see from San Francisco is a BART infill station at 30th and Mission, which is something that's been discussed for decades. BART's station spacing throughout San Francisco is about a mile or less, which is reasonable for a metro line, except for the gap between Glen Park station and 24th and Mission station, which is about 1.57 miles. An infill station at 30th and Mission would fix this and provide a valuable transfer connection with the 24 bus.

Public Transport in USA sucks. Cities of Europe, Asia or Latin America have better transporte (more modern)

I was a college intern at SFMTA in 2013 and they took us underground to see the boring machines at the end of the line in Chinatown. I remember the agency being pretty upfront about how useless the extension was lol

Ok the N Judah (as well as all other lines except for the J) can only run 2 coupled unit trains, same as the T. Not “4 cars”. The T could have been provisioned for 3 unit trains, however, half the surface stations on the T would also need to be redone as those also only fit 2 unit trains. The Stockton St corridor definitely warrants a subway as the 3 existing frequent bus lines (8, 30, and 45) are all packed as sardines despite ALREADY HAVING bus lanes, however, the main problem aside from the lack of riders due to no North Beach extension yet, is that the reliability of the T is abhorrent due to single point switches, very low speed limits, and no signal priority on the surface portion of the line (which mind you is a total new build and only opened in 2007). Due to the unreliability, and the comparatively low (hypothetical) frequency of every 15 min when the buses keep flowing on Stockton like a river, means that the subway as it stands is unpopular. Going to Market, the 8, 30, and 45 are only very slightly slower but come every few minutes, and going from downtown or Chinatown/ North Beach to the Bayview district on the other end of the T is way faster taking the frequent 8 bus which takes the 101 freeway directly down after downtown rather than slowly inching downwards on the T.

I mean I'll never really complain about new subways but the funds would probably be much better spent on a rail line down geary. Of course that'd be a much longer distance so it's not a fair comparison.

There would have been far more demand if they pushed this line all the way to North Beach and the Marina. The SOMA area already has rail service to downtown and a bus to Chinatown is 10 minutes from Market Street.

You can skip the "SOMA" type abbreviations, but Moscone was a former mayor, and it is pronounced "mos-co-nee".

The simple answer is NO. Chinatown didn’t need a station or rail it needs to utilize what it has with buses.

Man am I tired of social commentary about SF from people who don’t even know how to pronounce Moscone. Frankly it ruins your credibility, as if you’ve never even been here.

Moscone is pronounced "moskony".

For Chinatown, absolutely it was worth it. And it’ll likely get extended all the way to the Presidio in the near(ish) future

I take the central subway every time my motorcycle is out of service. Its a great system and very convienient, as I work in Mission Bay and live in Union Square. The busses are far more unreliable as they frequently get caught in traffic around Market, whereas the T goes underground well before.

There are a few problems anytime you discuss building or expanding transit, especially rail, in the United States 1. Initial costs are always going to be high. Generally speaking, most cities are already built up so there's little available land to develop for transit without having to pay significant costs for land acquisition or excavation. Which usually leads to number 2 2 Lawsuits. Opponents of any and all transit expansion olay this cars early and often to drive up the costs of the project so high that they hope to discourage building by drying up resources. They also know that even delaying the projects will drive up costs. Time us if the essence Which leads to number 2 3. Government mandated studies. These alone can take up to two ir three years to complete 4. Funding. These projects always require federal government funding and they usually require some sort of state and local funding match Again, time allows the costs of these projects to balloon People don't realize these things when they start complaining about how much over budget these costs are Therefore sometimes compromise has to be made. Unfortunately in San Francisco Subway case, building short platforms was a way to cut costs imagine if there was no opposition to the plan. Perhaps the money saved from litigation could have paid for longer platforms. Maybe this sounds simplistic, but time is money

The easiest low cost way is to make Stockton (Chinatown section) transit only. That will speed up the bus lines 8. 30, 45 with minimal cost. But there is no political will since everyone wants on-street parking…

The tunnel already exists to north beach, which should make it easier to build a station there

I am continuously surprised how every deep dive of this T Line expansion always miss a main point of the project. One of the main points was to link the poorest parts of San Francisco, Bayview/Hunter's Point with Downtown San Francisco and Chinatown. Now, the working class of Bayview have a dedicated light rail accessing the heart of the city. It's wonderful, imo.

