Central Subway: An Honest Reflection

In this video, we discuss some of the core issues plaguing the eight month old Central Subway in San Francisco from a rider's personal experiences on the opening day and what solutions and measures could be done to fix them.
All video footage recorded in-house
Sources:
(1): archive.org/details/fourcorri...
(2): www.sfexaminer.com/archives/w...
(3): hoodline.com/2016/01/new-d3-s...
(4): www.sfmta.com/blog/green-ligh....

[@erikawwad7653]

they should have just built the station in north beach. the T feels much safer and less crowded than the busses

[@TeamEXAngus]

Great analysis. Whilst opening projects in phases is appealing, priority should still be given to completing the entire project in a reasonable timeframe.

[@anthonysnyder1152]

Agreed with everything! An extension to at least North Beach and signal pre-emption will solve most issues. Increased frequency will come when they fill up the trains. Luckily they procured enough trains. Right now, due to the signal issues, trains get bunched when they add the shuttles for the Chase Center events, that’s with 2-5 min headways from the last I saw. I once took a T-third 12 mins from Union Square to Chase Center. That’s 9mph with stops. Usually that ride is like 15-18 mins, up to 20 mins. That’s with mostly green lights and an operator that actually sped up where appropriate. If we could reliably achieve that every day, there would be substantially more riders. (Ridership show 7k daily rider increase since January 2023, line could hit 25-30k without needing longer trains or more frequency) What I’m saying is that I believe the infrastructure is there and is capable of all these improvements without any significant changes (beyond upgrading the tech from ACTS > CBTC)

[@thehouseoftransit2719]

Absolutely. There are plenty of things which could be done to improve the Central Subway without doing super expensive concrete fixes. Operations and electronics first is the way to go. I'm glad to hear that the Central Subway is getting more ridership, and I'm sure it can hit the 43k target that Muni set out in its Final EIR if the trend of increasing ridership continues.

[@electro_sykes]

@@thehouseoftransit2719 they should really extend it to Fort Mason and the Golden Gate bridge, as that would be better than just extending the F historic streetcars. So much quicker and more direct

[@jarjarbinks6018]

I was on vacation in sf and walked from japantown to van ness to take the brt to my hotel and that thing was booking it! Honestly I didn’t have the opportunity to take any rail transit while in sf but the bus system is awesome and very convenient from my experience

[@anthonysnyder1152]

SF buses are a powerhouse. Just not that comfortable to ride when they get full (which is often). That’s when trains come in to solve those problems but we don’t get enough funding to actually build what we need unfortunately. The city widely priorities cars travel despite the fact that the city is not designed for the amount of traffic we see every day...

[@ficus3929]

Agreed, I lived in SF without a car and then moved away. Now when I visit I drive in and it’s actually pretty easy (if not cheap) to get around SF in a car. There’s parking garages everywhere and streets like Geary that are really oriented to car travel. I used to think lands end was impossibly far, but it turns out muni is just really slow. Driving to lands end is easy peasy and there’s literally free parking.

[@lucaspadilla4815]

Deep stations are less of an issue for me, if you go to London (which is still the best transit system I’ve personally ridden) many of those stations are insanely deep, but they make it up with 2 minute frequencies

[@apollotransit6711]

This is valid, although if there’s a way to make stations shallower it’s usually better for both the rider experience and lowering costs

[@theexcaliburone5933]

I disagree, it’s so much easier to walk down a few flights of stairs like in the NYC subway or Paris metro, or walk up a flight like the Chicago L or Taipei MRT

[@thehouseoftransit2719]

Fair enough, and there are ways to lessen the impact of these deeper stations. For example, someone else in the comments mentioned how slow the escalators were, and it may be worth it to increase escalator and elevator speeds to compensate for the depth of the stations. I realize that this may be somewhat expensive, but escalator and elevator upgrades can be done as part of a station renovation project sometime in the future. But for future projects, it's definitely more beneficial to have shallower stations. Time truly is money.

[@theexcaliburone5933]

@@thehouseoftransit2719 agreed

[@Yowzoe]

@@thehouseoftransit2719 are you certain that speeding up the escalators would require a massive retooling? Were they not billed with the variable speeds? That was one of my thoughts while watching. Now that the line is a few months old, increasing escalator speed by 15% shouldn't surface any safety concerns, and seems like a small but useful no-brainer.

[@KcarlMarXs]

Main issue is train frequency on the chinatown station end

[@edwardmiessner6502]

Good analysis. Frequency and traffic light priority should be done first, and quickly. Then the extension to North Beach and points west. There's plenty of tourist and local traffic that can be served by this upgraded trolley.

