Unfun fact. The Amtrak buses connecting from trains in Emeryville were suposed to stop at the Transit Center. The rent for one bus stall was so high that Amtrak could not afford it and instead stops on Mission St right outside the Transit Center.
@@pal2011While I don’t agree with the concept, TJPA (owner and operator of the Transit Center) charges rent to all transit operators that use the facility. Some would call this ‘balancing-the-budget.’
This was supposed to be only Phase 1 of the project. Phase 2 was called DTX (Downtown Rail Extension) that connected Caltrain & Muni to the Transit Center via underground pedestrian walkways. It never received full funding thanks to the Transit Center's concrete cracking in the first months of opening, and the infamous adjacent Millenium Tower blaming their sinking and tilt on the Transit Center construction work.
IIRC it's finally moving forward under the Portal project, and received ~$3B in federal funding earlier this year. It isn't supposed to be completed until 2032 at the earliest, though.
@@andyjay729 The actual suspected cause isn’t publicly available per the settlement agreement. The builder used friction piles instead of normal piles. Normal piles are pushed all the way to bedrock. The bedrock at this location is waaaaay deep. Friction piles relies on the friction between the pile and the surrounding dirt. The pile is driven into the ground until the friction equals the weight of the building plus a safety factor. Friction piles are commonly used in SF because they’re cheaper than normal piles in these cases. The technology has been around for 50+ years.
@@andyjay729 There are other videos that speculate on the cause. A lot of them is click bait. They circle around the issue but don’t actually explain a possible cause. I wasted a lot of time watching them. There is one that does sound plausible but I don’t remember the title. It was a three or four part series. At first, they blamed it on the Transbay Center construction. They said too much water was removed and cause the sinking. However, the Transbay Center is on the wrong side of the tower to cause the sinking it experienced.
Sitting on the salesforce bench, eating salesforce ice cream, at the salesforce park, located near the salesforce tower, at the salesforce street, wearing salesforce shirt, and salesforce pants. watching a salesforce tutorial, on my salesforce phone, to use the salesforce services
Grand Central station is named after a corporation that existed 120 years ago. That was of course is the New York Central Railroad which went bankrupt in 1970. People don't remember that it was corporation at one point before the city took it over.
100m is very generous investment in our transit infrastructure and I don’t think people should discount it. Additionally, going to work in an office is currently the main use case of transit to FiDi as it is not a residential part of the city, in general. Let’s just be glad that some billionaires are investing in public transport infrastructure.
I used this transbay center first time last year on a weekend and was shocked how dead it was. As I understand it all of the bus connections are meant for work commuters. And ofc SF’s downtown was overly focused on work/office buildings + WFH has killed SF’s downtown. So the transbay center is pretty useless as is. Need to revitalize downtown to be more mixed use and residential + add more transit and train connections to the rest of the Bay Area to make it a useful hub.
Your comment reminds me of my recent sighting at the street level of the Balboa Bart station. Back in the days on any Saturday afternoon there would be hundreds of people transferring to and fro carpool, MUNI and BART. However that day at 4:00 there was zilch, nada, zero ppl at bus stop on both side of the street.
A bit of a nitpick, but Grand Central Station does have a named sponsor, the New York Central Railroad. Not many people know about it though since the the New York Central is long gone.
@@crowmob-yo6ry You're talking to a Vancouverite, so I'm in full agreement with you there. I think that there are some great regional and local services throughout the greater bay area, but outside of SF and Oakland, the frequency, priority, and quality of the buses just isn't there to convince people to get out of their cars like BART or Caltrain does. The Bay Area doesn't have to go full-Bogota, but do enough that more regular commuters feel that it's safe, comfortable, and reliable.
I don't think it's a waste. The new station is an example of good preparation for the future. Connections to Caltrain, BART and Muni will make the new station even better.
It's crazy to think that something meant as a long distance station isn't connected to the tram, train and subway system!!!!! Specially when they are like 3 blocks away. Just dig a tunnel!
Wanna know something easier? Regional rail through to golden gate bridge and new tunnel or EL station through over the bridge will this station be needed as transbay buses don’t need to exist
It currently only serves buses, and it's going to be a long time until HSR comes in. But having caltrain connections and bart connections at the place would actually make it a decent transit center
I'm not American nor ever been to San Francisco. But having a good connection to the local train service should be a must for a major intercity train station. And no, free shuttle or subway is 3 blocks away is not good enough. Subway station should be right next to it. Anything apart from being able to walk in door from intercity train platform to subway platform is not acceptable. But as I said, I didn't live nor been US. Maybe I don't understand how things work in US or SF.
@@punnboat9817 As San Franciscan, the probably isn't lack of connectivity. The problem with the station currently is that there is not a lot of reasons to go there. Until Caltrain and HSR arrives, the only reasons to use the station are 1) cross bay busses (though most people would choose Bart), and 2) Greyhound/long distance busses.
It was a Transbay Terminal when the Key System ran trains over the Bay Bridge… but then that was killed and later replaced by a half assed invented here system called BART.
@@bffnnn private railroads failed across the US as cities started prioritizing cars. The railroads themselves abandoned rail service across the Bay Bridge to cut costs amid falling ridership.
The planned pedestrian tunnel to connect the Transit Center to Embarcadero Station that was eventually scrapped could of helped. Adding a moving walkway through the tunnel definitely would of helped. What I’m seeing now is the quality of the transit center falling behind. The bathrooms look terrible and stink. More and more of the displays at the bus stops are out of service. And it seems security has allowed a few unhoused people to sit for hours when they weren’t allowing that before. Taking AC Transit to the transit center for me took longer than BART, but the atmosphere and quality of the transit center was why I choose it over BART. Now I usually just take BART because there’s no longer a difference in what I see🤷🏾♂️.
I may be alone inthis but what I find missing from the station is businesses. You called it an airport - airports have businesses inside, past the security line. I keep thinking of CDMX subway stations and how Cuauhtemoc, the central stop, has restaurants and clothing stores inside. Or La Raza, that has a full astronomy museum inside. As is, the station feels sterile. I use it - the NL is convenient for me when going to the city - but I don’t look forward to spending time in it.