The Central Subway only exists because the 480 collapsed during the 1989 quake everyone saw live during the World Series. That was an important connection for the cities Chinese constituents to get from the southeast side of the city into Chinatown. Most of the people that live along the T don't really feel like the line serves there needs and isn't much of a freeway replacement. Because it was more of a political promise to Rose Pak (her name is on the Chinatown station and an adjacent hospital) who owned all of the Chinese votes in SF, there was never really a comprehensive plan on what this subway would ultimately look like.

The cable car is expensive to ride casually, but rides are included free with the monthly Muni passes. I always assumed that this line would be extended into the Richmond, but I see that the Chinatown Station is a bit too far north already not so would have to arc back south, which seems un-Muni-like. Still, it surprises me that they built it to only accommodate 2-car trains, as well as that I didn't know that before now. [I wish I could move back, but it's been 22 years now, and I don't see it happening financially.] What about undergrounding the 38/38$ Geary Line, or a 23/28R + California? Was the new tunnel south of market built in such a way that a rail-Y could link it to a Geary Line, with a Union Square station that would be two substations connected Paris Metro style?

I've used the T dozens of times since it opened. A really nice addition to SF's transit infrastructure. "The cost ballooned to nearly $2billion" - that is about what it costs to build an underground line in a densely packed area these days. NYC's 2nd Ave subway cost about the same per mile. This line will seem like a bargain in 20-30 years and beyond. BART faced the same criticism in the 60's and 70's, and started out with low ridership and lawsuits that delayed it's opening, but today, the initial cost of $1.8billion 1960s/70s dollars for 75miles of track, stations, train sets and infrastructure can never be duplicated. With 10-15 min headways reduced to 2-3 minute headways (if needed) the 2 or 3 car trains can quadruple the capacity. The crushloads on the 30 (on narrow/congested Stockton St) is one reason why this line was built. The depth of 2 of the stations (Market St/Union Sq and Chinatown)is really is no big deal. To get underneath the 3 level Powell St Station (which the T bisects and the Union Sq station is connected to) requires near 100 ft deep platforms for the T. Every day around 400K passengers use Muni - that is just under half it's population - investing in transit in SF long term has always been a good deal. No it is not perfect. But for those of us who don't have cars it has become a quick and fairly reliable way to get around town.

The ridership on T Third grew again, to now nearly 19,000 riders. That's over 70% growth since the Central Subway launched last year. How do you explain that? Were you completely wrong on this then?

I think there may be some sources that misguided you, in the sf metro system, 1 car = 1 unit. For example {[][][][][][]||||[][][][][][]} is a car { and } = cab [] = passenger seats and standing space |||||| bendy thing/connection point. (sorry for the bad representation cuz keyboard) Second of all, the sf metro system's longest trains only uses 2 car trains,(ones in the central subway) there have been testing with 3 car but they are not in service. All the different "Cars" are referring to my point of 1car = 1 unit

First, MOSCONE has a long E on the end, pronounced Moss*Cone*EE and second, I remember when you could jump on and off cable cars and just flip a quarter to the conductor, it was not that long ago as the first time I ever rode the system was in 1975. They were a good cheap way to get around where the remaining lines ran, most since deleted as they redid the cable car system and kept just a couple routes as tourist rides with a lot of rules and a $8.00 ticket purchased from a kiosk making it unusable for local transport. I am surprised the city lawyers do not require you to wear a helmet. But then they nearly got to the point of just scraping the cable cars entirely. That would have been a real shame. As to Bay Area transit the first HUGE error was allowing the 9 Bay Area counties to have veto power over the tracks laid for BART. Marin, the snobby (8th richest county in the USA) county on the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge refused to allow BART to run through their county to Santa Rose which desperately needed real mass transit to The City. It is less than 60 miles but when I was commuting on Hwy 101 down to SF it was 3 hours each way for an average speed of about 19 mph. Marin was afraid that their wealthy enclave status would be ruined by commuters if the trains were allowed to run through to Sonoma County. Of course it was a lot more complicated than that, San Mateo County had refused to be part of BART and with the smaller population to support the system Marin then pulled out as well. Sonoma was also not part of it but only because without Marin track could not get to Sonoma. Napa had no real Need of it back then. And without San Mateo tracks could not get to San Jose. But critically SFO which needed the system the most is 14 miles south of downtown in San Mateo County. I am pretty sure the cab companies strongly opposed the BART tracks to the airport also. Every cab ride to the airport was a license to steal.

