User:Mliu92/sandbox/Downtown Extension

The Downtown Rail Extension (DTX) is a proposed project to extend the Caltrain Peninsula Corridor commuter rail line from its current northern terminus in San Francisco at 4th and King to the new Transbay Transit Center (TTC) via a 1.3 mi tunnel. When complete, Caltrain's new terminus at the TTC will be close to the downtown job center of San Francisco and the TTC will provide intermodal connections to BART, Muni, Transbay AC Transit buses, and long-distance buses. In addition, the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) plans to use DTX and the Caltrain-owned Peninsula Corridor for service on the CHSRA San Francisco–San Jose segment. Because DTX uses a long tunnel, current diesel locomotives are not suitable and the Caltrain Modernization Project (CalMod), which includes electrification of the line and acquisition of electrified rolling stock, is a prerequisite.

, only the structural "train box" lowest level has been funded as part of initial TTC construction. The final route between the current 4th and King terminus and the TTC has not been finalized [#FF0 check], as San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee proposed an alternative route in 2015 which would bypass 4th and King, extending Caltrain and high-speed rail to the Transbay Terminal through a new tunnel branching from the existing line at the 22nd Street station, then following a route generally under Third Street to TTC. Under the 2015 alternative alignment, the existing 4th & King terminal, the Caltrain yard and a portion of Interstate 280 in Mission Bay would be demolished and replaced with infill housing. Other proposed DTX routings include a loop so that trains may leave TTC as other trains are pulling in. In addition, the TTC is a candidate for the western terminus of a second Transbay Tube between San Francisco and Alameda Island, which would add BART service directly into the TTC.

History
Even before it was completed, in 1863 the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad (SF&SJ) was urged to build passenger and freight stations along Market Street. Once complete, the SF&SJ offered train service into San Francisco with a northern terminus at a now-demolished station at 18th and Valencia streets. Soon after Southern Pacific (SP) took over the Peninsula Commute route from the SF&SJ, SP would go on to build the Bayshore Cutoff in 1907, rerouting the line between San Francisco and San Bruno to the San Francisco Bay shoreline and moved the passenger terminal to the Third and Townsend Depot in San Francisco in 1914, anticipating the need for increased capacity to handle visitors traveling to the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition.

Southern Pacific plans
By 1911, SP had purchased several lots between the existing northern terminus and the foot of Market, including a key property which previously housed a home for war veterans, and the San Francisco Call speculated SP would shortly build a new depot at Market and Beale. When the new Third and Townsend Depot was announced in November 1912, Charles S. Fee, SP passenger traffic manager, denied the prior rumors putting a new depot at Market and Beale, saying the Ferry Building would be handling the bulk of the traffic and that a Market and Beale station could not be completed in time for Panama–Pacific service.

The San Francisco Chronicle speculated that Third and Townsend could have been announced as a bargaining tactic to knock down the asking price of the few landowners remaining between the existing station and Market and Beale. However, other observers understood the 1914 Spanish Revival Depot at Third and Townsend was intended as a "temporary" structure since SP planned to extend service to downtown San Francisco at some point in the future, as shown by the configuration of the new Southern Pacific General Office building at 1 Market Street. That building was completed in 1917 with an "E"-shaped floor plan, and Southern Pacific had retained tenancy of the first-floor spaces facing the "courtyard", implying that a ground-floor courtyard station space may have been planned for the future, but plans to extend the rails into downtown San Francisco were put on hold following the United States's entry into World War I and were never revived.

In 1955, the California Public Utilities Commission published a report to evaluate SP's Peninsula Commute service in the wake of a 1950 application to raise fares. The report noted "While the Peninsula Service furnishes a rapid rail transportation, particularly during morning and evening peak periods, it does not carry passengers within reasonable walking distance of downtown San Francisco" and "a considerable portion of the commuter's total traveling time is spent in transit between the S. P. Depot and downtown San Francisco, and at an additional expense to the commuter of 30¢ a day." By counting passengers who disembarked at 3rd and Townsend, the report concluded that 70% of passengers disembarking in San Francisco used Muni to reach their final destination, and the time spent on Muni could equal or exceed the time spent on SP's trains.

Planned BART takeover
During the planning phases of what would become BART, a planned Peninsula line would take over from the existing Southern Pacific commute service. Although that planned Peninsula line was proposed to be built on the existing SP right-of-way and enter a subway section at the intersection of 7th and Hooper Streets, a 1960 report noted SP still intended to extend service to downtown. A 1963 report to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors projected the inevitable demise of the Third and Townsend Depot once the planned San Mateo line of what would become BART was built: "The Third and Townsend depot of the Southern Pacific Railway will continue as long distance terminal and as a commuter terminal until such time as rapid transit system is developed on the Peninsula. The fate of rail passenger service is difficult to predict, but it is apparent that no major investment in new facilities is likely to occur and that the Third and Townsend depot, once relieved of commuter operations, will be used by no more than two or three train arrivals and departures a day."

