(rshsdepot) San Francisco, CA

["James Dent" <james.dent_@_itochu.com>]

rshsdepot

-From the San Francisco Chronicle

Grand S.F. Station
Transbay Terminal plan includes a flowing glass roof, restaurants and shops

Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer    Monday, March 12, 2001

San Francisco -- Most of the nation's great cities boast landmark
transportation terminals where commuters and tourists catch buses and trains
amid architectural splendor and plentiful dining and shopping.

In New York, it's Grand Central Terminal or Penn Station (??!!?-ed.). Los
Angeles, Chicago and Washington each have their Union Stations. Boston has
its South Station. But since the demise of the ferries, and the evolution of
the Ferry Building into an office building, San Francisco has had nothing to
compare.

Now, after years of feuding and indecision by government agencies, plans to
transform the gritty Transbay Terminal into a landmark transportation center
are moving forward, albeit slowly. But some critics are questioning whether
San Francisco really needs a grand transportation terminal -- and how much
the Bay Area ought to spend to give it one.

Transportation leaders and the design firm they have hired envision a five-
story terminal with glass-and-steel walls and a flowing glass roof. It would
house not only the terminal's current tenants -- AC Transit, the San
Francisco Municipal Railway, Golden Gate Transit, Greyhound and Grey Line --
but a downtown Caltrain extension below ground and a collection of
restaurants, shops and services, possibly including child-care and
conference centers.

The new terminal would cost $900 million more. Transportation planners hope
to raise much of that money by building a more compact depot -- eliminating
many of the looping bus ramps -- and selling off the vacated land to
developers.

Last month, after years of bickering, transportation agencies from five
counties agreed to work together to build and pay for a new Transbay
Terminal that would not only replace the dreary and seismically unstable
structure, but give San Francisco a transportation station of which it can
be proud.

"Every great city in the world deserves, and most of them have, a tremendous
transportation facility that gives the public reason to have pride, " said
Karen Alschuler, an architect who was with the firm Simon, Martin-Vegue,

Winkelstein, Moris, when it unveiled a general design for the terminal last
summer.

Planners now have to refine that design, determine who would own and operate
the transportation center, begin the required environmental studies and
figure out how to pay for it all. They hope to break ground in 2003 and hold
the grand opening four years later.

But as the project lurches forward, some critics say its proponents are
wasting valuable transit dollars to build an overpriced transportation Taj
Mahal that won't serve commuters or travelers.

"You're getting a monumental piece of architecture, but you're not getting a
good functioning bus and rail station," said William Blackwell, a retired
Bechtel architect who has become the project's chief critic. "How much are
you willing to pay for aesthetics?"

The new terminal's design would place Muni buses and streetcars at the
street level with a rail station below ground and a concourse of shops and
restaurants a floor above the street. AC Transit buses would occupy the next
floor, with Golden Gate Transit, Greyhound and Grey Line buses on the
uppermost level. It would be built on the site of the existing terminal --
between Mission and Natoma streets, crossing over Beale, Fremont and First
streets.

Blackwell says the new terminal won't make it more convenient for commuters
to use transit. He questions the wisdom of forcing commuters to climb two
floors to catch a bus, and criticizes the lack of a connection between the
new terminal and the nearby Montgomery Street and Embarcadero BART stations.

And he points out that although the terminal will include rail platforms in
the basement, no money or firm plans exist to extend Caltrain from Fourth
and Townsend streets to the new terminal.

But above all, Blackwell criticizes the cost.

"It's an unusually high cost -- nearly a billion dollars -- for a bus
terminal," he said.

Judy van Soldt, an architect and project manager, says the project is pricey
because of the need to demolish an existing building, open a temporary
terminal, provide bus parking and design and build a structure in an already
developed neighborhood, all while coordinating efforts with Caltrans work on
the Bay Bridge and nearby ramps and freeways.

"You have to shoehorn things in," she said. "It's very expensive."

Blackwell has met with transportation planners and discussed the estimates,
but he remains convinced that the new terminal is too costly.

"They're spending $500 million extra because they want it to be a showpiece,
" he said. "They should be upfront about that."

Commuters interviewed as they waited to board AC Transit buses at the
terminal had differing opinions about the project. Most said the current
terminal, despite its dingy appearance and noisy platforms choked with
diesel fumes, was adequate.

"I like this just fine," said David Allen of Albany, who passes through the
terminal daily to and from his job at a business magazine. "It does
everything it needs to do. I don't need it to be a super shopping center and
big transportation terminal."

Craig Noble, an Albany resident who works for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, said he would support a new terminal if it improved connections
between the Bay Area's transit operators. And he didn't balk at the price
tag.

"We need to be investing more in public transportation," he said.

But Ethel Wilson Kareklas, a hotel housekeeping director who commutes by bus
-From Pinole, thought the cost seemed excessive and wondered whether
transportation officials would raise fares or cut service to pay for the new
terminal.

"It would be nice," she said, "but at what cost?"

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