(Ped) Tunnel Vision

Making a transfer between rail lines can be frustrating, but it can also be a valuable bridge to getting to your destination. Without the bridge, you're stuck. But with the bridge, even if it's an 900 foot tunnel, you're much more likely to take a train, especially considering traffic on the highways and streets.

Detroit's Airport McNamara Tunnel (800 feet)  moving sidewalk. Image: Wikipedia.org

With the Downtown Train Extension Tunnel (DTX), Caltrain and, later, High Speed Rail will reach the Transbay Center, giving San Francisco and the Bay Area the opportunity of a unified rail network for the entire Bay Area that is interlinked with major hubs/transfer points in Downtown San Francisco, Downtown Oakland and eventually in Downtown San Jose with the Silicon Valley BART extension.

However, without a 1 1/2 block (900 foot) tunnel, there is no effective connection between Caltrain and BART. As an analogy, imagine driving on I-80 to Nevada. However, when you near the border after Truckee, the four-lane highway narrows to a two-lane highway and has a series of stop signs as you cross into Nevada. Shortly after crossing the border I-80 returns to ease and comfort of a less congested four-lane superhighway. Would you drive to Reno under those conditions? Building the pedestrian link from the Transbay Center to BART and Muni Metro is the key to the Bay Area's integrated and interconnected transportation system in San Francisco.

We also have an opportunity to provide better access to Caltrain from more of San Francisco if the Downtown Extension Tunnel (DTX) is realigned down 7th Street and Mission Street with a Mission Street Station. We will talk more about this and its connectivity and transfer benefits later.

Rendering of possible pedestrian tunnel linking the Transbay Center to a BART/Muni Metro station on Market Street. Image: TJPA

Why build a pedestrian tunnel?

Under the original plans for the new Transbay Transit Center, a pedestrian tunnel would link the underground rail station at Transbay to either Embarcadero, Montgomery St or both stations. The Plan explains the need for good transfers, not only to the new Transbay Center, but also between BART and Muni:

"While the Transbay Terminal is only 1½ blocks from the BART station, it is far enough to make transfers an inconvenience, particularly to those with disabilities or unfamiliarity with San Francisco transit systems. Even the transfer between BART and Muni within the station is often frustrating to riders. With no direct connection from one platform to the other, riders must go from the BART platform level, all the way up to the Concourse, through two faregates and then back down to the Muni level (or vice-versa)."
(emphasis added)

Why should we have a tunnel? The quote above answers this. Added to that, without the tunnel, many fewer folks would make a transfer from BART to Caltrain, or Muni Metro to AC Transit buses. The tunnel would also benefit other transit service to Transbay including Greyhound, WestCat, Amtrak, Golden Gate Transit and SamTrans.

The goals of such a tunnel, as stated by the TJPA, are:
• Provide a direct connection for passengers transferring between BART/Muni Metro and the Transbay Center
• Provide a sheltered and direct connection
• Reduce overall travel time during passenger transfers
• Accommodate the needs of elderly and disabled passengers
• Provide a safe passage under Mission Street and reduce congestion on neighborhood streets and sidewalks 

I would rewrite the first bullet or add:
• Provide a critical link in the regional transportation network through a direct connection between BART/Muni Metro and Caltrain/CAHSR.  






The original Transbay Terminal FEIS called for the tunnel to reach Embarcadero Station via Fremont Street, but it could also run under Beale Street. Likewise, a tunnel to Montgomery St. Station could go under First Street, zigzag through Ecker Place or via Second Street. Similarly, the BART Embarcadero Station Access Plan of 2002 recommends linking Embarcadero Station with the lower level of the new Transbay Center.
 

The challenge so far has not so much been the idea of the tunnel, but who will pay for it. Under the Transbay Center's Phase 1, the tunnel is not funded, and instead considered for Phase 2 which is not yet fully funded.

So who should pay for it? All groups that would benefit from it! BART owns and operates Embarcadero Station with Muni running trains there. The Transbay Center is being planned by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) with transit operations run there by Caltrain,  AC Transit, Golden Gate Transit, Muni, Greyhound, and future California High Speed Rail. Of course all of this is happening in the City of San Francisco. From a scan of the internet, it appears that none of the parties are funding such a tunnel, even though most would gain from the easy transfer that would likely boost ridership. In other words, unless a large pile of money comes from the Federal government or elsewhere, everyone is saying, "I'm not going to pay for this since it's up to the others to pay for it." That's the way it appears, at least.

