San Francisco’s ambitious transit project takes off

Written by jrood

With the gray cement of San Francisco's old Transbay Transit Terminal as a backdrop, on August 11 officials stood before a flashy white placard with an orange "T" emblazoned on its face and broke ground on a new transit center, the San Francisco Appeal reports. The Transbay Transit Center, which is planned to act as the terminus station for the nation's first high-speed rail system, has been dubbed the "Grand Central Station of the West Coast."

"We are opening a new
chapter in the history of progress," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at
today’s groundbreaking ceremony. "We are coming together to create jobs
and vitalize our economy to make San Francisco, once again, a national model
for economic development."

In addition to the
high-speed rail system, the $4.2-billion transit center will eventually
accommodate 10 other transit operators, including Caltrain, AC Transit, Amtrak
and others.

The old Transbay Terminal,
constructed in 1939, was declared seismically unsafe after the Loma Prieta
earthquake in 1989.

The first seven-year phase
of the project, which includes construction of a one million square-foot main
transit center that will replace the old one at First and Mission streets, will
create an estimated 48,000 jobs. The second phase of construction, estimated to
begin in 2012, will connect Caltrain to the new transit center.

The Transbay Redevelopment
Plan, which was adopted by San Francisco in 2005, includes plans to increase
the number of residential, office and retail space near the new transit center
to revitalize the neighborhood. The five-story transit center will also feature
a 5.4-acre public park on its roof.

Drizzly weather hardly
seemed to dampen the high spirits of Pelosi, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom,
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood,
Congressman George Miller, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
Executive Director Nathaniel Ford and other officials who spoke at today’s
groundbreaking.

"This Transbay Transit
Center project is quite simply a bullet train for job creation," Boxer
said.

Many of the speakers
credited the realization of the project to President Obama’s federal stimulus
funding, $8 billion of which was delegated specifically for high-speed rail
projects.

"We would not be here
today if it weren’t for the extraordinary courage of the delegation from
California, led by the Speaker, who within one month of being sworn in …
passed a $780 billion economic recovery plan," LaHood said of the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

California was awarded
$2.25 billion in federal stimulus funding for high-speed rail projects.

In addition to federal
stimulus money, funding for the project came from the state of California, the
Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the San Francisco County and San Mateo
County transportation authorities, and AC Transit, among others. The first
phase of the transit center, scheduled to open in August 2017, is fully funded.

Newsom lauded the
delegates’ abilities to link economic growth, housing, and transit, and he
called the transit center the "ultimate manifestation of smart
growth.

"Don’t forget it was
just a few years ago when we saw a 200 percent increase in traffic congestion
in and around the Bay Area," Newsom said. "The question was at the
time, and the question still is today, what do you do to accommodate that
growth?"

Former San Francisco Mayor
Willie Brown, who started the process of rebuilding the Transbay Terminal
during his term in office, also attended today’s event.

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