SF Muni's Central Subway to finally carry passengers Saturday

SAN FRANCISCO - After a decade of construction, and nearly 4 years behind schedule, San Francisco's Central Subway project is finally entering service on Saturday, limited as it may be.

The partial opening of the subway may be great news for a lot of people in the city, but it comes with a lot of questions about whether the payoff will be worth it.

"It's nice, huh," asked AA Bakery & Cafe Henry Chen as he prepares rolls with an offhand skill that only comes after many years of practice. "So it looks easy."

Very little has come easy for bakery owner Chen, and everyone else around Stockton & Washington in recent years, but the saga is finally drawing to a close.

"12 years of construction," he explained. "But exciting, you know? We see the opening as good news."

That's one part of the story; a project that has taken a long time, but the Central Subway is really a number of stories. Some of them stretch well into the past. Others will stay with San Francisco for years to come. One critical starting point for the Central Subway tale, however, is the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. It shook the region and delivered what then mayor Art Agnos called the opportunity of a lifetime.

"San Francisco does not want to be walled in or off from its waterfront," Agnos declared when he heralded the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway.

"When the freeway no longer was going to be restored, Rose went crazy," former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown said this week. "And she really pushed and pushed and pushed."

Chinatown activist and legendary political powerhouse Rose Pak wanted something in return for the business lost with the freeway. So was there any one particular conversation that sold the idea of the subway?

"No," Brown scoffed. "I had conversations with Rose every day about the subway. I don't remember any specific discussion, except to know that I had to make sure that this project was going to get finished at least in my lifetime."

It would take years, but by 2007 the project had enough momentum and funding that it was going to be hard to stop it.

"It's the cheapest billion dollars you'll ever spend on transit," one advocate opined at the time.

That was despite big questions about cost, and return on investment.

"All that money," worried Supervisor Sean Elsbernd in 2007. "How many people is it going to serve? Is it a second required to serve him? And, is it the correct priority?"

Work started in 2010. The tunneling started in late 2013, and the setbacks weren't far behind. There were disputes with contractors over the railway steel. Disagreements over construction timelines. Delays in excavating the Chinatown station. As for the subway's original champion, she would not get the chance to see her project completed.

"Rose was probably the most powerful poor person in the history of San Francisco," Agnos said in 2016.

"She left us in 2016," Brown said. "Six years later, we're about to open the Central Subway."

"The architecture is exquisite," Howard Wong says of the northern terminus of the new line.

As an architect, Howard Wong is impressed by Chinatown Rose Pak Station, but as a transit advocate with Rescue Muni, he's been opposed to this subway from the beginning. The argument then, and now, is that the price will exceed performance.

"As the central subway's cost rose, several things were eliminated," Wong explained. "The moving sidewalks between Powell Street and Union Square. And also the length of the platforms, which were shortened from four to five cars to two cars."

And that, critics say, will forever limit capacity, especially if the system is extended to the North.

"The central subway was, in many ways, a political project," Wong said ahead of the opening. "Instead of a transit planning project."

"If the station opens soon then it will bring more business to Chinatown," said Wang, owner of Yummy Dim across the street from the station. "And will help businesses out a lot."

So businesses here are thrilled at the opportunity for more visitors, directly from Moscone Center. But all the questions about the cost, and what riders and the city actually get for it, will not go away, at least not any time soon. That story will continue, and it will hang over any discussion of the next big project, no matter what that is. 

For more information on the Central Subway's first weekend of service, please visit the SFMTA website. 

In:
• Subway
• Chinatown
• SFMTA
• San Francisco