March 28, 2006
The City Under the City Has Fabulous Shopping!
No, not the sewers -- the subway. Passions were set aflame among transit enthusiasts when a memo by the SF County Transit Authority [PDF] suggested that the Central Subway (an as-yet-unbuilt system, intended to connect the existing lines with Chinatown, SOMA, and elsewhere) might get built without any actual means of transferring between subway lines. For those of you playing along, yes, that would make the entire $1.2 billion project pretty much useless.
But Not So!!! ... says Rodney Pimintel, Deputy Director for Capital Projects at the SFCTA. The as-yet-unbuilt Central Subway WILL connect to the existing subway lines on Market, come hell or high water; it just depends on how you define "connect." Via email, he informed us that you might not be able to hop off of one line and then onto another; some of the plans involve a pedestrian tunnel connecting Powel to as-yet-unbuilt stations near the Moscone or Union Station. Those as-yet-unbuilt tunnels would provide subterranean retail access, like the Nordstom's hellmouth in the Powell station. So, it would be exactly like getting off of one train, walking a few blocks to the next (as-yet-unbuilt) station, and then getting on another train, only without having to ever go above ground and see the light of day. Or like a shopping mall with electrified third rails.
So anyway ... that's good news. Sure is a lot of "as-yet-unbuilt"s, though. Yep ... suuuuuure is a lot.
|
Do Muni engineers really expect retailers along Stockton to gut there stores and remodel to connect to the underground corridor? Only a few of those retailers use their basement for shopping space, most probably just use them for storage and even if they did want to undergo a lengthy remodel would they want to have to maintain both a surface and subway entrance?
If this were the case, wouldn't Apple have done just that when they built right on top of the entrance to Powell Station? For the retailers its much better to force Muni riders up to the surface to walk past their window displays.
As for the station location, they are planning a deep tunnel that will go under the existing Muni, BART and mezzanine levels of Powell Station, but why can't they just place the new platform directly adjacent to Powell so the existing Mezzanine could serve the new platform and reconfigure Powell with a direct platform to platform connection via escalator down through the BART level to the north or south end of the new platform below?