Central Subway: An Alternative Proposal
The Central Subway project (proposed from SOMA to Chinatown) has run into various delays and cost overruns but is still very much in San Francisco’s plans. Rescue Muni board member Howard Strassner has an alternative that would be much less expensive – rider comments please! Note that Rescue Muni’s policy now is to recommend extension of the central subway to North Beach, rather than stopping it at Clay Street as currently planned.
Update: The Examiner discussed this proposal this week.
(Details after the jump.)
Study of the 30 Stockton as BRT instead of Central Subway – 7/2007 – by Howard Strassner
Introduction:
San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Agency compared the proposed Central Subway, which will run from the Caltrain Station to Clay and Stockton Street, with the existing bus service; but never compared the Subway with Bus Rapid Transit, BRT. Howard Strassner, an experienced transit advocate, produced this study to make the comparison. The study analyzes the comparison in two phases as local public approval develops.
Summary:
Phase 1, partial BRT, treatment of the 30 Stockton, using methods in use in San Francisco or proposed for BRT studies, can reduce transit running time between the Caltrain Station and Clay and Stockton from the current, 21 minutes, to 15 minutes. The MTA shows that a $1.4 Billion surface and subway extension of the Third Street Light Rail, LRV, will reduce the running time to nine minutes (including an allowance for extra walking and waiting time) for the same trip. BRT will also reduce travel times for riders on the 9 and 45 Lines for a total of more than twice the number of subway riders. BRT can be provided much faster than a subway at less than 10% of cost of a subway. The question is shall we spend $1.4 Billion to save some 30 Stockton riders 12 minutes or should we spend less than $200 million to save most 9, 30 and 45 riders 6 minutes.
Phase 2, unconventional auto traffic changes can further reduce BRT running times to twelve minutes at a total of less than a fifth of the cost of a subway. Extending BRT on Stockton Street, north of Clay Street, will save riders another three minutes.
The Way it is Now:
North bound: The diamond lines help a little but there are transit delays due to: right turning cars in the diamond lane on Third Street, traffic as the Stockton bus crosses each of the major freeway like blocks south of Market; slow boarding passengers and often an extra wait for a signal to cross Market to Kearny. Transit moves well on Kearny and the bus uses its mass to facilitate the turn to Sutter and then moves quickly through the tunnel until it gets to Chinatown. Here there is only one moving lane north bound and large numbers of on and off passengers at most stops. The bus also looses time to right and left turning cars and massive amounts of double parking. Muni has provided center street bus bulbs which help a little. Department of Parking and Traffic, DPT, traffic counts indicate that there are from 121 to 196 vehicles per hour during the day at Pacific and Stockton.
South bound: Even though there is an extra lane, the Stockton bus has all of the same problems as above, north of the tunnel. South of the tunnel buses have a diamond lane to Market, but this helps little and the Muni Time Table shows that that it takes the south bound bus the same five minutes as the north bound bus to cover a much shorter distance to Market Street. South of Market the bus has the same problems as the northbound bus. The approximate run time from the Caltrain station to Clay and Stockton, where the proposed subway and light rail line would end is about 21 minutes with ten stops, in each direction. A fast walker could cover this 1.7 miles in 25 minutes with some luck with signal lights. The sidewalks, in Chinatown north and south bound, work as extensions of the shops and often goods are sold from parked trucks at the curb. This adds congestion to the already narrow sidewalks. Recently “Barnes Dance†crossings have been provided at some intersections and in time this will improve pedestrian safety. DPT traffic counts indicate from 361 to 506 vehicles per hour during the day at Pacific and Stockton.
Comparison of BRT to Subways:
General: Most of the transit speed advantages that are associated with subways can be provided by well designed surface transit whether BRT or Light Rail Vehicles, LRV.
Fast Loading: Breda cars, the San Francisco LRV, have four wide doors per side and in subways Bredas are quickly boarded from a platform at car level. Throughout the world this is achieved with low floor articulated buses with additional wider doors.
Prepayment: Subways have prepayment of fares. The LRV approaching Caltrain has fare machines for pre-payment. Many riders in SF have fast passes. Our LRVs are officially proof of payment, POP, ie riders with proof of payment can board at any door. The 30 Stockton and many busy bus lines are de facto POP as some riders board quickly and wave a transfer or fast pass at the driver, from the rear door. Stuffing a crinkled dollar bill into the fare box or picking up loose change slows the bus. BRT includes POP and ticket machines on busy loading platforms to reduce boarding time.