The park is a total jewel for downtown San Francisco. The transit has been temporarily delayed due to Covid but will be welcomed as the cbd rebounds in the years to come.
I live on Treasure Island. The only practical way to enter or exit is by driving or busing up and on ramp which leads directly to the Bay bridge. Before the transit center my bus (muni 25) took the Fremont exit which is constantly jammed during downtown events. A 15 to 20 minute ride often took over an hour. With the bus bridge service is a LOT more consistent. Moving the Greyhound and AC busses to the third floor freed up a lot of downtown real estate. How much? Check out the park on the corner of Beale and Howard. 6 years ago that was all buses. Transbay may not hit all the marks. The ones that does hit will probably be late and over budget. But it's done a lot of good for the city.
I live really close to the transit center. I have (had) no idea what the point of this place is. I only discovered the plans for the Transbay as a hub for California HSR from this video. They should advertise this in the building!
@@saawan162 I must have missed it or been paying too much attention to my phone. I go to the SF fitness at Transbay when the other locations are closed
Shit like this in the US is what makes living in countries such as China even more attractive. People are willing to give up their civil rights for a basic functioning society.
The fact that this doesn't connect with literally anything is just hilarious. Any time America spends money on transit, they just mess it up royally. It almost seems intentional.
you forgot the word "yet". America has always done this. The original railroads went to nowhere until they did. often, it was the train that put you on the map or took you off the map. development around the stations can now happen, and that's going to be decades in the making. maybe it is not the best way, but it is the American way. transit is not a priority and will never be a priority for the federal government. so the fact the united states even bothers building any of it is actually a good thing.
@@cmdrls212 I mean, yeah, just go for it. I don't have any rights to give advice to americans where their tax money should go. It's just the outside perspective makes it very funny to watch and observe. But yeah, at least California tries to do something...
@@cmdrls212 huh, this makes no sense. There's already tons of development in the area. They picked it because it was the old bus terminal. It's always going to be inefficient. Instead of building it where transit already was, they built it where they could. I guess it kinda doesn't matter because of the nature of transit in the bay, SF is a pretty poor center. Diridon will play that role much better, as it already has a lot of connectivity throughout the bay. All it's missing is HSR and Bart, and it'll get HSR before the Transbay center will, and there's plans to bring Bart to it.
Yeah Seattle's massive Transit expansion is imploding due to cost overruns in planning. We are 8 years after the $54 billion vote approving it and now they have to go back to the drawing board since what was promised and planned can't be built for $54 billion!!!
Who planned this thing? Transit Centers have to connect as many kinds of transit as possible, they should have built it on top of already existing train lines if they dont want to change their course.
@@lucaspadilla4815 doesn’t make the location any better. It’s either that you will have subpar service because bus, local and highspeed train lines not being connected or you will have to connect them all in future creating extra cost that reduces all cost saving for building it there to zero or below.
@@alexejvornoskov6580 All of those will be here, but it will take time. The Portal project is just starting. That will get Caltrain here. Once the tunnels from the Central Valley get HSR to Gilroy and then San José, HSR will also be here. There are other projects: the pedestrian tunnel to BART, just a few blocks, and the second tunnel to Oakland, which will allow trains to continue to Sacramento.
@@danielcarroll3358 Yeah, for 8 billion dollars as estimated right now. More then it did cost to build the whole thing. And it will NOT be connected to existing Bart station, this plan was scrapped. So only chance of interconnection is if Bart builds a new tunnel on this route - which would mean that everyone traveling via it would have to switch trains on next station to reach other lines. Not exactly optimal solution.
I'm not sure I'd call SF's station the Grand Central of the west when LA union, Seattle King St, San Diego's Santa Fe depot, Portland's Union Station, and San Jose Diridon station among others exist.
SF had a decent train terminal until it was erased in the 70s. And the only thing Diridon has going for it is that it is aesthetically competent. But they could keep the mural and erase the rest of that station without a loss. Oakland had a decent train station but that was abandoned when 880 was rebuilt and realigned. There is a lot of transit stupid in the Bay Area, especially the fixation with BART.
My problem with the commuter rail option is that it'll again favor the residents of San Mateo while continuously ignoring those in the East Bay. San Mateo has ardently refused to allow BART to run through the county, why should East Bay counties allow Caltrain and other commuter rails to go through theirs? The best option is to build BOTH tunnels, no such thing as too expensive when freeway maintenances are just as expensive. Pardon my ignorance, but the transportation system in the Bay Area is so confusing. I think the biggest problem is that BART has been treated as a commuter rail system for too long now, that it needs to build more infill stations in both Oakland and San Francisco, and perhaps ignore the second transbay tube but definitely create another subway spurring off from Montgomery down to Geary and 19th if Link 21 is given to Caltrain. Note; my gym is in the transit center and overall, it is a very nice building.
I'm concerned that American transit planners are spending billions on highly localized vanity projects with limited utility. SF spent billions on this "train" station. NYC spent billions on the Oculus and WTC transit center. These stations look good and improve the rider experience in one place, but what if those billions of funding were spread out through the entire system to improve all stations and infrastructure? Nyc really needs it
Maybe Amtrak would have more nationwide support if it had more service outside of the Northeast Corridor, within 300 miles of Chicago, and California. The lack of direct service between the Midwest and Florida, between Dallas and Houston, and to Las Vegas are glaring omissions.
I wish the Caltrain extension to it would have started earlier. But it’s definitely not a waste. It’s a gorgeous oasis. There’s a redwood grove along the rooftop path too!
Weren't there plans for that when the original terminal was built in the '30s? And for that matter, wasn't the original railroad stopped where it was by 19th century NIMBYism? Would've solved the city (and state) so many problems and saved it so much money had the old Southern Pacific built just a few miles more into downtown.
CAHSR will happen when our grandkids are old. It cost $3.3+ billion for LAX to build 2.25 miles for a people mover and it got delayed again until 2025. Construction started in 2019.
cahsr has over 50 miles built already and this year it got full environmental study approval for the entire LA to SF route. all it needs is funding & the longer the funding takes to come the more it'll end up costing
@@jubeat4451 So when and where is the remaining $100 Billion needed going to come? Without such funding then environmental approvals aren't worth the paper they are written on. CAHSR is still $8-10 Billion short for the valley segment alone.
