SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: Transit/Transportation News

[CharlesCO]

The part before that also caught my attention:

To deal with the crowds, BART is considering weekend service increases, a greater number of turnbacks at key hubs and more direct trains between San Francisco and the East Bay. Those are all near-term solutions and would require 880 train cars.

By 2025, BART is proposing to increase the number of trains during peak commute times, run more frequent service on nights and weekends, and offer express routes from the suburbs to urban areas. That plan would require 980 trains.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/tran...#ixzz2CqOsW3QO

They already do a small amount of direct SF-East Bay routes between Concord and 24th Street during commute hours, and more of those would be great. Express trains would also be fantastic. I was always under the impression that express service would never come to BART.

Of course, how are they going to pay for all of these things, especially with the San Jose line and the new fleet already making money tight?

[theskythelimit]

As the Central subway continues, discussion on where to extract the underground digging machine is an issue. North Beach businesses and residents do not want their streets to be dug up and disrupt their lives.
Furthermore, the extention could be extended into North Beach/ Fisherman's Warf in the future.

Options are:

1) leave it underground in North Beach with possibly savings up to 23 million. It was stated that this option would hinder the extention into North Beach but I do not understand why?

2) bring it up on Powell street with an extra cost of 6 million or so. This option would allow the extention into Norh Beach and save the area from being dug up.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/tran...rk-north-beach

[Grantenfuego]

BART is proposing to increase the number of trains during peak commute times, run more frequent service on nights and weekends, and offer express routes from the suburbs to urban areas. That plan would require 980 trains.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/tran...#ixzz2DG6q09F6

I'm obviously missing something, but how can a timed one track system offer express routes? Won't those trains be constantly stopping to wait for the right of way?

[fflint]

Originally Posted by Grantenfuego

I'm obviously missing something, but how can a timed one track system offer express routes? Won't those trains be constantly stopping to wait for the right of way?

Today's Times-Herald reports "The strategy involves buying new train cars, installing more advanced signaling systems and adding more tracks to run additional service." The article notes adding additional track in certain areas allowed Caltrain to institute Baby Bullet service, which grew ridership 60%.

Yesterday's Mercury News posted this graphic of proposed upgrades:

[Grantenfuego]

Today's Times-Herald reports "The strategy involves buying new train cars, installing more advanced signaling systems and adding more tracks to run additional service."

That's great news, however far off it may be. Once there are more tracks that will inevitably raise the question of 24 hour or at least late night service.

[ardecila]

I doubt there will be any express tracks added to underground sections of BART. That's really expensive, and for the same money you could build a parallel subway line 1-2 miles away to expand coverage. We're probably talking about passing sidings at most, on aerial sections of track.

[fflint]

Originally Posted by ardecila

I doubt there will be any express tracks added to underground sections of BART. That's really expensive, and for the same money you could build a parallel subway line 1-2 miles away to expand coverage. We're probably talking about passing sidings at most, on aerial sections of track.

While I share your doubt, it must be noted more than half of the segment where proposed "express" trains would run (and almost all of the segment within SF proper)--is underground.

[ardecila]

If you're interested in the details, the comments for this CAHSR blog post are pretty enlightening.

Basically, the Transbay Tube is already at or very near its top capacity, with 24 tph during rush hour, given the track configuration in the rest of the network. You could probably increase this, but it would require advanced signaling systems and some pretty complex and expensive new tunneling on both sides of the bay, creating turnarounds and station expansions to really maximize the capacity of the Transbay Tube.

[fflint]

Right, there haven't been details on just how express service would work. Advanced signaling systems and additional track are part of the proposal, but not the where and how.

[ardecila]

Yeah, I don't think BART itself knows just yet. Express service is the goal, so the engineers will take a look and see what upgrades are necessary. Don't expect it to be cheap; BART consultants have a reputation for being pretty spendthrift.

[northbay]

SMART construction updates: November 2012 Field Welding












http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...e=1&permPage=1

[Smiley Person]

Completed version of the California Rail Map. Shows rail transit and key bus and boat connections.



Full size: http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...p-20121127.jpg
PDF at www.californiarailmap.com

[fflint]

Wow, that's original--is that yours?

[Urbana]

Does anyone know how eBART construction is coming along?

[tech12]

Looks like the central subway might end up getting extended to North Beach, with a new stop at the site of the long-abandoned Pagoda theater at Columbus and Powell streets:

The construction plan for San Francisco’s five stop Central Subway line has long called for digging to continue beyond the last northern stop on the line at Washington and Stockton down in Chinatown in order to excavate the subway drilling machines.

Seeking to quell the vocal concerns of North Beach merchants and residents who would be disrupted by the digging, Muni General Manager Ed Reiskin has told the Chronicle that he plans to recommend an abandonment of the plan to dig up Columbus, instead "he'll recommend to the Municipal Transportation Agency that the subway tunnel be extended to Columbus and Powell Street, site of the long-abandoned Pagoda Theater" which the City doesn't currently own, but upon which a North Beach station could be built if it did.

http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2....html#comments

I really hope this ends up happening. It's annoying that the reason for the idea seems to be NIMBY pressure, but at least the pressure may result in something good this time. On a related note, a comment in an article about this on SFgate seems to suggest that after the central subway is finished, there are plans to try and build a subway line down Geary:

"38 is planned for a subway spur, but the central subway has to be built first and the money for a Geary extension has to come through."

Who knows if the commenter is just making stuff up (not unlikely) or actually has some inside info, but that would obviously be great.