[@MiaCollinsNeighborhood]

Big thank you to you since you covered my area (SF Bay Area)

[@JesusChrist-qs8sx]

I would take slight issue with the idea of a return on investment...the return on investment in a transit system doesn't come from money generated from the transit system, it comes from all of the other benefits transit brings - connectivity, accessibility, better designed cities, etc. Highways aren't profitable either, but you rarely see people talking about the return on investment for those

[@thehouseoftransit2719]

I see where you're coming from, but even with social benefits, increased connectivity, and improved streetscapes, the Central Subway hasn't produced the enough benefits to outweigh the costs. The primary issue I'm seeing here is that it's only slightly better than the buses it is supposed relieve capacity on. Most importantly, it produces minimal benefits from a riders' perspective, at least for now. I hope that I'm proven wrong in the coming years - there's a lot of potential with the Central Subway to right the wrongs and bring new benefits.

[@luislaplume8261]

In my old hometown of NYC the suway tunnels go underneath the railroad track at Penn Station and Grand Central terminal as well as going underneath the Harlem River and the East River.

[@ttopero]

In Denver, we don’t have ANY service line (light rail, heavy/commuter rail or bus) that has headways less than 15 minutes. Even 12 minutes seems like a dream!

[@guinessbeer]

That’s wild! Is it because of interlining?

[@ttopero]

@@guinessbeer 15 minutes is our standard FREQUENTIST service except the Free Mall Ride downtown. Several factors, with interlining being 1. We can’t keep operators. Demand is insufficient for a commuter-focus model of shuttling those with transport options while neglecting those without options

[@brianna_lynch]

I think this line would’ve had way higher ridership if coronavirus never happened. A lot of people work from home now so hardly anyone goes into downtown.

[@jarjarbnks340]

The Geary corridor should of been constructed instead of the central subway because Geary has high ridership levels.

[@electro_sykes]

they should really extend it to Fort Mason and the Golden Gate bridge, as that would be better than just extending the F historic streetcars. What would be better though is if they extended both to meet up at Fort Mason and the Golden Gate Bridge, but I doubt that will happen any time soon

[@dancingwiththestars3778]

Phase 3 to Fisherman's Wharf w F Lines Loop + One-Way Loop Subway+Surface F Line w Loop + Loop Phase 4 to Fort Mason,Marina,Crissy Field,Presidio & Golden Gate Bridge via Central Subway + Columbus St Subway Waterfront w F Line

[@davidjackson7281]

@@dancingwiththestars3778Phase 6 to Alcatraz

[@dancingwiththestars3778]

@@davidjackson7281 Phase 7 to Tiburon, Sausalito and Angel Island 🏝️🏖️

[@davidjackson7281]

@@dancingwiththestars3778Perhaps only if they can escape from Alcatraz. Was that central subway a waste of money? Heard it was done to placate Rose Pak who complained tearing down the Embarcadero Freeway hurt Chinatown businesses. Too bad for Caltrain riders there is not a tunnel to the Transit Center instead. Poor plannIing though now only 18,000 daily riders on Caltrain vs. 65,000 pre-covid. Could be a decade before transit ridership returns most everywhere.

[@marcelmoulin3335]

Well-executed video! Thank you for the stellar analysis. I am watching from the Netherlands which sets the standard for superb transport in the major population centres.

[@marcelmoulin3335]

I indicated in my comment that the major population centres offer superb transport. I believe that you are referring to those areas outside of the "randstad" and to those areas outside of the secondary cities. You would be then utterly fair in denigrating the current transport offerings. I live in compact Middelburg where walking and cycling are easy. Getting to places beyond Middelburg is difficult because of the poor transport network. @@cmmartti

[@erikawwad7653]

honestly i think the swinging wind thing at the 4th and brannan station is the best art piece

[@erikawwad7653]

actually nah chintatown station rocks

[@CnekYT]

This is a similar story to the Metro Line in Edmonton

[@mrxman581]

I don't know this system but from what I've read many if not all your recommendations for improving this subway are planned going forward. And it's not an either/or issue with BRTs and subways. They compliment each other. Lastly, many of your observations are usually made on many other systems when lines first open. It's a new line and it will improve. The real world is that there are external forces that affect projects like this including funding availability at any given time, unexpected construction costs, and politics. In many cases it's about compromise and getting the best bang for the buck.