- Department of City Planning and Mario J. Ciampi

Despite the plans, BART service to San Mateo County via the proposed Peninsula Line was dropped after that county pulled out of the BART district in December 1961, and SP never extended the commuter rail service from San Jose to the downtown Financial District. A 1968 Rapid Transit Service to San Francisco International Airport and to the Peninsula report for the City of San Francisco proposed an underground extension taking the SP line to Second and Market. The 1968 Rapid Transit report said "the Southern Pacific suburban railway from San Jose to San Francisco is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough into San Francisco. The 'Southern Pacific Depot' at Third and Townsend Streets ... is almost one mile south of the destination of 80 percent of its patrons" and called "fast and frequent service ... a prime need for by-passing and hopefully reducing peak-hour freeway congestion," along with improved transit service to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) (later realized in 2003 with the completion of the BART to SFO extension) and the Bayview-Hunters Point area of southeastern San Francisco (realized in 2007 after the new T Third Muni Metro line went into revenue service). Even though upgraded service from SP would be the "cheapest and quickest" of the options studied, SP stated they did not want to share the existing tracks (and freight service) with increased passenger rail operations, making plans to extend the rails to Second and Market unfeasible. The Third and Townsend Depot was demolished in the late 1970s after the current station at 4th and King opened one block away in 1975.

PERSUS and PENTAP
In 1975, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) published the Feasibility of Upgrading Peninsula Passenger Rail Service (PERSUS) report. PERSUS noted the single largest destination, San Francisco's downtown Financial District, was not directly served by the SP Peninsula Commute and called the Townsend Street station "an obstacle to the [Central Business District]-destined commuter who must expend additional time and fares, and a deterrent to the off-peak rider who must contend with less frequent transit service or pedestrian hazards on the streets." In addition, SFO was "the largest traffic attractor located between San Francisco and San Jose" and "physical conditions for establishing a [rail] link are unusually favorable" because the SP line approaches the airport quite closely. PERSUS proposed three alternatives, which could be implemented in successive phases:
 * 1) Minor Upgrade: retain the existing service and terminals, but improve access to stations on the Peninsula and San Francisco.
 * 2) Major Upgrade: move the San Francisco terminal, increase service frequencies, and begin investment of public funds.
 * 3) Transit Conversion: increase service frequencies so passengers would wait no more than fifteen minutes between trains, separate passenger and freight rail traffic with additional tracks, complete grade separation, and build an airport station.

An extension to the Transbay Terminal would be part of the Major Upgrade, with an alternative to terminate SP service at by rerouting the SP line onto the Coast Line through Colma, which had discontinued service after the completion of the Bayshore Cutoff in 1907. The Transit Conversion would free casual riders from having to look up specific timetables and plan trips, obviating the need for a Peninsula BART extension, and it was projected to more than double ridership.

PERSUS was followed by the Peninsula Transit Alternatives Project study (PENTAP) in 1977. PENTAP recommended upgraded SP service, including more frequent reverse-peak trains (southbound in the mornings, and northbound in the evenings). As an alternative to extending SP to the Financial District, PENTAP advocated for more frequent bus service to the SP terminal at Fourth and Townsend.

The Caltrans CalTrain
By the late 1970s, SP was faced with falling passenger counts and revenues, leading SP to petition the California Public Utilities Commission to discontinue the Peninsula Commute service entirely in May 1977, which received a preliminary affirmative ruling in July 1979. In response, Assemblymember Lou Papan introduced AB 1853 in 1977 to preserve the service by subsidizing ticket prices and SP's operation. Peninsula Commute ridership was so sensitive to gasoline shortages that passenger counts jumped by 40% in May and June 1979. California would take over financial responsibility for the Peninsula Commute in July 1980.

A draft report prepared in 1978 to estimate the environmental impact of the SP petition to discontinue service echoed the conclusions reached by the PUC in 1955, stating "the downtown financial district of [San Francisco] is the principal destination for a large percentage of Peninsula commuters, and most SP commuters."