Right-of Way: Subways of course have no conflicts with surface traffic. BRT can have a nearly dedicated right of way with a curb separating transit from traffic. Muni, following the guidance of Prop ‘E’ is moving toward signal preemption. Studies are showing that this can reduce running time by over ten percent.
Subway Running Time: Transit in subways can run at higher speeds than on the surface but only when the distance between stations is great enough to allow time for acceleration. BART, the best that can be hoped for, shows 3 minutes from Civic Center to Montgomery which is 2 stops and 0.9 miles. The Central Subway is about 1.7 miles long, and from Caltrain to Clay there will be four stops at BART type spacing. So the fastest possible ride from Caltrain to Clay will be six minutes. However the average rider will have to walk further between stops and take time to get into and out of the subway. In addition the headway between trains, because of their larger passenger capacity, will be greater than the headway between buses. All of this increases the real average subway ride time by at least three minutes to nine minutes total.
Before we spend a Billion and a half dollars subway to nowhere and then more Billions to extend it to somewhere we should first completely consider the easy improvements and then the more difficult improvements for a BRT system.
Phase 1, Low Cost Stockton BRT Improvements:
1) Even though studies show that signal preempts can save 10% of running time, this bus route crosses many other bus lines and priority for one line will slow another line. Therefore preempts may only save one minute.
2) Quicker boarding time saves 20 seconds per stop or three minutes with 10 stops. This includes ticket machines at stops to reduce standing time.. This full improvement will take new low floor cars or special platforms which will take time and/or major funding when buses must be replaced, so it will not be available for some time. However, broader use of POP and using all doors can immediately save half of this time at nearly no cost.
3) Phase 1, requires no traffic changes in the tunnel because the BRT, like the current bus, will move as fast as auto traffic.
4) South bound on Stockton between Market and the Tunnel there is a diamond lane which should be converted to dedicated transit lane with six inch curbs on each side. DPT didn’t have traffic data for south of the tunnel but this will leave a moving lane and a right or left turn lane for general traffic. This represents only a small reduction in auto traffic capacity because auto traffic is not supposed to use the diamond lane anyway. At Market the diamond lane disappears because DPT needs a lightly used right turn lane to the garage on Ellis. This lane can be removed extending the dedicated lane for Muni and provide an additional lane for all traffic to cross Market to Fourth. This treatment will save at least a minute. Dedicated lanes will not be necessary northbound on Kearny.
6) South of Market Section: During the peak hour, 8:00 to 9:00 A.M. the 9A and B San Bruno and the 30 Stockton each have 12 runs on Fourth. The 45 Union-Stockton has about 8 runs per hour. Thus, there is a bus about every two minutes. Based on Muni maximum load standards there will be 3,000 people on these buses. This should easily justify a nearly absolutely dedicated lane because the transit lane will carry much more than twice as many people as an auto lane, with 1.4 people per car. This dedicated transit lane should be located on a center lane of the roadway to eliminate any impact from right turning or parking cars. Similar to Third Street the curbs will not be continuous to allow for fire truck movement and backing out of trucking where required. There should safe loading islands adjacent to the transit lane with ticket machines. The safety islands would also serve as pedestrian safety medians. This treatment will reduce running time by two minutes on both North bound Third and south bound Fourth. Muni service planning notes that the recently added unenforced diamond lanes already save a minute (not currently reflected on the schedule).
These Phase 1, easy improvements, reduce running time by a total of seven minutes to 14 minutes for 1.7 miles and the current 10 stops. To be conservative say running time is 15 minutes.
Comparison of BRT vs. Subway service: Some of the BRT running time improvement will accrue to riders on the 45 and 9 lines while their bus uses the Stockton BRT improvements; Buses provide more opportunities for turnbacks and limited service expresses than a subway; BRT capital cost is lower and faster construction will have less disruption to neighbors and merchants. A subway ride is more comfortable than BRT but BRT running in a dedicated right-of-way will be smoother than a bus because the driver will not have to swerve to avoid traffic or accelerate to pull out of bus zone; BRT will have a street view; Subway riders with North Beach or Marina destinations will have to leave the subway and transfer to get their final destination and this means additional walking and waiting; BRT has higher expense for driver salaries because one subway driver can handle more than one car; Partial BRT can easily be provided for the Stockton Line north of Clay Street, saving riders more time; Subway have longer headways which effectively lengthens run time. Subways cover the route faster than BRT.