They should've started out with tilt-train lines along the current tracks between San Diego-LA-San Bernardino-Santa Barbara and San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland-Sacramento to get people acquainted with the notion and build up support, then started on dedicated HSR between those cities, THEN started to connect north and south.
I'm a simple man. I see anything to do with transit planning and I click. Nice job, San Francisco. Hopefully you'll grow into this transit hub in the future!
The Salesforce TC was built right to the Transbay Terminal that it replaced. The location allows for easy access to Highway 80/101. It would be a nightmare to send all those buses through downtown at Rush Hours. The original Transbay Terminal was a train station.
an interesting piece of salesforce park: the seemingly random fountain along the walkway apparently (sometimes) reflects the real locations of buses on the lower level.
One of project's biggest flaws is that there're too few tracks to become a new San Francisco central station: it's a good terminal for Caltrain, expecially after the start of California High speed Trains service that need further tracks in Fourth and Kings station now used from Caltrains, but with only six tracks there isn't enough space for terminating commuter and high speed trains, particularly if second transbay tunnel will be built, with only four terminating tracks available. It could be a good commuter station, but not a new main station.
Honestly a waste on money. They should have waited until San Francisco Westfield died out than demolished that. Then you would already have trains served by BART and Muni at the underground Powell Street station below.
I will say one thing about the name: while I don’t like it, to be fair, most old train stations in the U.S. were named for the private rail company that operated it. Either that or they were “Union” stations if multiple companies built the station together.
We were a French group of tourists visiting San Francisco for the first time last month. We genuinely had no idea it was a transit center. Thought it was a very fancy overground park for Salesforce workers 😂 that said the park was very nice and the views were amazing especially during sunset.
The thing is a white elephant. Soon after it opened, it was closed for a year for structural repairs -- cracks were found in the structural beams. A bad omen. I fear that the building will be obsolete by the time (i.e., if) HSR or the Caltrain extension is built out (or there won't be any need for it, at least in downtown SF). A new transbay tube/tunnel? Not this century. And $6.7 billion for the tunnel from the current Caltrain station to the Transit Center? Given the huge cost overruns (and extra years) it took to build the Central Subway, doubling or tripling these cost estimates for the tunnel would seem prudent.
At first I was like: "Something that looks like a train station, but filled with buses, instead of trains?" But then I remembered that this is in the US where they have a fetish by anything that goes in a asphalt road or any road in general as long as it doesn't have rails of any type... 😅
It's a common modern design for bus stations. I used to live in a British (now) city that has a smaller bus ststion with the same principle. The problem here is the lack of connections. In the city I mentioned the ststion was connected to the train station.
It’s frustrating that China can build and overbuild infrastructure in undeveloped areas and receive the benefit of the doubt from transit advocates, but CA tries to invest in one of their most developed areas and everyone starts losing their mind. SF is doing something big here, they already have half the funding needed for the downtown extension from the federal government. We just need to finish the damn CAHSR and everyone will forget the Salesforce Transit Center ever had problems.
The Grand Central of the west is Los Angeles Union. One of the most beautiful and functional stations in the world. Genuinely stunning, they've filmed everything from the dark Knight to the Oscars there
When evaluating if an overbuilt transit project was a waste you need to evaluate what other transit projects could have been implemented using the money. At a cost of 2.2bn, that’s multiple new streetcar lines and operation funding for years. Or dozens of new infill BART and Caltrain stations. None of these will be built now because of the money spent on this useless bus loop. My take: BART and Caltrain service levels are atrocious. This money should have been spent to have trains come more than every half hour off peak.
Most train stations in the US were named by corporate sponsors in the form of the Private railroads that operated in them. A good number would be replaced by Union Stations as the Union was reference to multiple railroads.
I worked at the top of the building across the east end of the building as it went up. Was very dull until the plants went in up top. Running trains out the east towards a second bay tunnel will require knocking down several skyscrapers, but with development rights to rebuild on top taller should helm make it practical.
If the money goes into subsidizing the center and not into someone's pocket, they can call it whatever they want for $100m. Eventually after it's been commonly used it will pickup is own nickname, no one is going to say, "I'm going to head to the SaleForce Transit Center" at the very least it'll become the STC or SFTC.
San Fran started this before Covid. They couldn’t have predicted this but a lot of people believe that throwing funds into a state that’s rapidly depopulating with a shrinking economy would prefer to send that money to developing states like Texas and Florida instead. Spending should follow economic development and population growth.
Imagine if the homeless never got a foothold and we held the line.: 20+ extra billion dollars to spend, flocks of happy tourists, happy active residents, clean streets. We could have done so much.
@@TheDanEdwards Yes, but between the homeless and the homeless advocates, I'd say the advocates are worse by a mile stretch. They're the ones that decided to distribute alcohol, methadone- and the like- substances, stopped street sweeps, sued people when they defended themselves or their property, created injection sites, and of course slurped up all that money without ever telling us where they're spending it.
You are certainly catching a snapshot in time. The fairest comparisons for the new *TransBay Terminal* are its original sketchy New Deal-era building (now demolished) and the temporary site that served bus commuters while the whole area was being rebuilt. That temp site will be redeveloped into more towers for offices and housing. So in comparison, you have to look at both ridership and land uses - there are way more residents in that area now than before, so the elevated park is as much an amenity to them as office workers. Eventually HSR and Caltrain will terminate in the TransBay building, and the relative distance to BART and the Central Subway are no worse than the current King St distance to the Transbay Terminal, and is comparable to distance between different-era transit nodes in London and Paris. Good enough is alright for now. If you are looking for a mega-transit center, consider what SJ Diridon and LA Union Station will offer.
They desperately need to improve safety and cleanliness on BART. My daughter loved the convenience but stopped taking it because of that. Scary especially for young women. CA Lawmakers must do better.