Image: TJPA

To tunnel to Embarcadero or to tunnel to Montgomery.

Where should the tunnel go? The TJPA reported on the feasibility of a pedestrian connection tunnel in 2007. Four alternatives were examined:

• Beale Street (Alternative 1)
• Fremont Street (Alternative 2)
• First Street (Alternative 3)
• Ecker Place (Alternative 4)

Caltrain Rail Yard Hide and Seek

The sexy part of redevelopment proposals are their hope, promise of sunnier prosperous days, and optimism for a better city. Relocating the orginal tenants or companies, even a railyard, is the challenge, and much less sexy to talk about. Continuing our analysis of the Caltrain Railyard Development Proposal, we look at where the 4th & King Railyard could or should go.

Technicentre Atlantique in Chatillon, France. Note Montparnasse Tower (top right) where Montparnasse Station is located.
Image: Wikipedia

When the Mayor's Office suggested "Let's be San Francisco and Take Down the Freeway", they provocatively yet compellingly proposed tearing down I-280 north of 16th Street and converting the 30 acre Caltrain 4th and King railyard into a high density mixed use neighborhood. Also mentioned, but less emphasized were proposed new more efficient Downtown Extension (DTX) tunnel realignments. What was missing was a study of where to relocate the railyards.

Caltrain Centralized Equipment Maintenance and Operations Facility. Image: Caltrain

Avoiding the sticky issue of where to relocate the railyard is understandable. When proposing a new idea, especially one as striking and compelling as removing the freeway and yard to reconnect neighborhoods, deciding where the railyard will distract from the benefits of the proposal. That said, determining site for railyards is critical, and must be included in the analysis of whether or not to tear down the freeway or to build housing and other development on the 4th & King Railyard site.

If the railyards were located, there are a few locations that might work, but two issues are critical to a railyard:

• 1: Proximity to the terminal station (Transbay Center)
• 1 to 3 miles away is good
• 3 to 6 miles is impracticle but feasible
• 2: Large site 
• length ranging from 1/2 mile to 1 mile long
• minimum 600 feet wide

The challenge is fitting such a railyard in an already urban area: San Francisco. One important note. I have no direct engineering experience regarding rail design regarding railyards, but I do understand the basic needs as mentioned above for a maintenance facility and a railyard where trains can layover when not in use.

I took a quick scan of several high speed rail equipment and maintenance facilities the UK, USA, and France. Due to the geometries of rail lines, a railyard is often NOT shaped like the rectangle shaped 4th & King Caltrain Railyard. Most are actually shoehorned alongside existing rail right of ways, and have more of a diamond shape if trains enter and exit at both ends (see first image below), or more like a triangle if the yard dead ends and only has one entrance/exit (see second image below).

Technicentre (Yard and Maintenance) TGV Atlantique, Chatillon, France (left), 

Technicentre (Yard and Maintenance) TGV Le Landy, St. Denis, France (right)  Images: Google Maps using Maps Engine

So where to place the Caltrain yard, High Speed Rail yard, or both. Should it be a triangle shape, or diamond shape or both?

To Be Tall or To Be Prominent...

What makes a hill more famous, more important, or more beautiful? Is it its shape? its height? its history? Maybe we don't notice hills for these reasons. Maybe we really notice them for their prominence. Continuing our look at hills - this time beyond Forgotten Hills, we look at what makes a hill in San Francisco (or anywhere) seem more important, significant or striking.

View of San Francisco's central "massif" from Mount Davidson to the south (left) to Mt. Sutro to the north (right). Image: Burrito Justice

Prominence is what it sounds like, how much does a hill or mountain predominate the skyline or region. A tall hill next to a slightly taller hill is not that noticeable. However a somewhat low hill that has no hills around it (think Telegraph Hill) is very prominent. An explanation follows, but review the graphics below for a quicker understanding, then read the descriptions.

Mount Diablo is a taller version of this. At 3,864 feet it's not especially high for a mountain. But with so few mountains near it, the mountain's prominence is 3,109 feet. By contrast tall peaks in a range like the Santa Cruz Mountains, just south of San Jose, will have a low prominence. For example, Loma Prieta Peak, the highest peak in the range is 3,786 feet high. Meanwhile, 4 miles to the west is Mount Unhunum at 3,486 feet: a comparably tall peak. However since Mt. Hunhunum  is in the range with Loma Prieta Peak, it's prominence is low, and only comes in at 586 feet.  By contrast, because Loma Prieta peak is the highest peak in the range, its prominence is high at 3,426.

