(rshsdepot) Grand San Francisco Station?

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

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

The San Francisco Chronicle 
3/12/01


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. 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?" 

------------------------------