[@thehouseoftransit2719]

I mean, sure, Muni has some plans to improve the issues mentioned in the video. The real question we should be asking ourselves is whether they'll actually happen, given how slow SF in general is with transit planning and construction. For example, the transit signal priority improvements are moving along. but after some looking, there doesn't seem to be a clear target date for actual implementation. The latest news there is, at least from Muni, is standardizing the actual lights, seen here: www.sfmta.com/blog/upgrading-t-weigh-new-type-train-signal-3rd-street. A letter was sent to Muni by the San Francisco Transit Riders advocacy organization asking for better transit signal priority on the T-Third in 2021, but there hasn't been any significant progress since then. Letter: www.sfcta.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/SFTR%20Muni%20Service%20Recovery%20SFCTA%2005.24.21.pdf I'm yet to see an actual, concrete plan from Muni to fix the transit signal priority. Again, I'm sure that'll eventually come, but it's really doubtful these improvements will come about in a timely fashion, if at all. As for the whole, either or issue you bring up, yes both subways and BRT compliment each other. I was just making comparison to the other big transit projects in SF going on at the same time. SF will need both buses AND trains to overcome its transportation issues. I'm sure that frequency will eventually be increased. Someone in the comments mentioned that there has been steady ridership growth on the Central Subway, up to 7,000 more daily riders in the present day than in January 2023, which is by all means great news. This trend could end up convincing Muni to run more trains, which will further drive ridership in a continuous cycle. As for the whole thing regarding the real world, yes, there are complications with construction, politics, and funding availability. This does not change the fact that the Central Subway has some very significant flaws because of some very short-sighted decision-making on Muni's part. For example, the platforms aren't long enough for three car trains. This was because of some "compromises" which were made to satisfy the demands of people who didn't want as much of the road cut up to construct the station boxes. The issue is that the station platforms are already 200 feet long and not going the extra 25 feet as a compromise was completely not worth it. You get most of the expense of constructing for three car trains, but not the benefit of getting the three-car trains. The point is, there are things to compromise on, yes, but Muni seems to have made some rather bad compromises looking in hindsight.

[@mrxman581]

@@thehouseoftransit2719 The main point is that SF is focusing on improving their public transit. SF has some of the best public transit in the USA too even with the compromises they've made. The increased ridership is evidence of that. Doesn't SF have the second largest transit rail network in the country behind NYC? That's to be commended especially when systems like BART opened in the 1970s and NYC's subway system opened in 1904. The issue of platform lengths will be a non issue probably for your lifetime. Increasing the frequency will be more than enough to deal with capacity. Some have made the same criticism of the 3 new Regional Connector stations on LA Metro. In our case some have said they should be longer to allow 4-5 car trains like our subways even though it's not technically a subway. It's a light rail line. All the light rail lines have 3 car station platforms except for the C Line though there are plans to extend the platforms from 2-3 cars so it's compatible with the new K. Line once they connect to the LAX APM. The C line opened in 1995 with 2 car trains and it's been more than fine. Only about 30 years later will the platforms need to be extended. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case with this new route too. Lastly, you need to consider the Covid factor when it comes to getting things done in the last 2-3 years. Only in the last few months are things beginning to get back to normal and that includes government projects at all levels. It's affected projects in Los Angeles too. For example, LAWA might have to delay the opening of the new APM. Our K Line opening got delayed too partly due to Covid. And I believe the recently opened Regional Connector was also delayed because of Covid. The big picture with both LA and SF is that public transit is being improved. That's not the case in many many other cities. However, it's also important that residents make their opinions known to help improve projects going forward. I try to do the same thing in Los Angeles, but I try to be constructive and balanced in my criticisms. I believe you've attempted to do the same with your comments.

[@Yowzoe]

@@thehouseoftransit2719 great points, thanks for keeping an eye the transit situation in SF for all of us :-)

[@my2iu]

I don’t know. After reading up some more on the issue, it turns out that with all the people still working from home, few people are travelling to downtown any more. So a subway that is oriented towards moving people downtown just isn’t going to have much ridership at the moment. I don’t think North Beach residents ride transit much nor are they willing to build giant towers of condos for transit riders, so the ridership gain of a north beach station will just not have a huge impact. Improving transit priority so that people can get to downtown faster also won’t have much of an effect when no one is going downtown any more. Either downtown office culture needs to come back or the city needs a general rethink of how it will function in a post-office world.

[@jpg3702]

Many companies have reversed their WFH policies. And this line serves (or could serve) people other than wfh corporate workers. The lines that he compares it to have a high number of people who shop in Chinatown and bring their goods home to places in Southern parts of the city. Extending it could also help with tourists who go to the Wharf and want a faster way back to areas south of it.

[@davidjackson7281]

@@jpg3702Should have gone to the SFTC instead.

[@arhanmenon1526]

Would it be a good idea long term to elevate the rest of the T Line and turn it into a light metro? Potentially an extension north to Marin County?

