—————-

Hi Amy,
Thanks for your important article ["SF Underground."] hyperlink: http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=5058

I am a young up-coming product designer with big-ideas and nothing to lose. To my surprise and excitement, taking this attitude has already won me some attention and support, and I want to push that momentum towards developing some innovative ideas about San Francisco’s mass-transit systems.

Before I read your article about the proposed Central Subway, I had been doing some casual research on “wild” public transportation ideas. After I read your article, I realized how important it was to share with the public that these ideas are not actually “wild” or “crazy” at all. Many above-ground mass transit solutions are implemented all over the world and have the real potential to be a much better, cheaper alternative to a light rail or subway system.

For some reason, in the United States we cannot get over the misconception that systems like a monorail are impractical or merely amusement park rides. But in places like Japan, these are

[widely implemented] hyperlink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorails_in_Japan

and have proven to be a great success. There is little precedent for above ground systems in the US, however these few systems have been successful. Seattle’s 1.2 mile monorail system for example was built in 1962 for only $3.6 million. At about $20 million in today’s dollars, that’s about 2% of the proposed cost/length of the SF proposed Central Subway system. Some people argue that you can’t build a monorail through a city, but that’s simply not true. In places like Japan and Germany it happens all the time, and in fact, Seattle has voted to extend their monorail system to
[go right through the city center.] hyperlink: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/171827_monorail04.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=43

If we are serious about the green movement, the United States has to start making serious improvements in public transportation. Our immediate perception might see piece-meal subway expansions as the best solution, but there are better technologies, and we need to start looking ahead. Even if we dig deep in the pockets for this subway expansion, what do we do 5 years later when we need another?

San francisco is a hotbed for innovative thinking. I think this project needs to step back, reach out to that innovative resource, and get inspired to plan much farther ahead for a more sustainable mass-transit infrastructure.

I have started my own modest call for innovation: http://web.mac.com/ericchaves/AirTram_Concept/The_Problem.html Please understand the whimsical feel of it, I just put it up last week, and its purpose is to attract free-thinking engineers, not to communicate ideas to the public. If you are interested, you can find more of my ideas on my Sketch Blog which is listed here: ThinkSketch.blogspot.com

Thanks, Amy
Eric

————–

At this point, I don’t see how it can be stopped, with the funding lined up, and political will so bent on building the subway tunnel. Did you happen to see Amy Hough’s piece in the Bay Guardian today? (link) It summarizes the whole project on a pretty general level, but it does make clear just how much support there is for the tunnel, at all levels. Tom Radulovich is the sole voice of reason quoted in this article.

The context is important. The ATL people mover is a short, simple, free line that performs a specific purpose in isolation — not the same thing as a citywide transit system. Still, the lesson there is that if the goal is to move more people more efficiently (as it should be), we can do this much more reasonably than with this subway tunnel.

64 million per year is far less than Muni. Muni carries ~ 700,000 per DAY not per year.

From my napkin math that’s like 20 million more passengers than the entire MUNI Metro system (at least from this article’s numbers).

I wonder how much the ATL people mover costs.

That’s substantially more than the Central Subway will carry. Substantially more — in fact it’s more than the entire Muni Metro now carries.

It really does pain me to see so much money being thrown at a subway tunnel that was drawn on the map for political reasons rather than transit-related ones. And in the end, we’re still left wondering if we’ll ever see Geary rail within our lifetimes.

If we are indeed forced to swallow the subway ideology there are surely better solutions than integrating it with the T-Third (as you had mentioned in earlier posts).

The proposed underground route is so short that other crazy ideas might work better. Consider the Atlanta Airport’s people mover. It has headways of about 2 minutes and operates over a mile span.

It pains me to think this will be another T-Third boondoggle and with such advanced notice! It’s as though the City is saying to its residents, ATTENTION RESIDENTS, WE’RE ABOUT TO MESS UP YOUR CITY’S TRANSIT A WHOLE BUNCH MORE! Nobody seems to be hailing the warning.