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Is San Francisco's New Transit Center a Waste?

City Beautiful
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Unfun fact. The Amtrak buses connecting from trains in Emeryville were suposed to stop at the Transit Center. The rent for one bus stall was so high that Amtrak could not afford it and instead stops on Mission St right outside the Transit Center.
1.4K
agreed - as a San Franciscan, it is just a expensive intermodal bus station now. What you missed is how great the roof top park is. It was carefully designed with seven different areas to reflect all seven different world Mediterranean climates, and filled with rare plants from each. We locals actually use the park. Hopefully, someday there will be trains.
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Until it's connected to BART, Caltrain, and HSR, it's going to be empty. For now, it's a nice bus terminal.
553
Sitting on the salesforce bench, eating salesforce ice cream, at the salesforce park, located near the salesforce tower, at the salesforce street, wearing salesforce shirt, and salesforce pants. watching a salesforce tutorial, on my salesforce phone, to use the salesforce services
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A bit of a nitpick, but Grand Central Station does have a named sponsor, the New York Central Railroad. Not many people know about it though since the the New York Central is long gone.
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I don't think it's a waste. The new station is an example of good preparation for the future. Connections to Caltrain, BART and Muni will make the new station even better.
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This was supposed to be only Phase 1 of the project. Phase 2 was called DTX (Downtown Rail Extension) that connected Caltrain & Muni to the Transit Center via underground pedestrian walkways. It never received full funding thanks to the Transit Center's concrete cracking in the first months of opening, and the infamous adjacent Millenium Tower blaming their sinking and tilt on the Transit Center construction work.
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One huge feature you left out: Those transbay buses previously had to use the same I-80 offramps as all the other freeway traffic, and then crawl around SoMa through traffic lights and turns. Because of the transit center they have a dedicated ramp in/out of the station and never reach street level. It's a great benefit for everyone: Bus service is faster/more predictable, and drivers/cyclists/pedestrians are spared the noise and congestion of all those buses.
14
I used this transbay center first time last year on a weekend and was shocked how dead it was. As I understand it all of the bus connections are meant for work commuters. And ofc SF’s downtown was overly focused on work/office buildings + WFH has killed SF’s downtown. So the transbay center is pretty useless as is. Need to revitalize downtown to be more mixed use and residential + add more transit and train connections to the rest of the Bay Area to make it a useful hub.
168
I live on Treasure Island. The only practical way to enter or exit is by driving or busing up and on ramp which leads directly to the Bay bridge. Before the transit center my bus (muni 25) took the Fremont exit which is constantly jammed during downtown events. A 15 to 20 minute ride often took over an hour. With the bus bridge service is a LOT more consistent. Moving the Greyhound and AC busses to the third floor freed up a lot of downtown real estate. How much? Check out the park on the corner of Beale and Howard. 6 years ago that was all buses. Transbay may not hit all the marks. The ones that does hit will probably be late and over budget. But it's done a lot of good for the city.
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fun fact: the long fountain in the park is in sync with the buses on the level below so that as buses move, the fountain activates directly above them.
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It currently only serves buses, and it's going to be a long time until HSR comes in. But having caltrain connections and bart connections at the place would actually make it a decent transit center
168
The naming is awkward, but then the Pennsylvania Railroad left Penn Stations all over the northeast...
197
It’s frustrating that China can build and overbuild infrastructure in undeveloped areas and receive the benefit of the doubt from transit advocates, but CA tries to invest in one of their most developed areas and everyone starts losing their mind. SF is doing something big here, they already have half the funding needed for the downtown extension from the federal government. We just need to finish the damn CAHSR and everyone will forget the Salesforce Transit Center ever had problems.
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Saying the transit center is "four blocks from Market Street" is rather disingenuous. It is 1.5 blocks away when not counting alleyway streets. It is more honest to say it is 800 feet from Market Street.
15
As someone that lives here I just continue to call it the Transbay Terminal. But this definitely a cart before the horse project
79
The park on top is really, really nice. Right now it's worth visiting for that alone.
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Muni gets around saying Salesforce. If a line terminates at the Salesforce Transit Center, the display on the front just says “SF Transit Center” where most people would assume it means San Francisco
8
The park upstairs is a great addition to the community.
28
I may be alone inthis but what I find missing from the station is businesses. You called it an airport - airports have businesses inside, past the security line. I keep thinking of CDMX subway stations and how Cuauhtemoc, the central stop, has restaurants and clothing stores inside. Or La Raza, that has a full astronomy museum inside. As is, the station feels sterile. I use it - the NL is convenient for me when going to the city - but I don’t look forward to spending time in it.
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