Phase 2: Stockton Street in Chinatown: Dedicated center lanes with loading platforms are also possible in Chinatown but this will require non conventional thinking. As a comparison to the subway plan this will only involve one block and save one minute; but it could be part a low cost extension north of Clay Street.
Imagine the 68 feet wide Stockton Street, between building faces, with no sidewalks and two BRT lanes in the center. This will leave about 23 feet on each side to be shared by shop keepers, pedestrians and/or an occasional merchant’s vehicle moving at a pedestrian pace. Boarding platforms will be provided alongside the BRT lanes for every stop. The community should decide how to use the space alongside the BRT where there are no boarding islands. One way, could use the space for: pedestrians, benches, trees or outdoor restaurant tables. This would require truck parking spaces on the side streets and have no auto or truck traffic on Stockton Street. Another way, could allow trucks and commercial vehicles to park along each side of the transit lanes. Truck drivers will have to exit away from the bus lane for safety. All vehicles, except Muni, will have to turn at every corner. This will be enforced by opposing traffic which will also have to turn. As an example: Washington is one way east bound so that traffic between Clay and Washington will go northbound east of the transit lanes and southbound west of the transit lanes. Between Jackson and Washington this will be reversed and traffic east of transit will go south while traffic west of transit will go north. There may be other uses and maybe each street could decide how to use the space.
This longer project (two miles) will save over three minutes through the most congested part of Chinatown. Except for the quickly moving surface transit, this new Stockton Street will perform as an ideal pedestrian market street. This will improve pedestrian ambiance and the merchants may prefer this or other alternatives that improve both transit and shopping. Northbound this change will have no traffic impacts on the nearby parallel and crossing streets because Stockton traffic is so low. Southbound the redistributed traffic impacts will be more noticeable but still low.
Ultimate 30 Stockton Running Time: The ultimate includes a low cost extension on Stockton as a market street to Columbus and low floor buses when new buses are purchased. Ultimately, before a subway can begin operation, the current 23 minute running time to Columbus can be reduced to 15 minutes compared to eleven minutes for a subway, which will require a new expensive extension.
For a reality check on this time we should look at The ‘K’ LRV line from St. Francis Circle to West Portal Station, 0.65 miles and two stops – Muni says four minutes and I think that this is accurate – but this section does not have easy boarding or signal preempts and has two stop signs plus a slow entry to the station. West Portal does have the equivalent of some enforcement of diamond lanes because autos rarely impose major slow-downs to transit. This indicates a running time for 2.0 miles of 12.3 minutes with less then perfect BRT. Extra time is necessary to cross Market Street but 15 minutes total should be enough.
I think you’ve missed two of the most important points of subways: capacity and reliability. You can run longer trains in subways, as BART does and Muni doesn’t but should, and trains in subways (competently run subways, anyway), have minimal risk of delays. Right now, there certainly is a lot of service on Stockton, but real headways can be anywhere from 10 seconds (when you get three buses all at once) to 10 minutes, when those three buses pass and you have to wait for the next batch.
Also, I disagree with your “subway to nowhere” assessment. The majority of rides on the 30 and 45 are exactly in the segment to be served by the subway, with buses going from somewhat full to crush-loaded at 3rd/Market northbound and Stockton/Columbus southbound. Not that this means the current $1.5 billion boondoggle of a subway plan is a good idea, but it certainly will have plenty of ridership.
Oh, and you should do somewhat better fact-checking too: a quick glance at the muni map shows that the buses that run on Stockton are the 30, 45, and 9X, which is replaced by the 9AX and 9BX during rush hours. The 9 is an almost entirely unrelated bus that runs down Market.
Of course curb enforced dedicated lanes would work well. Much of Howard’s proposal should be possible very short term. The question is how much auto user and Muni inhouse obstruction will have to be overcome. POP implementation NOW sand signal priority ASAP mostly require backbone. A great opportunity for the BOS clowns to show actual leadership. .
I think BRT would be an excellent alternative to the bloated central subway. Given how many passengers board in Chinatown and get off at Market, I feel there should be two or more dedicated Chinatown/Market st buses, that just circle between Chinatown and Market street all day long. This would alleviate much of the overcrowding on the 30-45 lines.