I had to chuckle a bit when the narrator of this video said "threats of lawsuits." There was a lawsuit filed to halt construction. Lawsuits do in fact have a tendency to increase the cost of construction for any infrastructure project. Also, the geologic conditions in that area of the city caused problems with construction costs. Is this project worth it. Answer is yes because it moves residents off the crowded streets. Residents of Chinatown and some parts of North Beach can use this line to transfer to BART at the Powell Street station and transfer to CALTRAIN at 4th and Brannan or 4th and King stations. Sports fans riding BART can transfer to the T Line at Powell Station and ride to CALTRAIN Station at 4th and King and walk to Oracle Park to watch a Giants game or continue on the T Line and exit at the Chase Center stop to watch the Warriors Play.

Only 2 billion dollars? Here in New York City, The Interborough Express (IBX) is a Light Rail that is going to cost 5 billion dollars, and that is being build on a existing rail right of way between Brooklyn & Queens. Don't even get me started on how much it is going to cost for Phase 2 of the Second Ave Subway in Harlem (Manhattan) , which is only 3 new stops.

A quick thing to mention. The T Third has a lot of stations that are barely long enough to even hold two car trains. An example, Oakdale and Palou station is only about the size of the trains. I would love 4 car trains as well, but the geography of S.F. doesn’t really help. Instead the T-Third should have more trains on the line at a faster pace as well.

excellent video! love your channel ❤

It was a tough slog building it. Court battles, having to relocate utilities and closing off streets to businesses then tunneling and laying down the tracks along with Covid related delays. I rode it and happy it got done. Maybe Fisherman's Wharf next.

Although it may have small ridership now, this subway is going to expand and serve many in the years ahead. It's not a mistake that this has been built. I love it. When I come to SF in the future, I want to ride this subway. "Good Job SF".

2 billion and it still looks like sh*t.

i often ride bart into the city from oakland. i love the central subway. it makes getting to chinatown & north beach a lot easier (with the transfer at powell st). when i go home, i just walk downhill back to montgomery st station to save time & money

I’m curious, why wouldn’t they just double the frequency instead of doubling the train length? Seems like they could get three birds with one stone (don’t have to expand the stations, get better frequency, and can handle the expected increase in ridership)

That was the first Patreon plug that actually made me laugh

So about those two-car subway stations... Building the Central Subway stations for two-car trains was not a cost-cutting measure that will need to be changed to expand capacity later. Some important context to this is Central Subway is the second phase of the T-Third Street Light Rail project, a surface/subway line connecting the underserved southeast portion of San Francisco with downtown. Most of the 5-mile-or-so line runs on a surface corridor with room for no more than a two-car train, and even that was a squeeze in places. I was on an advisory committee, so I know about this project. Longer trains in the subway portion - and geology decided where that starts - could not provide direct service to those who live, work, transfer to Caltrain, attend Giants and Warriors games, or anything else people do along the surface portion of the T-Third Street line. With that as a constraint, why would you do anything but design for frequent two-car service? For the existing surface/subway light rail system, frequent two-car surface stops at the perimeter turning into wider-spaced downtown subway stations works relatively well. The T-Third Street was designed to include everything that works and try to fix what didn't. Every station on T-Third Street is fully accessible, with level boarding through every door. It runs in a dedicated corridor with signal priority for nearly its full length (except for several blocks where there just wasn't room). More importantly, it doesn't share the subway with 4 other lines. The Central Subway is designed to comfortably support regular two-car service every 4 minutes, alternating between Sunnydale trains and Mission Bay shuttles. There's some padding to run a few event shuttles less than 3 minutes apart. The limiting factor on frequency is the turnback facilities at Chinatown Station: A scissor crossing before the station and tail tracks long enough to stash an extra train on each side. As the Central Subway extends further, it can have more turnback capabilities: longer tail tracks and a second set of crossover tracks after the final station.