[@TohaBgood2]

Elevated lines are rabidly opposed by the locals. So this won't work, especially in our hilly neighborhoods where you'd still have to dig through a ton of hills if you don't want to elevate a few hundred feet into the air. Plus, it's already underground and terminates underground. It only makes sense for this line to continue underground as planned. Any type of extension to Marin county would have to happen over the lower deck of the Golden Gate bridge and would cost at least tens of billions. If we're doing that then might as well build for full heavy rail like BART of Caltrain so that the expense is at least justified by the much much higher capacity of the new line. Muni can only accommodate two-car trains due to the street-running sections. So Muni would be out for any type of cross-bridge extension.

[@arhanmenon1526]

@@TohaBgood2 I mean elevate the street running sections and tunnel to North Beach

[@TohaBgood2]

@@arhanmenon1526 Ummmmm... you mean like south of 4th and King Station? That... does not sound crazy to me at all. The locals would still object and it would be wildly expensive, but that is a possible future upgrade path for the T Third, yes. The only objection that I would have is that they first need to at least give it complete priority over the lights on that section. They're not even fully utilizing the remaining capacity and speed reserve on that segment with their crappy partial signal priority. So before they start even thinking about building a viaduct for the T there, they need to first give it full signal priority and maybe even install crossing gates to milk that section of all the performance it still has untapped. A ton of light metros operate perfectly fine with just signal priority and crossing gates and get near-subway performance numbers. There's literally zero excuses to not do it on the T as was always the plan anyway. But in the farther future, I can totally see that section being elevated. Why not? It's just money.

[@jonw999999]

Can't even build an apartment building in SF and definitely not in Marin. The narcissistic eco hypocrite NIMBYs would go hysterical over an elevated train line in THEIR community.

[@jonw999999]

Great assessment, agreed about getting the North Beach station built ASAP. Crazy how the tunnel goes deep into North Beach without a station. Look how slow it enters the tunnel, this is a Muni issue, it's the same painstaking process by the waterfront. Union Square station has tons of pipes all along the walls at the platform level. Gotta love the one random step at the bottom of a stairway at the Union Square park entrance that will be a huge liability issue.

[@trilingualfudge7307]

why is the speed of your escalators so slow anyway

[@anthonysnyder1152]

Likely safety, but they have decent speed elevators. But the walk to the elevators and then the journey is basically the same time.

[@clivegregory8511]

A station at 4th & Townsend (northside) would have served Brannan St and have been a better location for the Caltrain station rather than the current T Third/Central Subway platform across the extremely busy, and recently deadly, 4th & King intersection and junction

[@thehouseoftransit2719]

Good point. In hindsight, having the 4th and King station at 4th and Townsend instead would be far safer and arguably closer to the train station. Relocation would be a bit of a hassle, yes, but building a surface station shouldn't be difficult at all in the grand scheme of things.

[@electro_sykes]

@@thehouseoftransit2719 If I was building it i would actually have built that bit underground and then you could dig under San Francisco bay to oakland and tada, you have a second transbay crossing.

[@dancingwiththestars3778]

We can Extend Central Subway 1 stop further north ⬆️ from Chinatown Station 🚉 to North Beach Washington Square Park Station with Super Long Platforms in the Subway Acoomodate to 4-5 Car LRT Like Calgary and Edmonton Light Rail 🚈

[@thehouseoftransit2719]

Extending the Central Subway northwards is absolutely a good idea. However, it should go quite a bit further than North Beach! With regards to the platforms, if North Beach's platforms are made super long like you said, then that means all the platforms on the Central Subway and the entire T-Third Line (to at least Mission Bay if not Sunnydale) would presumably need to be extended to fit 4 to 5 car trains. I don't think that investing capital funds into lengthening platforms would be worth it compared to increasing the frequency to match demand and/or induce demand.

[@dancingwiththestars3778]

@@thehouseoftransit2719 We can Extended Platforms at Embarcadero, Montgomery,Powell, Civic Center Station Upper Level of Subway of Muni Metro Market Street Subway from Embarcadero and Van Ness to Church and Castro Station Also Twin Peaks Subway at Forest Hill and West Portal can have 3-4 & 5 to 6 car Muni Metro LRT and Muni Metro Surface St Lines can have 2,3 & 4 Cars on J Church K Ingleside L Taraval M Ocean View and N Judah Lines

[@dancingwiththestars3778]