After California took over the Peninsula Commute and set up the CalTrain commuter rail service, the downtown extension was called "critical to the survival of the service" in a 1982 public hearing. During that hearing, Mr. Fred Barton, Deputy District Director of Rail Operations for Caltrans, noted "the existing passenger service provided by SP is not utilizing its full potential in serving the travel demands of the Peninsula residents who are employed in downtown San Francisco. This inadequacy in service is mainly due to the location of the present SP terminal which is remote from the high density employment centers in the city's financial district. In fact, an additional twenty to thirty minute travel time and a transfer to Muni bus service is required by the commuters in order to reach the financial district."

The legislature required an annual report detailing planned improvements to improve ridership as part of 1981's AB 1010. The subsequent 1984 Rail Passenger Development Plan called for downtown station extensions in both San Francisco and San Jose. As evidence, when Muni discontinued a dedicated shuttle service between 4th and Townsend and the Financial District, CalTrain ridership dropped by 18 percent, prompting Caltrans to declare a downtown extension should be implemented no later than 1991.

"Because the current San Francisco station location is acknowledged to be a major deterent [sic] to train ridership, Caltrans is arranging for increased bus shuttle service between the 4th and Townsend Streets station and primary San Francisco employment centers. During the period in which Muni formerly operated a dedicated service to the financial district, there was 18-percent higher weekday train ridership than at present. [...] Beyond the range of the current Five-Year Plan, the extension of the Peninsula Commute Service to downtown intermodal terminals in San Jose and San Francisco would remedy the major deterrent to efficient utilization of the service. Ridership is now increasing again, but full potential can never be reached without improved service to downtown terminal locations. Without improved access, the service will continue to face the historical cycle of ridership fluctuations and the potential necessity for fare increases. Caltrans proposes the extension of the Peninsula Commute Service to new intermodal terminals in downtown San Francisco and San Jose. When completed, these extensions will provide the Peninsula rider with a single uninterrupted ride to either of the two major downtown destinations, as well as provide the Peninsula Service with closer connections to the other major transit carriers in San Francisco and San Jose. These extension proposals can and should be implemented in the next 5 to 7 years."

- Caltrans

Caltrans went on to publish the 1984 San Francisco Terminal Relocation Study, which called for a below-grade alignment from I-280 and Sixth to the Transbay Terminal and predicted that a downtown extension would attract 30,000 new boardings per day. The 1987 Interim Upgrade Study called the downtown extension "the single most important improvement that can be made to the Peninsula commuter line at the present time." In 1989, the Federal Transit Administration authorized a draft environmental impact report, which was completed in 1991 but never published or reviewed as the share of local funding for the terminal relocation never materialized.

However, Caltrans was being pressured to drop funding for CalTrain. By state law, the subsidies for the rail service would have been discontinued as the farebox recovery ratio failed to breach 40%, unless a waiver was granted. Once the state determined the train service provided mainly a regional, and not a statewide benefit, control of CalTrain should more appropriately be passed to a regional agency. Accordingly, a three-county agency, the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (PCJPB) was formed in 1991 and with the help of state funds, PCJPB purchased the Peninsula Corridor line and right-of-way from SP in 1992 for $202 million.

Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board: First attempt
Once PCJPB took over the stewardship of Caltrain in 1992, the downtown extension was identified as a high-priority project, and a study was undertaken in 1993 to evaluate nine project alternatives. PCJPB leadership voted in March 1994 under Resolution 1994-8 to extend service to downtown by 1996. Projected weekday Caltrain ridership was anticipated to double (compared to 21,700 daily passengers in 1995) with the completion of a downtown extension. Under Resolution 1994-8, electrified trains were planned past 4th and King down either King, Townsend, or Brannan, bringing tracks underground at Fourth Street, and then to one of two alternative downtown terminal sites selected for further study: a locally preferred alignment, which terminated at Market and Beale, nearly the same alignment as the 1911 plans; or the Transbay Terminal. A new terminal at the Market and Beale site would have either two or three underground levels and either two or four tracks terminating at Market or Mission Streets. Alternatively, if selected, a new terminal at Transbay would be either an aerial or underground platform.

Other alternatives identified during early studies included short or long tunnel options, different locations for the tracks to turn north, and two different tunnel construction methods. An additional east-west alignment along Brannan was dropped from consideration in 1995 to avoid disruption to local business. Ventilation requirements would depend on the length of the tunnel selected, and some options would require new locomotives powered by natural gas or electricity to replace or supplement the existing diesel-powered fleet, increasing the costs. In 1995, estimates for the new terminal were projected to cost from US$491000000 1995 to US$686000000 1995.


