Adrianna TanI hate the Salesforce transit center with a passion
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Chuck Fry 🏳️🌈@skinnylatte There's been proposals to extend the Caltrain tracks to the transit center for decades, but the cost would be enormous. There is some hope that High Speed Rail would pay part of the cost, as it did for Caltrain electrification, but that is (a) unlikely and (b) decades off if it does happen. The reason there's a transit center there in the first place is that it used to be the western terminus of the Key System trains in the first two decades of the Bay Bridge. They never should have taken the tracks off the bridge.
Dev@skinnylatte I’m surprised there are no plans to connect muni light rail or trams to the transit center
crzwdjk ✅ @dev @skinnylatte Fun fact, the historic trams actually used to start from the Transbay Terminal and run down Market Street, but at some point that terminal was abandoned (probably when they extended the line to Fisherman's Wharf?)
Jonathan Yu@skinnylatte The Park is pretty cool, though? Plus they have birding walks on the first Wednesday of each month
@jawnsy yes but it’s useless for transit
Jack Coates 🐀@skinnylatte @jawnsy it’s fine for busses, I ride the bus for commutes from Berkeley fairly often. And I do like the park. But the part where CalTrain and high speed rail and who knows what else never got there and there’s no plan to get there… not great.
@puercomal @jawnsy I wish it was more connected to other transit, like transit centers are supposed to be, so I can get to the F bus more easily
When BART wasn’t crossing the transbay tube the other day it was so chaotic to get there from any BART station and then clearly they weren’t prepared for that type of overflow
It’s also way too desolate at night
@skinnylatte @jawnsy yeah, after commute hours it’s rough to get around. SoMa and FiDi are way too desolate at night since the pandemic, SF’s always rolled up the sidewalks earlier than the east coast but now it’s a little sketchy by 9
@puercomal @skinnylatte Nobody should be awake after 9, we have to get up early tomorrow for a hike or run!
John Ripley@skinnylatte Same. It feels distinctly like an example of SF simply, and probably deliberately, not understanding how transit works. It was a gigantic construction project, with foundations which probably span far larger than an underground station would have accounted for. But it's a hub for buses *only*. No transfer between transit types. Not even close to any of them.
Paul Masson@jripley @skinnylatte I remember watching it being built. The massive hole looked like it went down over a hundred feet, so it’s probable that there is space underneath for future expansion. Anyone know of City planning documents?
scott f@skinnylatte Me too. It was an excuse to let downtown real estate owners make a fortune off new office and condo skyscrapers labeled as "transit-oriented development."
They're trying to do it again with the proposed Caltrain/HSR extension *to* the transit center. They're gonna build offices and condos at 4th & King while the rail extension is still unfunded. They say it won't make the eventual rail project more expensive but I don't believe them
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/housing-towers-railyards-caltrain-21967855.php