Total waste of $$$$$. I have ridden it and it’s not a lot of bang for the bucks

As someone also noted Muni does not run 4-car trains, only 2-car and to see a 1-car train that you needed to catch pull up during rush hour would make you pull your hair out.

One thing to note is that you can increase frequency with the 2-car trains and support over 50k daily riders pretty easily. Plus to redesign them for 4-5 car trains would require ripping out all 17 or so surface stations. The point of light rail is to be less disruptive to the neighborhood it serves. I think more realistically we just need to add 1 or two more routes that leverage the tunnel, like the Market St Subway. Have it branch in the north or south and use these stations as transfer points. We could have a train running through it every 30 seconds. It’s all a fever dream though unless we can unlock funding.

I wonder if this is how people would feel if SEPTA's subway-surface trolley lines were built today. It also feels moving towards building a small metro would be a great long-term goal to compliment BART and Caltrain.

Big projects opening in 2023? Ummm…East Side Access? But I’ll let that slide… 😜 Why do they insist on building these gigantic cavernous stations, like they’re going to be the next major transfer station? (I’m talking about you, Second Avenue Subway!) Building that giant box for a two car trolley? Thats insane. That can be a fallout shelter for half the city!

How deep are the stations? I don't understand why the buses are still running on the surface when a brand new subway is right there underground.

This line is incredibly useful exactly at this moment in December every year when they decide to shut down Stockton street for a month due to union square holiday things and make all the busses do a long detour around to market 😂😂

San Francisco upzoning rabbit hole video, next please!

A Chinatown resident told me that many people don’t take the MUNI subway as they can get into the bus for free.

You don't have to like it but it's been called SoMa since before you were born.

One of the reasons that the cost of the subway ballooned so much because the United States of North America, in general, is far more pro-car and pro-bus than pro-rail, be it heavy rail or light rail/streetcar (trolley). In Philadelphia, the call for the Roosevelt Blvd Subway, which has been on the books for over a century, to be a reality is at an all-time high. But, there are five things keeping it from being a reality: purposely ballooning costs, constant studies to see if the subway is feasible, despite studies being done years ago, and the reluctance of SEPTA, the Philadelphia government and the Pennsylvania government having it constructed. The growth of Philadelphia area transit was stunted once SEPTA took over back in 1968. The one great thing that SEPTA really did was connect the former Reading Railroad Lines and former Penn-Central Railroad Lines with a Center City tunnel, complete with a new station, Market East, now named Jefferson Station.

I rode from Caltrain to Union Square recently. I waited several minutes for a train that crawled along the surface part before speeding up in the subway. Adding 2 minutes to emerge from the bowels of the station, my trip was barely faster than walking.

The bus lines are packed and the Chinatown streets are packed with pedestrians because the stores are all open air and crowd the sidewalks. So I think the line was justified by capacity concerns. But it is kind of sad to be limited to 2 car trains, and it's really a pain to go down that deep, really wish they hadn't made those design calls or found ways around them. I, for one would be fine if they made the project an automated light metro with like 4-6 cars or something, even if that would mean not as smoothly connecting to the rest of muni light rail. Also a minor annoyance is that they already drilled the tunnels to North Beach and Washington square but didn't put a station there yet for some reason.

You can have staggered entry if the ATO has it coded. For example, the programmed stop for first set of cars, move them forward, align the next two using the programmed stop antennas. It’s a bandaid solution, as the ridership for this goes up and up the more I take it. I’d imagine by 2026 it’d be the norm to require 4 cars

Don't worry about the need to run larger 3-4-car trains just yet. Let's focus on getting phase 2 to North Beach done. Adding one stop to North Beach will not generate that much ridership and the current 2-car setup will be just fine. If we need more capacity, why not just increase the frequencies?