Image: john curley

Prominence is defined as:
In topography prominence characterizes the height of a mountain's or hill's summit by the vertical distance between it and the lowest contour line encircling it and no higher summit. It is a measure of the independence of a summit. A peak's key col is a unique point on this contour line and the parent peak is some higher mountain, selected according to various objective criteria. (source: Wikipedia).

Vertical arrows show the topographic prominence of three peaks on an island. The dotted horizontal lines show the lowest contours which do not encircle higher peaks. Source: Wikipedia.org

For example, if looking at Hawaii's Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa we find:

Source: Peaklist.org

So which hills are the most prominent in San Francisco? First we think of what is tallest. Below is a list of the highest 40 hills in San Francisco. Following is a list of the most prominent hills. The well know peaks such as Mount Davidson, Twin Peaks, Clarendon Heights, Golden Gate Heights, Larsen Peak and Forest Hill round out much of the top ten peaks.

San Francisco's Highest Peaks

Helipad on Valencia? At least it's not a restaurant.

Over the past 2 years it feels as if virtually every new retail space on Valencia is a new restaurant, whether converted from a closed space (auto repair shop becomes Dandelion Chocolate and Abbot's Sellar), in a new building (Farina Pizza, Mission Cheese), or from a long abandoned space (Amber Dhara).

Luckily we have a few new retail spaces that actually sell hard products, i.e. they're not restaurants. A stretch at Valencia and 19th has Aggregate Supply, a Chase ATM, and Gingko Home Furnishings, and we are thankful, regardless of their price points.

Now, the old 780 Cafe space (formerly The Summit) will become the new Betabrand Flagship Store. As reported in the Uptown Almanac, Betabrand is opening a large store in the space. Regardless of whether I can afford the lovely clothing they will sell, I appreciate their playful posters promoting the new store, with stories of a shaved Bigfoot, an arm eating sea lions and planned helipads (take that SF General).

The Sasquatch story is the funniest with descriptions of a new "100% pure Bigfoot fur" sweater.

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Introducing our new, limited-edition Sasquatch Sweater. Each beautiful garment is knit from 100% pure Bigfoot fur, shorn from our free-range herd in the Cascade Mountains.

It goes on to note that only "residual amounts of Sasquatch musk" are in the garments. In addition, the care instructions call for dry-clean only, but you can give it an authentic "wild" look by rubbing berries, dirt and bear scat into your sweater.

The storefront drawing caught my attention first with its helipad.

Forgotten Hills: La Portezuela

A 450-foot high hill would seem to draw some attention, especially when it rises 200 feet above a BART station, and 450 feet above Lake Merced. Alas, it only rises 50 feet above Mission Street in Daly City at Top of the Hill. A hill that straddles the boundary with Daly City doesn’t get much love. In the latest installment of Forgotten Hills, we look at La Portezuela in southwest San Francisco right on the border with Daly City.

La Portezuela's north side seen from Head Street in Ingleside Heights.

View of La Portezuela from the Daly City BART parking garage. Reservoir Hill is to the right.
Mission Street and Daly City's Top of the Hill district are between the hills

View looking north and east from La Portezuela. Merced Heights are near left, while Mount Davidson is the highpoint (center). Downtown Oakland can be seen in the distance (right).

Geography

The hill in question rises high above Lake Merced and the Brotherhood Way ravine, while looking across at Merced Heights to the north and Fort Funston to the west. The hill climbs to an elevation of 450 feet and lies at the top of Bepler Street, a modest residential street in Daly City. Despite its height, the hill may have no official name. There are many names for a historic hill once called La Portezuela in Daly City but I the location of the historic hill is not specified precisely.

As shown in the map above, the hill is virtually the southernmost peak in San Francisco. Although the slopes of The Saddle (a hill in San Bruno Mountain State Park) rise nearly 50 feet higher than La Portezuela, the peak likes south of the San Francisco city limit.

More maps, images and descriptions after the break.

Shortening Towers: The Pyramid and The Obelisk

Supertall buildings seem to get a bad rap in most cities, apart from New York, Chicago and anywhere in China. Ok, so they aren't always appropriate. Placing something 2000 feet tall like the Burj Khalifa in San Francisco - I would oppose due to being so way out of scale with the rest of downtown.