You’ve got a good proposal. I think what your proposal really needs are some pretty pictures of what Chinatown would look like with BRT, and more bullet points. You’ve got a hard sell, because so many politicians and community leaders seem to think that the central subway is a really great idea.
I feel that the central subway is going to be far worse then the t-third in terms of what it’s going to do to everyone’s commute time. Unfortunately from a politician’s standpoint, it’s much easier to make the case that a subway is needed and to get funding for it, then to get funding for BRT. A new subway just sounds sexy. Closing down a street for BRT doesn’t have quite the ring to it.
We should push hard for a Chinatown BRT alternative to the central subway. Let’s never forget how horrible the T-third ended up being. If we do nothing, the same thing will happen with the central subway.
-Ziggy Tomcich
do recall that the stockton tunnel was originally for trolleys (trollies?) only….cars came much later…the central subway is a joke, and needs to be stopped. So what if the feds give us money, if it ruins MUNI permanently, that’s BAD….
This idea would be good for just a couple of years. A subway is for the future. All big city with great public transportation have extensive subways (New York, London, Paris etc.); they wouldn’t have ridership in the millions if they had BRT. The only thing that is good about BRT is that is much cheaper. But I don’t hear people complain about how expensive building BART was back in the 60s. Maybe they should have built bus lanes on the Bay bridge and saved a lot of money back then… This subway is too short for what it cost? America’s first subway, in Boston, was only two blocks long and many people died during its construction. London subway started out as a pedestrian tunnel, one or two blocks long,;That was all a waste of money you think? Look, I’ve ridden on many BRT and they are not the same as the subway. People in the San Fernando Valley are still fighting to convert the orange line into a light rail. A BRT can’t be upgraded: you can only run one bus at the time. I rode the Silver Line in Boston, (Bus subway) and even that was painfully slow. You could even upgrade the central subway into a 3/4 cars train system in the future. We could expand the central subway all the way to Fisherman Wharf and the Marina one day. But you say, let’s not do it, it’s too expensive. Alright. You must all live in the Richmond district.
The issue to me is not subway or not subway, but the specific design of the central subway, which even after it was moved to 4th Street has some serious flaws. Only going to Chinatown, and there in a deep level station which will take 1-2 minutes to get to from the street, will not solve commute problems for people who live further north – and for the many who now commute from Chinatown to Market Street it will only save a minute or two if that because of the long connections to change to BART or exit.
If a North Beach station could be added, ridership would double, I think.
Now of course we also have the problem of the surface connections south of Market. The very slow and unreliable T-line service suggests that the Fourth and King intersection will have to be completely reconsidered if through running from Third Street is going to work at all. Extending the subway south of the channel is prohibitively expensive, but some alternative to the current traffic light plus freeway offramp will need to be considered. Maybe an elevated line?
As others have said, current Cent Sub plans are a disaster, Muni’s track record for operating ANYTHING other than checkwriting is abysmal, BUT BRT is NOT sufficient for major corridors like Geary. What is to be done? Better design!, Better execution. ` And either a seriously reformed Muni or some new entity explicitly structured to operate in a more accountable manner.
As to 4th& King, PERMANENTLY close the freeway access. Was there gridlock during the All Star game? Did the sky fall? Close Fourth between Townsend and the stop below the bridge to autos. Close King. It is not impossible to operate LRVs it needs WILL
Closing the freeway access at Fourth and King would be a great idea. Right now, the freeway ends and dumps its two-freeway-lanes worth of traffic right onto the Embarcadero, where it continually forms jams and requires long lights such as the one at 4th and King. And tearing down that ramp would pay for itself in property taxes, because it would probably create another lot on which high-rise condos could be built, and make the whole neighborhood more attractive, and thus more profitable in terms of property taxes.
With that obstacle out of the way, a surface-level light rail line in dedicated lanes is probably the way to go, running straight up Fourth to Stockton. Fourth Street is certainly wide enough to be able to take two lanes out without too much trouble. There’d probably be one intermediate station between King and Market, maybe at Folsom. At Market, there would be a station on the south side where the bus stop is now, then on Stockton another station to provide transfers to the eventual Geary line. Then a quick run through the tunnel, and into Chinatown, where Stockton can be dedicated excusively to pedestrians, light rail, and commercial vehicles going to unload their cargo. The first phase of the line can end at Columbus, for easy transfers from the 20 and 41, and the line can continue easily enough onto Columbus.
It would all run at least as fast as BRT, and true level boarding through multiple doors should speed things up a bit. Plus, unlike BRT, you can run two and three car trains on such a line, and get a whole lot more capacity while still maintaining reliable headways. And if there’s still not enough line capacity, then you can start thinking about putting parts of it underground.
Fourth and King must be changed, that’s a fact. I wonder why they can’t do an elevated railway right over the intersection, as they hads done in L.A with the Gold line. An elevated railway is as fast as a subway and much cheaper (look at Chicago, parts of New York…) but I guess people would probably complain, saying that they don’t want train speeding by their windows. As for a pedestrian Stockton with light rail, that’s a great idea, but it’s not going to happen. I want to see you convince the Chinatown merchants to close down their main street completely. They can’t even convince Geary merchants to close down two lanes. out of six.
Good luck closing the freeway ramp. I don’t see that happening unless the Sixth Street ramp is also increased in size and possibly connected to the skyway – highly unlikely.
The more I think of it the more I like an elevated LRV line from Fourth just south of King to at least Bryant. Whose scenic views will be blocked by such a thing? Almost nobody’s. And service would be tons faster. Perhaps the Safeway and Caltrain stations would like an upper level entrance from the streetcars as well.
A pedestrian Stockton with light rail will of course not work. The merchants need room for trucks to unload their merchandise. But if the merchants insist that they absolutely must have a traffic jam in front of their stores, then I guess nothing can be done. The same goes for the freeway ramp: is San Francisco that desperate to get more cars into the city? Because if these sorts of attitudes persist, then SF will remain the car-dominated city that it is today. Traffic expands to fill the space available to it, and the more space you have available, the more traffic there will be.
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I think elevated is a great idea, except for the fact that it covers the streets and doesn’t let much light in. It’s a much cheaper alternative than a subway and is just as effective. Muni would not need to dig underneith the BART station to get past Market Street. San Franciscans, though, would protest against the idea since it would cover people’s views and would just look a bit ugly.
The traffic for buses on 4th and 3rd Streets is not extremely bad, especially with the diamond lane for the buses. I don’t really see a true need for a subway on the stretch between CalTrain and Market. CalTrain will be extending their system to Transbay Terminal (hopefully) and that would take care of a route down 4th. I don’t see why the Central Subway doesn’t just run from Market Street up to North Beach and use the money that would be spent in SOMA in North Beach.
Also, in many cities throughout the world, most of the underground stations are not very deep underground. Most local stations in Manhattan have side platforms and are only one level below the street. There is no mezzanime and the faregates are on the platforms. Of course, in order to change platforms, one would have to exit the station onto the street and cross above ground and then re-enter the station, but it seems much cheaper than trying to dig very deep underground. Perhaps the tunnel could go above the Muni station instead. There would be less escalators needed to get to and from the platforms.
BRT down Stockton seems like a feasible alternative since BRT is easy to implement and will have immediate results. It doesn’t take as long to build like train lines do. I think Muni should definitely look into this option, because if BRT is built properly, it can be just effective as a subway, if not even more because it allows several lines to enter the bus lanes at once.
Anyhow, I hope Muni chooses the best alternative that is the most effective because we are definitely in need of transit improvements. Too bad we got rid of all the streetcars in the 50s… We could be still riding the B Geary line or the F Stockton.
Another option is to sink the freeway ramps underground just for one block, with a big deck covering the tunnel with the streetcars going both ways.
[…] description here, but you can read more about the plan through articles posted this past summer on Rescue Muni and the […]
[…] The Examiner editorializes in favor of the project, while the Chronicle’s CW Nevius slams it. Meanwhile Rescue Muni has long taken the position that if the project is built, it needs to have the most direct route, and also it must be built to allow easy expansion to North Beach. (Our board member Howard Strassner has also proposed a non-subway alternative.) […]
Ziggy Says: Given how many passengers board in Chinatown and get off at Market, I feel there should be two or more dedicated Chinatown/Market st buses, that just circle between Chinatown and Market street all day long. This would alleviate much of the overcrowding on the 30-45 lines.
Howard has an excellent idea. And Ziggy’s proposed shuttle between Chinatown and Market seems like an obvious thing to do.