Central subway to Jackson/Stockton
Muni has made some changes in the Central Subway project to connect 4th and Townsend to Chinatown. According to the Examiner story, the subway will run under 4th St. instead of 3rd St., and instead of stopping at Clay and Stockton at the end of the Stockton Street vehicle tunnel, will go two blocks farther, to Jackson.
A graphic in the Examiner this morning (not online, but scanned in here — click it for the whole thing) showed the new route.
In addition to the extension, the new plan includes an extended platform for a Union Square station with a pedestrian tunnel that connects to the main Muni Metro lines on Market St.
The line would open in 2016, according to the plan. Given Muni’s experience with the T line, you shouldn’t hold your breath. The year 2020 might be a better guess.
By contrast, here’s the old version of the route — a version which was still on Muni’s site this morning.
What’s intriguing about Muni’s map are the purple arrows — one pointing down Geary St., another up Folsom. What are these arrows? Proposals for even more subway lines?
Ironically, the Stockton Tunnel was originally for streetcars ONLY – which is why it looks so much like a subway tunnel….
The Central Subway will do little to nothing to alleviate real world traffic problems, and will only serve to suck money away from any real solutions to MUNI’s problems.
Plus, they don’t intend on getting more rail cars for it, so they’ll have to take even MORE rail cars from other lines just to serve a line that was created solely to appease voters for Willie Brown’s election.
This project passes through the zones of so many special interest groups, neighborhood groups and political fiefdoms that it probably won’t be a reality until the end of this century.
what a waste of money. 95% of the time I could walk to Jackson street on Kearny before the damn MUNI would show up.
I completely disagree.
As a regular rider on the 30 Stockton, this route will be a godsend. Underground rail is expensive, it is true. But it is also far, far faster than aboveground gridlocked buses.
We should celebrate the expansion of rail in San Francisco, and push for a Geary line as well as other new routes. The costs may be high, but in the long run, it will make life in San Francisco so much better.
We simply cannot force buses in a city this dense to be the answer to everything. Unobstructed rail is the way to go. Just go to New York or London or Paris, or even Santiago or Buenos Aires, and see how livable a subway makes a city.
I will be the first to board the central subway.