That all said, seems like whenever the new tallest building is proposed in San Francisco, it's always shortened. When we look at the Transamerica Pyramid and the Transbay Tower they have experienced somewhat similar fates. (For simplicity, let's call these two brotherly "Trans" towers, Pyramid and Obelisk. America and Bay doesn't have quite the same ring.)

So what would the Pyramid have looked like if it were built to 1,150 feet. Images of the design are very scarce apart from one shown on SF Gate (see black and white image below). So using my crude Photoshop skills I made an image of what it might look like from Alamo Square. The second image shows what the pyramid's original design looked like.

Transamerica Pyramid if it were its proposed height. Image "adjusted" from SF Cityscape original.

Original Transamerica Pyramid design presented. Image: SFgate.com

Based on the view from Alamo Square it doesn't look so bad from what I see. Sure it would have been MUCH taller than anything else, and probably a bit out of context. However, the pyramid shape does indeed reduce the impact, and would have been more graceful with steeper pyramid sides due to the taller height.

Height of originally proposed Transamerica Pyramid as seen from bay (and with Embarcadero Freeway).

More on the Transbay Tower, Towering Inferno and images after the break.

Uncrooking San Francisco's Crookedest Tunnel

How do we figure out the best way Caltrain and HSR get to the Transbay Center?
Tearing down a freeway?
Rerouting a planned train tunnel that's already EIR certified?
Build housing and offices on a relocated rail yard?

Crazy? Not really considering there's not enough money for the tunnel.

When the Mayor's Office suggested "Let's be San Francisco and Take Down the Freeway", the earth shifted a bit, but we're used to that in quake prone SF. The proposal calls for tearing down I-280 north of 16th Street and converting the 30 acre Caltrain railyard and (and some freeway land) into a mixed use neighborhood.  At an estimated worth of $228 million, some of that money could help fund the $2.5 billion construction of the downtown extension tunnel (DTX).

Another component of the "Let's be San Francisco" presentation, was considering rerouting the rail tunnel to the Transbay Center. The Caltrain Downtown Rail Extension (DTX) calls for tunneling from the current Caltrain Railyard up to the Transbay Terminal and taking three sharp turns that will dramatically slow trains, increasing travel times and reducing tunnel capacity. Rerouting the DTX tunnel could straighten out much of the tunnel, and improve travel times and capacity.  Might rerouting the DTX tunnel down Mission Street to parallel BART and Muni on Market Street with a new station connecting to Powell or Civic Center create a grand opportunity that makes for a better rail system and fosters more economic opportunity, all while improving the tunnel and coming at no greater cost?

Read on to learn more about the options and see larger versions.

New Restaurant - Same Chairs

A new restaurant has opened on Valencia Street. No it's not on the "hot" block between 18th and 19th, but rather a new Indian restaurant between 18th and Sycamore. Also, the long vacant "furniture store" beside it has had recent construction and looks like it may become an actual activated space in our lifetime.

Curry Up Now - Indian Street Food is now open as a brick and mortar location at 659 Valencia Street. As reported by Grub Street SF, the restaurant, which also operates food trucks, was scheduled to open on February 20, 2013. The place used to be a pizzeria, called Pizzeria, which opened in 2007 and was up for lease over the past 9-12 months. That strange virtually customerless restaurant was next to the equally nearly always empty New Yorker's Buffalo Wings place. I always thought they might be a front for money laundering, in spite of the police station across the street.

I never did have a pizza from the pizzeria, but I did walk in once to buy a soda. Apart from being empty all of the time, the pizzeria (and the buffalo wings place) had strange chairs with big back sides that curved into arm wrests. Not the most inviting seating. Well the new place has the exact same chairs! Luckily the painting and the lighting look like they've changed for the better.

The best news is that there appear to be customers! They are actually coming to the restaurant. This is good news since this mini stretch of Valencia, between 18th Street and Sycamore was strangely quiet in spite of the two restaurants. It is bookended by The Elbo Room and El Buen Savor Taqueria, plus Live Fit gym which has livened up the block a little bit.

Note strange chairs. Tables appear to have changed, but cannot confirm.

Empty Pizzeria. Image: sfpizzeria.com

Image: yelp.com

Now Valencia Street has almost 10 India Restaurants, from Dosa, to Amber Dhara, to Gajalee. Pretty soon there will be one on every block. The street already has a cafe every block, very nearly.

More pics and update on the mystery restaurant space after the break.