 * Notes

In December 1995, the Market and Beale site was dropped for consideration as City of San Francisco planners were considering that location for a bus station. Since the Transbay Terminal itself was scheduled for demolition and redevelopment, the site of the Transbay Terminal was endorsed by PCJPB as the future downtown terminal.

Opposition from San Francisco
Four months later, in April 1996, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown declared he "would like to see [BART] totally and completely replace CalTrain ... there ought to be only one rail system in the Bay Area" and that he didn't "know if CalTrain is ever going to go to downtown San Francisco" because funding for DTX had not been identified. Later in 1996, Brown was quoted as saying he would "love to see a downtown extension, but I know we don't have the money." By 1997, the total downtown extension project costs had risen to an estimated US$600000000 1997 to US$1000000000 1997.

Daily Caltrain ridership was projected to rise from 24,000 to 43,000 by 2010 following the completion of the downtown extension. However, Marge Blackwell of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission noted that other contemporary studies showed Caltrain would gain fewer than 10,000 additional riders with the downtown extension, making the per-rider cost prohibitively expensive, and advised Caltrain passengers to transfer to Muni Metro instead, saying "it will take another minute to get downtown." A regular commuter to Pacific Heights from Burlingame noted the Caltrain ride to 4th and King was only twenty minutes, but the bus ride to her workplace involved one transfer and took another forty-five minutes. At the time, the fastest way to travel between the Caltrain station and downtown was via private jitney, at five minutes; Muni bus service took a minimum of twelve minutes, and a walk would take a minimum of fifteen minutes.

A draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) was released in March 1997. Under the 1997 DEIS, DTX was described in three segments, named for their rough alignments: Townsend Street (three options considered), Mined Tunnel (also with three options considered), and Folsom Street (one alignment). Three options for train propulsion were also considered along with two locations for the northern storage yard.

The DEIS also warned that delaying the start of construction to 2005 would increase costs by 20% compared to starting in 1999, but a greater portion could be funded from regional transportation tax initatives if construction were delayed.

Shortly after releasing the draft environmental impact report, PCJPB asked Mayor Brown in May 1997 if San Francisco was still interested in pursuing DTX before continuing work on the final report. In his response, Mayor Brown wrote "the resulting increases in ridership forecast for this investment are [insufficient] to justify the use of what will likely approach a billion dollars of public investment." Mayor Brown also noted that continued expansion of the South of Market area and the new Third Street Light Rail Project to extend Muni Metro service toward 4th and King might relieve or even obviate the need for a downtown extension. San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin, a member of PCJPB, stated that "unless San Francisco, its mayor and its board are all on the same page we can't get [a downtown extension] done. [...] So it's time to move on." In support of the project, San Francisco Supervisor Sue Bierman called for continued study, saying "the future requires us to bring CalTrain to downtown San Francisco" and that downtown extension would have the long-term benefit of ensuring that a future high-speed rail service to Los Angeles would terminate in San Francisco, not Oakland.

Mayor Brown killed the downtown extension project in July 1997 by vowing to veto an allotment to complete the draft environmental impact report, saying that since it would primarily help residents of the Peninsula, "they ought to fund the whole project" and that San Francisco's share (approximately US$60000000 1997 in 1997) of the anticipated project cost would be better spent on building the new Muni Metro expansion, which would open in 2006 as the T Third Street line. Later in July 1997, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors failed to overturn Mayor Brown's veto, which would have required a unanimous Board vote, and other San Francisco officials suggested that if Caltrain could be made compatible with Muni Metro light rail tracks, then it could extend service along The Embarcadero to downtown San Francisco, an idea which was revived briefly by Stanford Horn in an editorial for the San Francisco Examiner in 2017. Opposition to the downtown extension focused on the project's immense cost and marginal benefit, stating that ridership would only increase by 6,000 new passengers over the existing 13,000 weekday passengers, and that funds for the downtown extension could be better spent electrifying the entire system.

Resurrection
In the wake of San Francisco's withdrawl, Caltrain moved on to explore different ways to boost ridership. This culminated in the Rapid Rail Study, published in 1998, which prioritized capital improvement plans in order to improve service by increasing service frequencies and decreasing travel times. After rehabilitating the line to "reverse decades of deferred maintenance" and enhancing the line by adding overtake tracks to implement express service (eventually rolled out in 2005 as Caltrain Express or Baby Bullet service), the Rapid Rail Study called for electrification of the line, which would facilitate any future downtown extension.

Mayor Brown reversed his opposition to the downtown extension in December 1998, pledging support for legislation for the new Transbay Transit Center. Some observers noted the change in position came as Mayor Brown was facing re-election in the November 1999 elections, and came simultaneously with news that a local measure to codify municipal support of a downtown rail extension had qualified for the upcoming November ballot. That measure, on the ballot as Proposition H, passed with a greater than two-thirds majority in November, and Brown was re-elected.

