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Transbay Joint Powers Authority: Transbay Transit Center

When completed, the Transbay Transit Center promises to modernize the Bay Area’s public transportation system, revitalize a neighborhood and transform San Francisco’s iconic skyline, Andrew Pelis learns

O

ver ten years in the making, with costs running into billions of dollars, San Francisco is now gearing up for the construction of a new multi-modal transit hub that has been described as the “Grand Central Station of the West.”

When it is built, the new Transit Center (replacing the original site that was opened in 1939) will cater to over 100,000 passengers each weekday and more than 45 million people each year, at the same time making public transportation a viable, convenient choice for everyone in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Transbay Joint Powers Authority: Transbay Transit Center

With initial planning reports and designs stretching back to the beginning of the century, it was in December 2007 that the California Transportation Commission unanimously voted to authorize the transfer of state-owned land to the City and County of San Francisco and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA), a move that kick-started the prospect of a modernized public transportation system.

“The Transbay Transit Center Project is an important part of San Francisco’s future. It will solidify our place as the leader in public transportation and sustainable, transportation-oriented development, as well as revitalize one of our neighborhoods,” commented Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The land was previously home to the Embarcadero Freeway on-ramps that collapsed during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Upon completion of the TJPA’s $4 billion project, the city will have replaced and redeveloped the Transbay Terminal into a multi-modal transit hub that will provide transportation service to more than 100,000 passengers per day and feature an adjacent retail and office Transit Tower poised to redefine the city’s skyline.

The redevelopment project plans to revitalize the South of Market (SoMa) district with a transit-

Transbay Joint Powers Authority: Transbay Transit Center

friendly neighborhood, including a project to build up to 3,400 new homes (35 percent of which will be affordable to working families), and will feature new parks and a retail main street.

The TJPA came to fruition in 2001 with the specific purpose to design, build and operate the new Transbay Transit Center Program. The new Transbay Transit Center at First and Mission streets will centralize the region’s transportation network by accommodating 11 transportation systems under one roof, including AC Transit, Caltrain, MUNI, Golden Gate Transit, SamTrans, Greyhound, BART, WestCAT and future California High-Speed Rail. The area surrounding the Transit Center will be redeveloped to include housing, retail and an adjacent tower that will be the tallest on the West Coast.

The first phase of the project will see the creation of a new five-story Transit Center with one abovegrade bus level, ground-floor, concourse, and two below-grade rail levels serving Caltrain and future California High-Speed Rail. This first phase will also create new bus ramps connecting the new center to a brand-new off-site bus storage facility and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge.

The designers of new Transit Center, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects (PCPA), have incorporated a number of environmental aspects to the new Transit Center, including a 5.4-acre park that will be built on the roof of the bus and rail station. The “green roof” will feature a number of environmentally friendly building features, including climate-appropriate plants and efficient irrigation and drainage systems. It will shade much of the ground-level sidewalk when the sun is strongest and will help to capture and filter the exhaust in the area, thus contributing to better air quality in the neighborhood.

Further environmental consideration in the design means that the new Transit Center will take advantage of natural daylight to offset the need for electric lighting during daylight hours, while light columns will bring natural light into the internal areas of the station.

The site will also support San Francisco’s aggressive recycling goal of reaching 75 percent diversion (and eventually zero waste) through a three-stream waste separation process that includes compost, recyclables and trash receptacles inside the facilities.

The project also aims to meet the LEED

requirements for construction waste management, while the new Transit Center is being built and has been designed to reduce stormwater runoff, conserving water through building uses, irrigation systems and water reuse.

A complementary Transit Tower designed

by PCPA and developed by Hines will be built adjacent to the Transit Center and will provide additional financing for the project.

One of the project’s biggest challenges has been to work while maintaining a business-asusual approach that minimizes disruption for San Francisco’s commuters. Part of that solution has been the construction of a temporary bus terminal that will cater to transit riders until the new Transit Center has been built (scheduled for 2017), and the project to build a temporary site broke ground in December 2008.

The original Transbay Terminal was closed on August 6, by which date all bus activity had relocated to the temporary site. The demolition of the terminal was due to commence on October 16 and continue for approximately a month, during which time workers will work 24 hours a day at the site. Overall demolition activities on the old site are expected to last up to eight months and will occur in four phases.

Progress continues apace, and in August, federal, state and local officials joined together with the TJPA to officially break ground on the Transbay Transit Center. “Today, in breaking ground on the Transbay Transit Center, we are opening a new chapter in that history of progress,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said. “We are coming together to create jobs and revitalize our economy, and we are laying the first building blocks of a new ‘Grand Central Station of the West.’ ” It is thought that the first phase of construction alone will create more than 48,000 jobs for the following seven years and overall it will create in excess of 125,000 jobs during the life of the project.

Little wonder then that US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood summarized the project by stating, “This is one of the most important and transformational public transportation projects in America. Once the dust has settled, San Francisco’s skyline will be transformed—as will transportation, housing and employment choices for people across the Bay Area and beyond.” http://transbaycenter.org/

Jacobs Engineering www.jacobs.com

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