I stayed a block away from that station this summer, and I had no idea all of that was there. The name "Salesforce transit center", especially right next to Salesforce tower, made me think it was just a random subway station, and maybe not all open to the public. It was also totally empty, like most of downtown. Maybe it would have been easier for me to see the intended use, If there had been more people using it. The transit center might just be suffering from bad timing
You have ignored the primary reason this was rebuilt. The salesforce transit seater is a replacement to the old transbay bus station. The old bus station had a maze of freeway ramps that ate up a major portion of the land south of market in downtown SF. This maze of old freeway ramps consumed many blocks of downtown SF and was a massive waste of land. The replacement was developer driven to free up a vast amount of real estate, demolish the spaghetti maze of highways, for many of the new towers in SF. So the project is already a massive success as it replaces the original functionality of the old transit center, added a great park and allows construction over many blocks of new high rise towers. The extension of Caltrain/HSR and a standard rail link21 tunnel to the east bay will also vastly improve this transit center, and will be a major bonus No added BART tunnel is needed as you noted it is incompatible with standard gauge rail and has very limited and expensive expansion constraints.
This transit center replaced the old one which was small, dark, and crowded. They intentionally wanted to make it larger than they needed to accommodate future expansion in transit service which the old transit center could not do. It was never built to be a train station. It was built to replace the old bus transit center with the ability to accommodate trains later when/if needed. It's a bus station first.
False. I used to use that building and it was very well lit because the sun would shine right in the giant open sides of it where the buses drove out on the second floor.
Sorry but you a so wrong. The original served passenger trains just as this replacement is intended to do "eventually". However the SF Transit Center will be atleast 25 years old before that ever happens. Atleast the unfortunate naming rights will have expired by then. Salesforce should be embarrassed and ashamed for naming an empty bus station.
@@davidjackson7281 those trains were removed in the 60s. Buses used their old ramps. I actually went to the building. What about you? How can I be wrong? Do you explain how I’m wrong when I actually went there and use the building multiple times.
Im assuming you didnt mean to include Greyhound when suggesting consolidating. That would be nice to get a more universal fare for BART and local busnetworks, for now we have clipper that can be used anywhere but still sucks for those who depend on multiple agencies to get to their destinations even if they get a small discount when transferring. Except if your going Bus to Bart, that's only the other way around.
Just call it “SFTC”. It’s what it says on Muni busses, it’s technically correct for either “SF Transit Center” “SF Transbay Center” or “Salesforce Transit Center”. It even rhymes with SFDC which is what most end-users call Salesforce.
SF's "grand central station" was the Ferry Building ♥️ it just makes sense being surrounded on three sides by water. I understand their reasoning for planning to extend train service to the Transbay Termninal but there is a reason Oakland has always been the terminal for long distance trains.
Fun Fact... the fountains are timed and controlled by the buses below. As the bus pass by, it triggers the fountains above the bus. So, when you see the fountains spouting, a bus is directly below.
I'm actually going over to Salesforce Park for a co-working event today. It's a popular spot for outdoor meetups because the location is relatively central to everyone in the Bay, even with a four-block walk. The building is promising, other than the structural issues. But we have some time to "wait and see" on that. In the 2010's the star when it came to Bay Area transit expansion was really the ferry system, but who knows, by the end of the decade we might have fleets of robobuses routed into Salesforce.
Such a stupid location. It should have been built in front of the Ferry Building, which would have allowed BART, Muni Subway, and ferry connections, and they could have reinforced the Embarcadero Sea Wall at the same time. Sigh…
Back then, before the rebuild, it was called the Transbay Transit Center. I feel like they should've kept the transbay in the name, but as Salesforce Transbay Transit Center. It's right next to the Salesforce Tower anyways. Dreamforce is coming soon too!
The main problem imo is that public transit *within* SF and the greater Bay Area is pretty terrible! Muni is notoriously slow, unreliable, and runs weird routes that don’t go everywhere in the city that you’d want, so getting from many oneighborhoods to the business district can be a 30-60min affair despite the city’s relatively small geographic size. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Soma, where as you note there is no easy transfer between Bart and Caltrain or Bart and the new transit station. For the number of people living here and the amount of economic activity, it just doesn’t add up. See Tokyo, NY, or London for examples of what much better looks like.
One solution to the "which tunnel?" dilemma that I haven't seen discussed, is what about having a four-track tunnel (two BART, two regional trains) that comes in perpendicular like the BART-only option, but uses 2nd St instead of 4th St? The Downtown Connector (which will be built under 2nd St) could be built as two levels of rail, just like Market Street, with BART on one level and regional rail on the other. The regional rail would then link up with the tracks coming in from Caltrain 4th/King so that East Bay trains would enter/exit the Transbay Terminal from the same side as Caltrain/HSR. This would unfortunately leave the station as stub-end, restricting capacity, but it would solve the issue of having to pick one tunnel for (realistically) the next 50+ years.
I used the station quite a bit when I lived in Oakland. I moved to SF after Covid, so it's not that I don't use it, but the local transit busses seem to use the bottom floor, and the top floor is reserved for transbay busses. Back then, while the the space seems long and empty, the space space was packed, and full of people going in and out. Specially during rush our. The last time I used the top floor to go to Oakland, it was a completely different picture. Back then, if felt like the space was correctly designed and utilized, and nowadays, yeah, it feels like a bit of waste of space. It's crazy what one pandemic can do. I do think it would get new life once it connects to both Bart and the train, but... it takes a long time for SF to do anything...
AC Transit (the main bus operator for the terminal) runs a fraction of the commuter buses it ran before COVID and only 3 of their bus routes run everyday all day. Muni runs one line within SF, from the terminal to Treasure Island. Its so under utilized, they should be exploring expanding regional bus service throughout the region to complement the Bay Area's regional rail system.
Just one more example of how California HSR is a wasteful project full of missed opportunities. Not connected to transit, not actually being used by any reasonable number of people to justify its cost, and Californians didn't get any new connectivity out of it. Meanwhile, Brightline built an entire rail line and station system for what it will cost just to extend Caltrain a few stops to meet this station, in a fraction of the time, and people actually use it! Whine all you want about the Port Authority Bus Terminal (or Penn Station, for that matter)--they at least get people from A to B. In the end, that's what should matter. Not if you have a fancy roof garden.
