The Transbay Transit Center (officially Salesforce Transit Center) is an intermodal transit station under construction in downtown San Francisco. It will serve as the primary bus terminal - and later rail terminal - for the San Francisco Bay Area. Part of the San Francisco Transbay development, the construction is governed by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA). The 1,430-foot (440 m)-long building is located one block south of Market Street, San Francisco's primary commercial and transportation artery.
Construction of the new terminal was necessitated by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which damaged the 1939-opened Transbay Terminal, and voters approved funds for the new Transbay Transit Center in 1999. Construction on the first phase, the aboveground bus terminal, began in 2010. Limited Muni bus service began in December 2017, and full service from AC Transit and other regional bus operators is expected to begin in August 2018. Construction has not begun on the second phase, the Downtown Rail Extension, which will add an underground terminal station for Caltrain and California High-Speed Rail.
Video Transbay Transit Center
Design
The Transbay Transit Center is about 1,430 feet (440 m) long and 165 feet (50 m) wide. It occupies the middle third of the block between Mission Street to Howard Street (one block southeast of Market Street), and stretches from 2nd Street to Beale Street. The first phase of the project includes the aboveground structure plus a belowground shell for the second phase. The structure has four levels: the ground floor with entrances, retail space, and ticketing; the second floor with retail space and offices; the bus deck with bus bays surrounding a central waiting area, and the 5.4 acres (2.2 ha) rooftop park. The bus deck has a dedicated highway ramp to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and an off-site bus storage facility under the western bridge approach. The rooftop park, designed by PWP Landscape Architecture, includes an amphitheater, a restaurant, and water features.. The inclusion of the park was part of the winning bid in the architectural design composition for the structure.
The second phase of the project, constructed as part of the Downtown Rail Extension, will add a two-level underground train station to be served by Caltrain and California High-Speed Rail. The platform area will have three island platforms serving six tracks. A mezzanine with ticketing and waiting will be located above the platform and below the ground-level entrances. A pedestrian tunnel will be constructed below Beale Street to Embarcadero station, connecting the Transbay Transit Center with BART and Muni Metro. The proposed second Transbay Tube, which may be used by Caltrain, CAHSR, and/or BART, may also connect to the Transbay Transit Center.
Public art
Based on the policies established by the FTA encouraging the inclusion of public art in transportation facilities, the TJPA committed $4.75 million to fund the creation of public artwork for the Program. Working with the San Francisco Arts Commission, the TJPA oversees the planning and development of the public art program. Currently there are five artists included in the program: James Carpenter, Julie Chang, Tim Hawkinson, Jenny Holzer and Ned Kahn. In June 2017, SFAC and TJPA announced the planned Hawkinson installation would be cancelled as "the nature of the materials, the sculpture's size, and its location" made it "a particularly complex engineering task."
- James Carpenter's planned installation will be illuminated ceiling segments and benches along Shaw Alley, the pedestrian/retail corridor leading to the Transbay Transit Center.
- Julie Chang's planned installation will be the decorated terrazzo floor of the Grand Hall in the Transbay Transit Center.
- Tim Hawkinson's planned installation was a 41-foot (12 m) high sculpture to serve as a "guardian" for travelers. It was to have been partially constructed from material salvaged from the demolition of the Transbay Terminal, but due to cost and engineering issues, was cancelled.
- Jenny Holzer's planned installation will be a large scrolling LED sign approximately 11 feet (3.4 m) high, displaying text specific to the San Francisco Bay Area. The sign will be installed just below the elliptical skylight of the Grand Hall in the Transbay Transit Center.
- Ned Kahn's planned installation will be water jets on the rooftop of the Transbay Transit Center. The jets are designed to respond to the flow of buses on the deck below.
Maps Transbay Transit Center
History
The Transbay Terminal opened in 1939 to serve Key System and East Bay Electric Lines commuter trains and Sacramento Northern Railway interurban trains operating over the new Bay Bridge. It was converted to a bus terminal in 1958 and began serving AC Transit commuter buses. The structure was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, necessitating replacement. In November 1999, San Francisco voters adopted Proposition H declaring that Caltrain shall be extended downtown into a new regional intermodal transit station constructed to replace the former Transbay Terminal. The Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) was founded in 2001 as the administrative joint powers authority for the project.
The first phase of the project consists of the aboveground bus terminal, including retail spaces and the rooftop park, plus the concrete shell of the underground rail levels. It cost $2.4 billion, of which $500 million was for the underground shell. On August 7, 2010, all bus service was moved to the interim Temporary Transbay Terminal. The $18 million outdoor terminal is located on the block bounded by Folsom, Beale, Howard and Main Streets in the South of Market district, two blocks from the site of the former Transbay Terminal. Ground was broken for the new Transbay Transit Center four days later. Demolition of the former Transbay Terminal and ramps was completed in September 2011. Amtrak Thruway bus service, which connects to Amtrak trains at Emeryville station, moved from the Ferry Station Post Office Building to the Temporary Transbay Terminal on March 2, 2015. Under a naming rights deal announced on July 7, 2017, the transit center was given the official name of Salesforce Transit Center; the adjoined City Park took the official name Salesforce Park.
The first phase was original to be complete by the end of 2017. This was delayed to March 2018 in July 2017, and to June 2018 that December. On December 26, 2017, Muni began operating 5-Fulton buses into the ground level of the terminal in order to meet the federal deadline of some service to the terminal beginning in 2017.
As of March 2018, the first phase is expected to open for full bus service in August 2018. Phase 2, the Downtown Rail Extension, had not been funded for construction. Without the revenue from the 100,000 expected rail passengers, the bus-only terminal is expected to lose as much as $20 million annually.
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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