If it weren’t for the pesky (rising) sea level, shaky fill, and freeways overhead, you could do interesting things extending the N terminus by burrowing under* the Caltrain leads from 5th or 6th and King to pop up somewhere over by Potrero Hill. A tunnel under Potrero Hill the opposite direction from the old WP tunnel – over toward SF General, would be an interesting way to get heavy duty transit over to the east edge of the Mission.

*Up and over Caltrain is trickier so long as the current freeway ramps restrict clearances, but there are certainly precedents on firmer ground for light rail nimbly leaping railroads (such as Sacramento’s single-track overpasses on the Folsom line crossing the old Western Pacific main line).

One of the few good things about the CS project is that it will eliminate transit turns through the intersection of 4th & King … at least until there’s enough demand at MB to extend the N. But if you could extend the short line T terminus to the turnback, and supplement that with streetcars … I don’t know. It’s a thought.

Extending a couple more Metro lines would take some of the pressure off the turnback at the Embarcadero (which at least works adequately, compared to the stub-end terminal we had before), and create a branching structure on both ends of the system that deals with transit shortcomings for the central core of the city. However, the 4th and King bottleneck is a tricky spot to plan around, with or without the freeway off-ramp, and with or without the T subway extension. I’ve sketched a bunch of ideas, scribbled over them, and more or less given up. I’d like to see how some of the better minds on this forum would do it. How would you get the new and existing lines past the Caltrain station, have the option of terminating a line there (like the N does now) and have less than three separate light rail platforms? How would you ease rail traffic flow constraints at 4th and King? Could the junction be split up across a couple blocks? We’ve lost an opportunity to put a terminus or junction where the new condos stand at 3rd/4th/King/Townsend, but could King be widened by taking down part of the China Basin Annex offices and giving the rail junctions or termini a little more breathing room?

I do agree that some sort of street connection needs to be maintained from Octavia to Division.

Re: Josh’s point, people might find this post from a few months back to be a useful cross-reference.

If I can add one more comment, I’d say that one thing I love about this plan over the “Vision Blvd” plan is that it doesn’t carve this road out as an artery. We know from empirical and experimental evidence that streets designed to be traffic arteries actually impede traffic flow. When everybody thinks of Van Ness as the fastest way to get from A to B, everybody takes Van Ness and traffic ensues. When a diffuse and well-connected grid network provides many equally-desirable routes, traffic flows more freely. This is an observable phenomenon.

LW Mission: People need to get into the city? Heck, dude, I’m the one who lives here, though I think the Western Neighborhoods argument is important. Neighborhoods have adapted to overhead freeways? You’re probably right, in which case you can have my freeway over your backyard! You’ll adapt!