The station shows a completely lack of understanding about how a major train terminal should work. First consider the tortured route trains have to take to get to the terminal. Also how many platforms does it support? There are far easier and more efficient ways to connect to Muni and BART. There are far more visionary plans such as running Caltrain and HSR north under the Golden Gate and connecting to the SMART train line in Marin.
l believe frequent ferry service as fast as possible makes for a good connection from SF to Marin's three ferry terminals. The SMART transfer has improved with a shuttle service and shorter dwell times. Now if more passengers would use the train. l think it's still free for youth and seniors.
The reason the bus floor is so empty is because Bay Area Transit sucks outside of San Francisco. You don't get many out-of-town commuters when walking to the nearest bus stop takes 20 minutes.
This is a nice video, as you always make. However, it does not address 2 issues: 1 opportunity cost. While the terminal is nice,but the funds for this overbuilt terminal could have subsidized a dozen bus lines. The architects could not have foreseen the effects of work-from-home since Covid, but the bus terminal is at least 50% bigger than the most optimistic ridership projections. In no way does DTSF need 20 buses to load and depart simultaneously. Further, San Francisco Bay has long been multi-centric, with job centers in Berkeley, Oakland, Silicon Valley, and Palo Alto. It needs frequent reliable connection between the centers, not a centralized hub. 2 Countries with successful transit all have retail at the hub to generate funds and traffic, yet this terminal has essentially zero retail-passengers can’t even grab a coffee.
I truly worry about San Francisco's future. I know the City's doomsayers have been proved wrong before. But you see the raison d'etre for a busy and thriving downtown disappearing. Along with its inept politicians, I don't see hoe SF turns itself around under traditional models. There has to be another motivation for people and businesses to want to be downtown.
First: sponsors have built buildings since the days of the Romans. Carnegie hall, the Rockefeller center ect are examples of this. Second: if you guys want transit to really take off as someone who hates public transit you have to push for policies that increase law and order. Every single one of my brothers and cousins have had horrible and unsafe experiences on public transit. It’s why we stopped. Something that’s often overlooked when discussing Scandinavian or European countries public transit is their high trust societies. This is a sincere criticism. Most people I know who avoid public transit don’t do it for convenience, but from a complete lack of feeling safe, none of my friends want to risk the well-being of their wives on transit when they can put their brides in a climate controlled metal box with complete autonomy.
Thanks for covering this topic. California has a lot of big plans for transportation that will be transformative for the state. Given the complexity of these projects, moving forward on them is not easy. There has to be long-term thinking, but more short-term doing. Hopefully more federal funding is on the way after the elections. Two transbay tubes? Yes Please. Both are needed.
Salesforce Transit Center is 1 of 2 California High-Speed Rail stations built decades before it'll see CAHSR service - the other is ARTIC (Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center) 4km/2.5mi SE of Disneyland.
I did a summer urban planning internship in sf where we went to the transit centre and none of the planners in the city liked the corporate naming either
I think Penn Station was named after the business that developed the station and it could be argued that the sale of the naming rights to justify development/operational costs would be as vital to the existential question of either transportation hubs
THIS is how you do a "green" roof! We should just build these over top all the roads in our cities, and make motorists drive underneath them, in darkness, until they learn to walk again.
To be fair, it is a 6 minute walk from the BART(and MUNI, too!) Embarcadero station to the salesforce transit center, so unless your so lazy that you can't walk 6 minutes, it isn't really the highest of our priority
That bottleneck is like the one we have here in Stockholm at Slussen. All trains run through there now, except a light rail line. But we're building metro tunnels both east a d west, so part of the problem should be fixed in a decade or something.
I got my urban planning degree in 2018 and got the chance to do a deep dive into this project and the adjacent salesforce tower, and got to tour the then-construction sites. The Transbay Transit Center was planned very well. In the late 2010’s SF was growing at a very fast rate. Had SF kept growing at the same rate the city would’ve surpassed 1M people around 2021. Unfortunately the developers couldn’t predict COVID, the awful way the city handled the pandemic that led to Downtown SF emptying out, techies in downtown being replaced with homeless drug users, delays in the Caltrain extension and high speed rail, and the 20% population decline SF has experienced since 2020. I’m sure one day the transit center will function closely to how it was originally envisioned but it won’t be anytime soon.
These numbers are not right. 20% population decline? Population in 2020 was 843,071. It's current population is well over 674,457, and it's population has been increasing the past couple years. And mishandling Covid? What should SF have done? It has among the lowest COVID death rates compared to every other metro center in the country. Yes downtown has lost a lot of business, but it has slowly been improving the past couple years. Please stop parroting Fox News talking points. If you like the city, you really are not helping by spreading misinformation.
SF voters and politicians can't seem to figure out if they want progress or hate progress. SF's problems are self-inflicted, and it's such a shame because some aspects of the city potentially make it literally the best city in the world. SF is like the mega jackpot lottery winner who ends up bankrupt ten years later.
Not all lines of buses go into the bldg plus I dunno why it’s called transit terminal when not everything is collectively in one place plus you got the homeless roaming and businesses leaving. Unless something has to change for the better good of the city
The vibe of the people strolling along the paths in the park was overlooked as it was used by millennials from surrounding offices actually taking & discussing a variety of issues in groups of 2-6. It was the kind of interaction we want to encourage that would bring people to offices in the city. In Denver, we have a 3-block stretch of similar dimensions at street level cut by traffic sewers, so the vibe sucks by comparison & the new plans don’t seem to encourage or support the kind of active discourse the salesforce park does. It may be underutilized, but they can’t build for pandemics when exiting a Great Recession!
Honestly if they wanted a transit center they should have just built it where the 4th street Caltrain terminal is, yes it's not that close to downtown, but it has Caltrain & Muni all in close vicinity, they could have a smaller building in the downtown area connected by above ground light rail, already got a rail line along the Embarcadaro and it goes right onto Market Street, if you need to ferry people to the downtown area or next to BART. I feel like this is some boondoggle of a project pushed by guys like Senator Weiner who's all "Transit transit transit! now make someone else pay for it" without thinking about feasibility and long term goals.
It's a waste now, but once full recovery happens, the place will be buzzing. There aren't any businesses there but the storefronts just need to be filled. There's currently not enough foot traffic to support small businesses.
