From today’s San Francisco Chronicle:
Razing I-280 stub only part of vision
Michael Cabanatuan
Updated 10:42 am, Monday, January 28, 2013
San Francisco’s vision for the South of Market area near AT&T Park and Mission Bay involves more than just taking a wrecking ball to the stub end of Interstate 280, though that image has drawn much attention in a city known for demolishing freeways.
The plan – still more of an idea backed by a handful of studies – would continue the transformation of a once-gritty area by creating a new neighborhood full of residences, offices, shops and restaurants, hotels, and entertainment establishments. But opening the area to development would mean major changes to the city’s transportation system and could affect plans for high-speed rail and for extending and electrifying Caltrain.
In addition to demolishing I-280 from 16th Street north and replacing it with an Embarcadero-style boulevard much like the Octavia Boulevard replacement of the Central Freeway, the plan envisions:
— Shrinking – and perhaps eventually eliminating – the Caltrain yard at Fourth and King streets.
— Eliminating the need for deep underpasses beneath a future high-speed rail line, one at 16th Street and one at what will one day be the Mission Bay Boulevard crossing.
— Possibly rerouting the long-planned, but still unfunded, Caltrain extension to the Transbay Transit Center, which would also carry high-speed trains when they arrive in the next decade.
Together, the 20-acre Caltrain rail yard and the massive concrete I-280 structure and right-of-way create a wall that isolates the growing Mission Bay neighborhood from downtown, and is an outmoded and inefficient use of what has become prime real estate, San Francisco officials argue.
The city hopes to shrink, eliminate or relocate the Caltrain rail yard – seen here from I-280 – to foster the blossoming of the formerly gritty Mission Bay neighborhood. Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle
‘Something really smart’
“We can do something really smart here,” said Gillian Gillett, Mayor Ed Lee’s transportation policy director and author of a six-page letter that lays out the city’s vision to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area’s transportation planning and financing agency.
But not everyone is on board. Caltrain officials are concerned that the city’s plans could stall or even stop plans to electrify the commuter railroad, a decades-long effort that moved close to reality only last summer when the state Legislature and the California High-Speed Rail Authority made it part of the new “blended” high-speed train project that will share the tracks, and gave it $700 million.
“We understand it’s a good thing to do, but we are concerned about the implications if we change” the rail yard, said Marian Lee, director of Caltrain’s modernization project.
High-speed trains are not likely to reach the Peninsula until 2026 at the earliest, but Caltrain wants its rails electrified by 2019. With electric power and lighter trains that can start and stop faster, Caltrain could add service, cut fuel costs and reduce emissions produced by its diesel locomotives. Electrification is a key part of the business plan for the financially struggling rail line.
The trouble is that Caltrain is in the midst of revising an environmental impact report for the electrification project. San Francisco officials want that update to include the possible downsizing or elimination of the Fourth and King rail yards. Caltrain officials fear that expanding the study, especially if it requires development of new train storage areas, would mire the project in red tape and possibly endanger the state funding.
“There is an urgency for Caltrain to get electrification in place with expediency,” said Jayme Ackemann, a Caltrain spokeswoman. “With electrification we significantly reduce our operating costs.”
Shrinking the rail yard could increase Caltrain’s operating costs if it needs to store trains farther from the Fourth and King station and bring them downtown to start service every morning, Ackemann said.
Working together
Caltrain and San Francisco have been squabbling over the environmental report and rail yard plans for months, but agreed recently to work together on a study to determine if there’s a simple way to include the city’s rail yard visions without slowing electrification. The study is expected to take about eight months.
“I think we’ve landed on a way of dealing with this that won’t slow the process,” Caltrain’s Lee said. “At the end of the study, we should have a good idea of all the trade-offs.”
Those trade-offs could include money from the development of the Caltrain yard, which might be used to help pay for the connection to the Transbay Transit Center. And if I-280 and the rail yard were to disappear, it could clear the way for a more direct, quicker and possibly cheaper route to the Transbay center.
“This is a golden opportunity,” said Supervisor Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco on the regional transportation commission. “The rail yard served its purpose for many years, but it’s no longer the best use for that land.”
Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle