Organized Labor

Grand Central of the West’ to Greatly Enhance SF Public Transit System, Create Thousands of Jobs

By Paul Burton
Contributing Writer

Calling it a “truly historic moment for San Francisco and the state of California,” San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and officials of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority participated in a groundbreaking ceremony Dec. 10 for the new Transbay Transit Center.

Billed as the “Grand Central of the West,” the new facility “marks an important step in building our transportation infrastructure to meet the needs of the 21st Century,” Newsom said. Hailing the Transbay Transit Center Program as “a critical part of San Francisco’s transit-first policy,” he said the groundbreaking put the city “one step closer to creating a truly sustainable city where our public transportation system works seamlessly to enhance the quality of life and economic health for San Franciscans.”

When completed, the Transbay Transit Center will serve as a hub for local and regional public transit systems, linking busses, trains, and BART — centralizing the region’s transportation network by accommodating nine transportation systems under one roof.

It will also create tens of thousands of industry jobs with the construction of the Transit Center and Caltrain Downtown Rail Extension. Thousands of additional construction jobs will be created during the building of new homes and new office and retail buildings in the Transbay Redevelopment Area — a 40-acre area of downtown — and long-term jobs will be created through the operation and maintenance of the Center. About 35 percent of the new homes will be set aside as affordable to working families. Additional jobs in retail, hospitality, maintenance, and restaurants will be generated over the next 10 – 20 years by the development.

The groundbreaking took place at the site of temporary terminal at Howard and Beale Streets that will be built to serve bus passengers during the demolition of the old Transbay Terminal and construction of the new Transbay Transit Center. The facility will temporarily serve AC Transit, Greyhound, Golden Gate Transit, MUNI, SamTrans and WestCAT while the new Transit Center is under construction, from approximately 2009 until 2014. Phase II of the project will connect a future high-speed rail line to the terminal by 2018.

In a statement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that the project was an example of harnessing the power of public-private partnerships to build and improve infrastructure in the state. The project is not only important for the City and the Bay Area, but for the state and for the nation, added Caltrans Director Will Kempton. He said it would enable the various transportation agencies to meet the challenge of improving mobility of people in the Bay Area by coordinating the different transit agencies and improving the public transportation infrastructure.

Thanking the building trades unions, community members and the various agencies and officials involved in the project, TJPA Executive Director Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan hailed the project as one of the most important infrastructure projects in the country and said it would result in 2,600 new homes and create thousands of jobs.

Newsom said that former Mayor Willie Brown was instrumental in making the project happen by working with former State Senator John Burton and former Gov. Gray Davis to get the 19-acre parcel of state land through a State Lands Transfer Agreement. Newsom said that in the current tough economic climate, public-private partnerships like the Transbay Terminal that create tens of thousands of jobs were crucial.

TJPA Board Chair Nathaniel Ford said that once the new terminal is built, the area of the temporary terminal would be the site of a 1-acre park and 720 new residential units. The first phase of the project will cost about $2.1 billion, with the overall project estimated at $4.185 billion.

The project includes the complete design of the Transit Center building and bus ramps connecting to the Bay Bridge, which will be constructed in two phases. The first phase includes the new Transit Center, the bus ramps connecting the building to the west approach of the Bay Bridge and bus storage facilities. The second phase of the project includes the construction of the below-grade train platform and mezzanine levels of the new Transit Center.

At the heart of PCPA’s “City Park” is a 5.4-acre public park that will sit atop the new Transit Center. In addition to providing green space in the South of Market neighborhood, the park will double as a “green roof” for the transit facility, and include a natural system of small streams and marshes to collect and purify rainwater. The TJPA promoted sustainable design goals as part of the Transit Center Project — including efficient water management, energy use, indoor environmental quality, natural ventilation, use of solar power, and natural lighting. PCPA’s design proposal also includes “Mission Square,” a public plaza covered by a billowing glass-and-steel canopy, and public art space.

The existing Transbay bus terminal at First and Mission will be replaced with a new facility designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects (PCPA) and approved by the TJPA in May. The project will also include a 1,200-foot office tower that will become the tallest building in the US west of Chicago.

TJPA’s Ayerdi-Kaplan said that with an increasing urban population and projected increases in the California population of 8 – 10 million people by 2025 and in the US population of 140 million over the next 50 years, it was necessary for cities to deal with challenges to their transportation systems and infrastructure. The TJPA projects that by 2030, the City will have a total of 829,000 jobs – a 44 percent increase. The Transit Center is designed to provide the infrastructure necessary to support the growth in jobs and population in the Bay Area.

The Transbay Joint Powers Authority consists of a collaboration of Bay Area government and transportation agencies tasked with replacing the current Transbay Terminal in San Francisco with the new Transbay Transit Center to improve the transportation needs for the entire Bay Area region and the State of California.

The TJPA Board of Directors is comprised of representatives from the City and County of San Francisco, including the SF Municipal Railway (MUNI), the Office of the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors; the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit); and the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board-Caltrain, composed of the City and County of San Francisco, the San Mateo County Transit District, and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.