The naming is odd to me. In my country, in every city the main station is called just that: main station. It's the one where all the trains to and from other towns stop. You go to let's say Leipzig, you arrive at Leipzig Main Station. The secondary stations are named seperately, usually after the part of town they're in or a close-by landmark.
What nobody could have forseen is the massive numbers of people that now work from home. The Transit Center was planned for and built long before COVID and changes in technology.
Fun fact about the fountain you see at 5:25 -- the water jets are triggered by the buses driving below it! There are sensors on the bus level that detect the buses as they come and go, and the water spouts up to follow them.
Total consolidation of Bay Area transit is popular with advocates and nerds like us, but it's not great with the general public. IMO there should be a handful of agencies serving portions of the region (one for SF, one for the East Bay, one for the South Bay, one for the peninsula, and one for the North Bay) and a single agency for longer lines like BART to simplify things without making one mega agency that wouldn't really be apt for a huge region that doesn't need mass integration yet. Most people in the South Bay never go to the North Bay for anything, so they don't need to be especially well integrated. The East Bay should be well integrated with the South Bay and with SF through good connections and regional rail, but the entire region doesn't need to be all one agency.
Unfun fact. The Amtrak buses connecting from trains in Emeryville were suposed to stop at the Transit Center. The rent for one bus stall was so high that Amtrak could not afford it and instead stops on Mission St right outside the Transit Center.
Are you kidding me?
Why charge rent for a bus stall
@@pal2011While I don’t agree with the concept, TJPA (owner and operator of the Transit Center) charges rent to all transit operators that use the facility. Some would call this ‘balancing-the-budget.’
That’s funny because I did take Amtrak last month and it stopped right outside smh.
@@pal2011 airports charge rents to use their gates too, it's not really new
This was supposed to be only Phase 1 of the project. Phase 2 was called DTX (Downtown Rail Extension) that connected Caltrain & Muni to the Transit Center via underground pedestrian walkways. It never received full funding thanks to the Transit Center's concrete cracking in the first months of opening, and the infamous adjacent Millenium Tower blaming their sinking and tilt on the Transit Center construction work.
IIRC it's finally moving forward under the Portal project, and received ~$3B in federal funding earlier this year. It isn't supposed to be completed until 2032 at the earliest, though.
The DTX project is moving forward. The Caltrain electrification is done and that project also supports HSR.
The Millennium Tower's issues were caused by not building a deep enough foundation with the local soft soil, right?
@@andyjay729 The actual suspected cause isn’t publicly available per the settlement agreement. The builder used friction piles instead of normal piles. Normal piles are pushed all the way to bedrock. The bedrock at this location is waaaaay deep. Friction piles relies on the friction between the pile and the surrounding dirt. The pile is driven into the ground until the friction equals the weight of the building plus a safety factor. Friction piles are commonly used in SF because they’re cheaper than normal piles in these cases. The technology has been around for 50+ years.
@@andyjay729 There are other videos that speculate on the cause. A lot of them is click bait. They circle around the issue but don’t actually explain a possible cause. I wasted a lot of time watching them. There is one that does sound plausible but I don’t remember the title. It was a three or four part series.
At first, they blamed it on the Transbay Center construction. They said too much water was removed and cause the sinking. However, the Transbay Center is on the wrong side of the tower to cause the sinking it experienced.
Sitting on the salesforce bench, eating salesforce ice cream, at the salesforce park, located near the salesforce tower, at the salesforce street, wearing salesforce shirt, and salesforce pants. watching a salesforce tutorial, on my salesforce phone, to use the salesforce services
Definitely feels like it was significantly sponsored by Salesforce as a perk to its employees commuting into the adjacent office building.
don’t forget about your salesfarce branded north face backpack!
@@crash.override I don't think they'd have spent $100m just as a perk to their employees
Grand Central station is named after a corporation that existed 120 years ago.
That was of course is the New York Central Railroad which went bankrupt in 1970. People don't remember that it was corporation at one point before the city took it over.
100m is very generous investment in our transit infrastructure and I don’t think people should discount it. Additionally, going to work in an office is currently the main use case of transit to FiDi as it is not a residential part of the city, in general. Let’s just be glad that some billionaires are investing in public transport infrastructure.
I used this transbay center first time last year on a weekend and was shocked how dead it was.
As I understand it all of the bus connections are meant for work commuters. And ofc SF’s downtown was overly focused on work/office buildings + WFH has killed SF’s downtown. So the transbay center is pretty useless as is.
Need to revitalize downtown to be more mixed use and residential + add more transit and train connections to the rest of the Bay Area to make it a useful hub.
Maybe It's an Art installation? Or or Training for What if: [Insert movie here]
Maybe if san Francisco got rid of the homeless defecating outside more people would want to go there.
@@NoalFarstrider right.. we need a Don't poop in the streets Culture back
There’s five Muni lines that run from the terminal. And they’re now studying a subway line from the terminal as well.
Your comment reminds me of my recent sighting at the street level of the Balboa Bart station. Back in the days on any Saturday afternoon there would be hundreds of people transferring to and fro carpool, MUNI and BART. However that day at 4:00 there was zilch, nada, zero ppl at bus stop on both side of the street.
A bit of a nitpick, but Grand Central Station does have a named sponsor, the New York Central Railroad. Not many people know about it though since the the New York Central is long gone.
they should update it to Sales Force Central Station
@@pleasedontwatchthese9593 WeWork Central Station sounds better imo
@@pleasedontwatchthese9593salesforce southern pacific transit center
And New York Penn Station is/was named for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Initially it was only supposed to be called the Transbay Transit Center.
The naming is awkward, but then the Pennsylvania Railroad left Penn Stations all over the northeast...
...named after the railroad that ran at the station. Much less ridiculous than frickin "Salesforce Transit Center"
Until it's connected to BART, Caltrain, and HSR, it's going to be empty. For now, it's a nice bus terminal.
Who says good bus service can't attract a lot of customers?
@@crowmob-yo6ry You're talking to a Vancouverite, so I'm in full agreement with you there. I think that there are some great regional and local services throughout the greater bay area, but outside of SF and Oakland, the frequency, priority, and quality of the buses just isn't there to convince people to get out of their cars like BART or Caltrain does. The Bay Area doesn't have to go full-Bogota, but do enough that more regular commuters feel that it's safe, comfortable, and reliable.
BART is never going to be connected there.
I don't think it's a waste. The new station is an example of good preparation for the future. Connections to Caltrain, BART and Muni will make the new station even better.
It's crazy to think that something meant as a long distance station isn't connected to the tram, train and subway system!!!!! Specially when they are like 3 blocks away. Just dig a tunnel!
Wanna know something easier? Regional rail through to golden gate bridge and new tunnel or EL station through over the bridge will this station be needed as transbay buses don’t need to exist
@@ulizez89at least a pedestrian tunnel if not rail lol. That way you don’t have to leave the ecosystem
Until California can re-learn how to lay rails without blowing billions in cash and decades in time, yes this building is a waste.
@@qjtvaddict Great idea ... not.
It currently only serves buses, and it's going to be a long time until HSR comes in. But having caltrain connections and bart connections at the place would actually make it a decent transit center
Or even just a free shuttle between bart and the transit center
@@MacNCheeseUnicornbart station is like 5 mins walk away.
@@MacNCheeseUnicorn It's a three-block walk.
I'm not American nor ever been to San Francisco. But having a good connection to the local train service should be a must for a major intercity train station.
And no, free shuttle or subway is 3 blocks away is not good enough. Subway station should be right next to it. Anything apart from being able to walk in door from intercity train platform to subway platform is not acceptable.
But as I said, I didn't live nor been US. Maybe I don't understand how things work in US or SF.
@@punnboat9817 As San Franciscan, the probably isn't lack of connectivity. The problem with the station currently is that there is not a lot of reasons to go there.
Until Caltrain and HSR arrives, the only reasons to use the station are 1) cross bay busses (though most people would choose Bart), and 2) Greyhound/long distance busses.
With the ridiculous cost of public transit in California, I'm ok with a sponsor if it saves taxpayers $110 million
Except if that cost is DUE to the sponsors?
@@jakub.kubicekit wasn’t, though.
Tax them instead
@@Zoulstormwhy force them through tax when they are willing to sponsor?
As someone that lives here I just continue to call it the Transbay Terminal. But this definitely a cart before the horse project
It was a Transbay Terminal when the Key System ran trains over the Bay Bridge… but then that was killed and later replaced by a half assed invented here system called BART.
@@bffnnn private railroads failed across the US as cities started prioritizing cars. The railroads themselves abandoned rail service across the Bay Bridge to cut costs amid falling ridership.
It's more of a Transit Terminal anyway. I view transit centers as placeless isolated bus transfer areas with no services nearby.
The planned pedestrian tunnel to connect the Transit Center to Embarcadero Station that was eventually scrapped could of helped. Adding a moving walkway through the tunnel definitely would of helped.
What I’m seeing now is the quality of the transit center falling behind. The bathrooms look terrible and stink. More and more of the displays at the bus stops are out of service. And it seems security has allowed a few unhoused people to sit for hours when they weren’t allowing that before. Taking AC Transit to the transit center for me took longer than BART, but the atmosphere and quality of the transit center was why I choose it over BART. Now I usually just take BART because there’s no longer a difference in what I see🤷🏾♂️.
I may be alone inthis but what I find missing from the station is businesses. You called it an airport - airports have businesses inside, past the security line. I keep thinking of CDMX subway stations and how Cuauhtemoc, the central stop, has restaurants and clothing stores inside. Or La Raza, that has a full astronomy museum inside.
As is, the station feels sterile. I use it - the NL is convenient for me when going to the city - but I don’t look forward to spending time in it.
It looks nice over all but I have a huge gripe: can we please STOP with the soulless minimalist Apple Store wannabe architectural design trend please?
Yeah, old buildings are still the best places to be around
I like both classic design & the Mirrors Edge-esque, modern, "clean" design.
And I believe that modern, industrial design, should stay modern.
An Apple store is actually minimalist, this is just modern
@@wtfareperfectplaces Which means it'll probably look like a very dated product of the times 20 years from now.
@@spinlok3943and then will look classic 20 years from then. 😅
The park upstairs is a great addition to the community.
The park is a total jewel for downtown San Francisco. The transit has been temporarily delayed due to Covid but will be welcomed as the cbd rebounds in the years to come.
cbd? what's that?
@@davidjackson7281 Central Business District
I doubt it will bounce back anytime soon…
@@davidjackson7281 central business district aka Downtown
I live on Treasure Island. The only practical way to enter or exit is by driving or busing up and on ramp which leads directly to the Bay bridge.
Before the transit center my bus (muni 25) took the Fremont exit which is constantly jammed during downtown events. A 15 to 20 minute ride often took over an hour. With the bus bridge service is a LOT more consistent.
Moving the Greyhound and AC busses to the third floor freed up a lot of downtown real estate.
How much? Check out the park on the corner of Beale and Howard. 6 years ago that was all buses.
Transbay may not hit all the marks. The ones that does hit will probably be late and over budget. But it's done a lot of good for the city.
I live really close to the transit center. I have (had) no idea what the point of this place is. I only discovered the plans for the Transbay as a hub for California HSR from this video. They should advertise this in the building!
They do have ads saying HSR is coming soon. I go to Fitness SF regularly and see the ads on the displays!
@@saawan162 "Soon" = 25+ years. LOL!
@@saawan162 I must have missed it or been paying too much attention to my phone. I go to the SF fitness at Transbay when the other locations are closed
Transit center not connected to any transit. Great job CA!
Shit like this in the US is what makes living in countries such as China even more attractive. People are willing to give up their civil rights for a basic functioning society.
The park on top is really, really nice. Right now it's worth visiting for that alone.
The fact that this doesn't connect with literally anything is just hilarious. Any time America spends money on transit, they just mess it up royally. It almost seems intentional.
This
you forgot the word "yet". America has always done this. The original railroads went to nowhere until they did. often, it was the train that put you on the map or took you off the map. development around the stations can now happen, and that's going to be decades in the making.
maybe it is not the best way, but it is the American way. transit is not a priority and will never be a priority for the federal government. so the fact the united states even bothers building any of it is actually a good thing.