We Can Extended Accommodate Super Larger and Longer Platforms to 4 to 6 Car LRT at Union Square/Market Street with the Tunnel Curve at Stockton + Market St and to Stockton + Post St and Chinatown Rose Pak Station Extended Accommodate Super Larger and Longer Platform at Chinatown Station to 4 5/6 Car LRT at Stockton + Clay and Washington And Between Washington St and Jackson St Also Yerba Buena/Moscone Center will extended from 2 car to Super Larger and Longest Platforms to 4,5 6 Car LRT at 4th + Folsom St Between Howard and Folsom At 4th St Underground of Central Subway 🚇 🚊

[@ttopero]

Now I understand why I didn’t check it out when I visited SF a couple weeks ago. This was one of the things on my list, but I didn’t have it as a key destination, figuring that I would happen upon it, especially since I was staying in the North Beach neighborhood and walked through China Town a couple times. I don’t know what it says about the usefulness if even when I was going between North Beach and downtown, it still didn’t register as a means of travel I should use.

[@m0istl0la97]

Good video!

[@applesyrupgaming]

Good video! also first

[@Alejandro-vn2si]

Why the central subway did not used BART technology?

[@Alejandro-vn2si]

@m3x910 Can you tell me why? What Engineering problems BART would face if it goes to the central subway (obviously, if it was built for BART technology since the beginning).

[@TohaBgood2]

@@Alejandro-vn2si The Central Subway is just a city center tunnel for the T line light rail. That light rail line runs in a street median all the way to Sunnydale. They needed a way for the T to cross north of Market street. That was the whole point of this project. To provide a northern path for the T which already is a light rail line.

[@Alejandro-vn2si]

@TohaBgood2 But, why they use a light rail line instead of a more standard subway? BART technology is good, but I feel that San Francisco should have taken an approach with a subway or BART technology due to the lower capacity of light rail.

[@TohaBgood2]

@@Alejandro-vn2si Muni Metro is only formally light rail. The actual trains that they use are Siemens S200s which is classified as a tram-train in Europe. Basically, the Muni light rail is built with quasi-light metro technology. The trains are level boarding high-platform trains. In the subway you can't even tell that they're a light rail train rather than just a light metro. And the Muni Metro already runs in tunnels under downtown SF in the same subway right of way as BART, but on a different level. In other words, the Muni Metro is a perfectly capable light metro so building a subway around it is perfectly viable. Muni is gradually transitioning the Metro into being a subway. You just happened to have caught it mid-transition. BART is more of an uber-S-bahn with subway frequencies. It's a much bougier and more expensive system that delivers speed and capacity. But this is not what SF needs right now. So choosing the Muni Metro instead makes sense here.

[@qjtvaddict]

@m3x910not a reason this is a subway

[@electro_sykes]

it shouldn't take 12 years just to build this, but this is america

[@TohaBgood2]

This was an insanely complicated project that was nevertheless needed to uncork north San Francisco for rail transit. Don't forget that this is almost entirely in crappy Bay fill soil. There's a highrise building sinking and listing a block away. This line had to dip under two existing subway lines on Market street while making a double turn and entering a station. And for added spice, they encountered a new, unmapped underground river that delayed construction as they reengineered the whole project to deal with the water. . None of this stuff was ever going to be easy, cheap, or fast. The original project was supposed to take 8 years. The final construction took 10. Yes 10 and not 12. 12 years includes testing and one of the contractors making a massive mistake that they then came back to fix.

[@jonw999999]

I think they broke ground in 2009, so 13 years. The Pacific Electric built a 1.5 mile long subway and mixed use terminal building 100 years ago in 18 months.

[@KnightSanguinius]

​@@jonw999999Wow that's the same year as the heavily delayed Elizabeth line in London.

[@m0istl0la97]

My personal main gripes wit-central subway: The S-Shuttle for the central subway isnt permanent. Poor transit signal priority Chinatowns Southbound train signage is wrong so many times

[@thehouseoftransit2719]

Running the Mission Bay Shuttle permanently would be a great way to increase frequency (and possibly ridership) along the core section of the T-Third without having to deploy trains across the whole route. This is probably the best value method of increasing frequency atm. Regarding signal priority, Muni really should get serious with fixing it. They have proven that they're capable of building good transit signal priority as shown at those intersections mentioned in the video and on the Geary and Van Ness BRTs. Whether Muni will upgrade the TSP in the Central Subway's surface section is another question given that they still haven't fixed the TSP on the rest of the T-Third. Only time will tell whether that ends up happening or not.

[@ricardo4943-k6b]

Also they made the dumbass choose to put the elevator 2 blocks away from the Eastern elevador at Powel St Station instead of making a direct transfer between powel st station or just putting the elevador infront of the eastern power station station elevador, as I am In a wheelchair and I can’t go up hills.

[@TohaBgood2]

That's not a thing. They couldn't put the elevator where you want it. There was stuff in the way.