This line only runs with 10 minute headways iirc. There's a lot more capacity to be squeezed out of this line before you have to expand the stations and platforms, although you're 100% right that not doing so from the get go was short sighted, as most transit development in this country seems to be these days...

I have SO many photos of the early construction in Chinatown, pretty crazy to see it come complete

Sure it’s had its headaches… But I think it’s totally worth it. No more having to walk from BART to Chinatown for lunch!

I love transit costs in California. The numbers just seem made up. Two miles of subway cost almost as much as Bangkok's 15 mile of heavy rail with almost 9 miles of tunnels through old town and under the river (purple line extension). Takes eons to build as well.

With 2-car trains, do you mean, just a single EMU? That's incredibly short-sighted, of course you don't want your expensive downtown tunnel line to just stop there...

Nah. Busses are cheap, but *subways make the city above better.* Obviously subways cost more, but the link between Union Square and Chinatown is vital and central enough (pun intended) to warrant a subway. It may take a while, but ridership will eventually be very high.

I think super deep stations for Subways are a HUGE Achilles heel.

Love that you captured one of the ubiquitous George Kittle Zenni ads. George Kittle is to BART what Anh Phoong is to buses.

My name in the credits!! Omg!!!

I'm a londoner, and compared to our new Elisabeth Line, frankly this looks awful. Two billion dollars for just two miles of track, and as far as I can see the stations don't even have platform screens or lifts/elevators.

bus lines are stuck at the speed of cars. And giving them their own lane is never popular. Just put more two-car trains, but a subway is best.

everyone says SOMA; no one says anything else. Also, Mosconeeee. And a very strange (and incorrect) use of the present perfect, not to mention it COSTED.

Can you also bring Toronto , Montreal and Vancouver in the video of Tier city list. Would love to see a video on these cities with comparison to American cities.

I'd like to use MUNI without having to transfer from BART.

It's a "just okay" system that doesn't go anywhere at the current moment. Hopefully there will be three to four stations added to the existing north end of the line within the next twenty-five years. Then it will become competent.

As a SF resident, I would much rather take the existing buses above surface that are already frequent and time efficient.

This subway project was and still is a huge waste of money. Money that truly could have been spent elsewhere such as the repaving the horrible roads or reconstruction of the traffic systems in the city.

Building a two car metro is contraproductive Would running 30-36 of these per hour meet the demand?

No more wasting time going down and around embarcadero,🎉 .the walk to connect to bart at powell😢.

I speak to many folks in the Silicon Valley about personal rapid transit. Two are planned in the Bay Area

Mos-KO-NEE

Moscon-EEE. The hard "e" is not silent. Rose Pak wanted a subway to make up for the post-earthquake loss of the Embarcadero Freeway, and by god if Rose Pak wants something she's going to get it. I seem to recall one of the major issues that lengthened construction time and greatly increased costs was some kind of track incompatibility wherein a whole bunch of track had to be ripped out and re-installed, but I don't remember the specifics. Thank you for the vid.

Who rides it? North Beach is an easy walk from BART on Market Street.

Nah. Not getting any project done here is like pulling teeth and more. /

We need to figure out why it costs a billion dollars a mile to build a subway or we will never have a good mass transit system.

This is NOT a new line. It's simply a spur. Taking the line to N Beach and Presidio would be awesome for tourism. I would have loved this too when I lived in N Beach. Bring it SF, should only take 100 years more messing round.

Integrate the cable cars into the Muni system and turn them into a legit transit option not just for tourists ❌ Spend $2B on a new tunnel instead ✅ In all realness, I'm all for more trains. But like, Elon can dig a useless tunnel under Las Vegas for shits and giggles, and somehow these cities can't do the same thing without spending billions. I don't get it.

Should have tunnelled 5 years ago to the transit center instead.