Does anyone know anything about that? I seem to remember that several years ago there was some talk of a Geary subway, but a bunch of merchants in the outer Richmond freaked out, claiming that construction would hurt their business, and that people in a train wouldn't be able see their businesses, unlike motorists, therefore business would be hurt even more (never mind the improved access people would have to your neighborhood/businesses, you dummies). Though I think the main reason it was dropped was due to potential costs, and the cheaper alternative of BRT? So I guess It could be possible that there are still some dormant plans for a Geary subway filed away somewhere.

[Grantenfuego]

I thought I remembered hearing a rumor about this line eventually finishing somewhere in fisherman's wharf. If they remove the drilling machines at Columbus & Powell won't that kind of kill the opportunity?

The Geary subway seems like a long shot at this point, but how fantastic would that be? It would be the spur of life that the Richmond needs to really boom. A BRT line down Geary would be so near-sighted, just a lot of money for something that might perform slightly better than the 38L.

[Gordo]

There are no active Muni plans for a Geary subway.

There was talk about 6-7 years ago around building the Powell station of the Central Subway in such a way where the north-south CS tunnel would be in a shallow tunnel passing under Market in the mezzanine level of the current Market tunnel - which would have allowed a Geary tunnel to pass under the new north-south tunnel. That was scrapped (unfortunately - one of many terrible decisions on this project) and the new tunnel will essentially guarantee that Geary never connects with Market via a tunnel, unless it's either a 10+ story deep tunnel coming from Geary and/or a weird alternate routing once you get past Van Ness, where the tunnel turns right quite a ways before Union Square.

In slight defense of the merchants, they actually came out in favor of a subway - as a way to try and kill BRT. They've never been against the subway, in large part because there's never been an actual concrete subway proposal put forward since BART in the 60s. There was a sorta-official plan for a subway floated ~10 years ago that would have surfaced west of Van Ness and used the median of Geary as ROW from around Laguna to the Richmond. That is what eventually morphed into the current BRT plan. It was made BRT because of cost though, nothing else (as far as I know).

[tech12]

Originally Posted by Gordo

There are no active Muni plans for a Geary subway.

There was talk about 6-7 years ago around building the Powell station of the Central Subway in such a way where the north-south CS tunnel would be in a shallow tunnel passing under Market in the mezzanine level of the current Market tunnel - which would have allowed a Geary tunnel to pass under the new north-south tunnel. That was scrapped (unfortunately - one of many terrible decisions on this project) and the new tunnel will essentially guarantee that Geary never connects with Market via a tunnel, unless it's either a 10+ story deep tunnel coming from Geary and/or a weird alternate routing once you get past Van Ness, where the tunnel turns right quite a ways before Union Square.

In slight defense of the merchants, they actually came out in favor of a subway - as a way to try and kill BRT. They've never been against the subway, in large part because there's never been an actual concrete subway proposal put forward since BART in the 60s. There was a sorta-official plan for a subway floated ~10 years ago that would have surfaced west of Van Ness and used the median of Geary as ROW from around Laguna to the Richmond. That is what eventually morphed into the current BRT plan. It was made BRT because of cost though, nothing else (as far as I know).

Ok, that's too bad. I guess I was getting my Geary BRT memories all mixed up with my memory of that "sorta-offical plan for a subway" you mentioned.

That's annoying that they're building the central subway Powell/union square station in that manner...though if the central subway tunnel is being dug lower than the market street tunnel, rather than above it, wouldn't that mean that a Geary subway could pass above the central subway at the union square station, and then connect with the market tunnel at the intersection with Geary instead of the powell-market station?

Of course that's all part of my plan once I become emperor of SF...a plan that would also extend the central subway north to fisherman's wharf, loop it over to van ness, and send it back down to market, and where I'd build a tunnel under the bay from embarcadero station to treasure island, to service the new development there. Trains would surface once on the island, and run at street level, with a branch going north and another continuing east, running the L and M lines. And there would also be more housing built on TI than the new plan calls for .

[ardecila]

The problem isn't alignment, it's station location. If you want the Geary line to have platforms at Union Square, you need to find a straight, level piece of track. If the Geary tunnel needs to swoop and dive over/under various other tunnels, there's no spot for a station unless you place it much further west by Mason or Taylor.

It's possible to get several lines to coexist (NY, London, Tokyo have them) but you have to plan for it from the beginning or accept massively disruptive construction works (and massive pricetags).

[tech12]

Originally Posted by ardecila

The problem isn't alignment, it's station location. If you want the Geary line to have platforms at Union Square, you need to find a straight, level piece of track. If the Geary tunnel needs to swoop and dive over/under various other tunnels, there's no spot for a station unless you place it much further west by Mason or Taylor.

It's possible to get several lines to coexist (NY, London, Tokyo have them) but you have to plan for it from the beginning or accept massively disruptive construction works (and massive pricetags).

But the central subway needs to be routed under the market street tunnel, right? So it seems there would be no need on that stretch of Geary for the tracks to swoop, or dive, as it would be a straight shot with no tunnel obstructing it, and it could pass right above the central subway. So the tracks would be straight and level...there could even be a separate Geary subway station at the opposite corner of union square (at powell), connected by an underground pathway to the central subway station (at stockton). At last that's how it seems it might be able to work to me. Too bad this stuff is so expensive, I'd love to see MUNI turn into a proper subway system. The central subway is a step in that direction at least, despite it's short length.