1999: Rapid Rail Study denied!

What happened? Killed and reprioritized; first CTX (2004) now CalMod (2017-2021) then DTX (??)

Current status
, only the structural "train box" below TTC has been funded and is being built. In April 2012 the Metropolitan Transportation Commission decided to make the remainder of the $2.5 billion extension its top priority for federal funding.

2016: delayed funding for prelim studies because of sinking tower

Market & Beale Station
Three alternatives were proposed for the Market and Beale Station described as the locally preferred alternative in 1995:
 * 1) Market Street - 4 Tracks: two levels with two tracks each. All four tracks terminate at Market Street on an upper level, located one level below the mezzanine level, and on a lower level, located two levels below the upper level.
 * 2) Market Street - 2 Tracks: one level with four tracks. Two tracks terminate at Market, and two tracks terminate at Mission; level is one level below the mezzanine. Street access would be provided at Folsom Street for the Mission tracks.
 * 3) Mission Street: one level with four tracks. All four tracks terminate at Mission on an upper level, located one level below the mezzanine level.

Extension from 4th & King
Under PERSUS, the proposed extension to the Transbay Terminal would bring trains past 3rd and Townsend along King Street, then turning towards Market Street on the Embarcadero and 1st Avenue, and entering a subsurface alignment where 1st crosses under Interstate 80.

In the 1997 DEIS, the extension was broken into three segments, each with varying alignments:
 * 1) Townsend Street
 * 2) Townsend-Center: trains travel on the surface from 16th Street, turning east as they approach Townsend, then cross two new eastbound road traffic lanes on Townsend and stay in the center of Townsend to Fifth before tracks descend in a tunnel portal just west of Fourth.
 * 3) Townsend-South Side: trains remain on the surface of the south side of Townsend, and a new surface station would be built between Fifth and Sixth before tracks descend in a tunnel portal just west of Fourth.
 * 4) Townsend-South Subway: trains descend in a tunnel portal at Seventh and Berry, then proceed parallel to and south of Townsend to Fourth, where the tunnel would turn north.
 * 5) Mined Tunnel – in each case, the mined tunnel would start on Townsend just west of Third, proceeding east and then north under Rincon Hill to just west of Essex and north of Folsom.
 * 6) Short-Radius/Long Mined Tunnel: tunnel would turn north at Second
 * 7) Medium-Radius/Medium Mined Tunnel: tunnel would turn north at Stanford
 * 8) Long-Radius/Short Mined Tunnel: tunnel would turn north at Clarence Place
 * 9) Folsom: The single alignment considered for Folsom would construct an underground track using cut-and-cover, following the existing outbound bus ramp, turning east just after crossing Howard.

The double tracks would split into six tracks serving three center island platforms at the Transbay Terminal. Moving sidewalks were proposed to bring passengers from Transbay to the Embarcadero BART/Muni station under Beale.

Extension from 22nd Street
An alternate proposal advanced by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee in 2015 would bypass 4th and King, extending Caltrain and high-speed rail to the Transbay Terminal through a new tunnel branching from the existing line at the 22nd Street station, then following a route generally under Third Street to TTC. Under the 2015 alternative alignment, the existing 4th & King terminal, the Caltrain yard and a portion of Interstate 280 in Mission Bay would be demolished and replaced with infill housing.

The project had been kicked off as the Railyard Alternatives and I-280 Boulevard Feasibility Study (RAB) in June 2014. In 2016, RAB presented preliminary alternatives for four interlinked projects:
 * 1) DTX alignment
 * 2) TTC loop extension
 * 3) Railyard reconfiguration/relocation
 * 4) Conversion of I-280

Four options were considered for DTX alignment:
 * 1) Existing DTX alignment (extension along Townsend street, taking trains underground at 6th Street and turning north at 2nd street, then proceeding east into
 * 2) Tunnel under existing alignment (taking trains underground from an extension of the 100+ year-old Tunnel 1, otherwise generally following the existing alignment)
 * 3) Pennsylvania Avenue (taking trains underground along Pennsylvania Avenue from an extension of the 100+ year-old Tunnel 2, removing 22nd Street Station and joining the existing alignment near 16th Street)
 * 4) Mission Bay/Third Street (diverting trains to 3rd Street from the existing alignment at one of three potential locations, then proceeding underground along 3rd Street past AT&T Park and turning north at 2nd Street to the existing alignment)