@@cmdrls212 I mean, yeah, just go for it. I don't have any rights to give advice to americans where their tax money should go.
It's just the outside perspective makes it very funny to watch and observe. But yeah, at least California tries to do something...
@@cmdrls212 huh, this makes no sense. There's already tons of development in the area. They picked it because it was the old bus terminal. It's always going to be inefficient. Instead of building it where transit already was, they built it where they could.
I guess it kinda doesn't matter because of the nature of transit in the bay, SF is a pretty poor center. Diridon will play that role much better, as it already has a lot of connectivity throughout the bay. All it's missing is HSR and Bart, and it'll get HSR before the Transbay center will, and there's plans to bring Bart to it.
Yeah Seattle's massive Transit expansion is imploding due to cost overruns in planning. We are 8 years after the $54 billion vote approving it and now they have to go back to the drawing board since what was promised and planned can't be built for $54 billion!!!
Who planned this thing? Transit Centers have to connect as many kinds of transit as possible, they should have built it on top of already existing train lines if they dont want to change their course.
It was built on top of the previous transit center
@@lucaspadilla4815 doesn’t make the location any better. It’s either that you will have subpar service because bus, local and highspeed train lines not being connected or you will have to connect them all in future creating extra cost that reduces all cost saving for building it there to zero or below.
@@alexejvornoskov6580 All of those will be here, but it will take time. The Portal project is just starting. That will get Caltrain here. Once the tunnels from the Central Valley get HSR to Gilroy and then San José, HSR will also be here. There are other projects: the pedestrian tunnel to BART, just a few blocks, and the second tunnel to Oakland, which will allow trains to continue to Sacramento.
@@danielcarroll3358 Yeah, for 8 billion dollars as estimated right now. More then it did cost to build the whole thing. And it will NOT be connected to existing Bart station, this plan was scrapped. So only chance of interconnection is if Bart builds a new tunnel on this route - which would mean that everyone traveling via it would have to switch trains on next station to reach other lines. Not exactly optimal solution.
@@lucaspadilla4815 it wasn't really a transit center, it was just a bus terminal.
I'm not sure I'd call SF's station the Grand Central of the west when LA union, Seattle King St, San Diego's Santa Fe depot, Portland's Union Station, and San Jose Diridon station among others exist.
SF had a decent train terminal until it was erased in the 70s. And the only thing Diridon has going for it is that it is aesthetically competent. But they could keep the mural and erase the rest of that station without a loss. Oakland had a decent train station but that was abandoned when 880 was rebuilt and realigned. There is a lot of transit stupid in the Bay Area, especially the fixation with BART.
My problem with the commuter rail option is that it'll again favor the residents of San Mateo while continuously ignoring those in the East Bay. San Mateo has ardently refused to allow BART to run through the county, why should East Bay counties allow Caltrain and other commuter rails to go through theirs?
The best option is to build BOTH tunnels, no such thing as too expensive when freeway maintenances are just as expensive.
Pardon my ignorance, but the transportation system in the Bay Area is so confusing.
I think the biggest problem is that BART has been treated as a commuter rail system for too long now, that it needs to build more infill stations in both Oakland and San Francisco, and perhaps ignore the second transbay tube but definitely create another subway spurring off from Montgomery down to Geary and 19th if Link 21 is given to Caltrain.
Note; my gym is in the transit center and overall, it is a very nice building.
I'm concerned that American transit planners are spending billions on highly localized vanity projects with limited utility. SF spent billions on this "train" station. NYC spent billions on the Oculus and WTC transit center. These stations look good and improve the rider experience in one place, but what if those billions of funding were spread out through the entire system to improve all stations and infrastructure? Nyc really needs it
Maybe Amtrak would have more nationwide support if it had more service outside of the Northeast Corridor, within 300 miles of Chicago, and California. The lack of direct service between the Midwest and Florida, between Dallas and Houston, and to Las Vegas are glaring omissions.
I wish the Caltrain extension to it would have started earlier. But it’s definitely not a waste. It’s a gorgeous oasis. There’s a redwood grove along the rooftop path too!
Weren't there plans for that when the original terminal was built in the '30s? And for that matter, wasn't the original railroad stopped where it was by 19th century NIMBYism? Would've solved the city (and state) so many problems and saved it so much money had the old Southern Pacific built just a few miles more into downtown.
CAHSR will happen when our grandkids are old. It cost $3.3+ billion for LAX to build 2.25 miles for a people mover and it got delayed again until 2025. Construction started in 2019.
That project was headed by CAHSR's new CEO. How about that as an example of the Peter Principal?
cahsr has over 50 miles built already and this year it got full environmental study approval for the entire LA to SF route. all it needs is funding & the longer the funding takes to come the more it'll end up costing
@@jubeat4451 So when and where is the remaining $100 Billion needed going to come? Without such funding then environmental approvals aren't worth the paper they are written on. CAHSR is still $8-10 Billion short for the valley segment alone.
Cynical doomerism helps no one.
They should've started out with tilt-train lines along the current tracks between San Diego-LA-San Bernardino-Santa Barbara and San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland-Sacramento to get people acquainted with the notion and build up support, then started on dedicated HSR between those cities, THEN started to connect north and south.
I'm a simple man. I see anything to do with transit planning and I click. Nice job, San Francisco. Hopefully you'll grow into this transit hub in the future!
perhaps in 20+ years
IT SHOULD BE : " [Name of ] «Presented By» Salesforce"
TRANSBAY transit center.
The Salesforce TC was built right to the Transbay Terminal that it replaced. The location allows for easy access to Highway 80/101. It would be a nightmare to send all those buses through downtown at Rush Hours. The original Transbay Terminal was a train station.
an interesting piece of salesforce park: the seemingly random fountain along the walkway apparently (sometimes) reflects the real locations of buses on the lower level.
One of project's biggest flaws is that there're too few tracks to become a new San Francisco central station: it's a good terminal for Caltrain, expecially after the start of California High speed Trains service that need further tracks in Fourth and Kings station now used from Caltrains, but with only six tracks there isn't enough space for terminating commuter and high speed trains, particularly if second transbay tunnel will be built, with only four terminating tracks available. It could be a good commuter station, but not a new main station.
Honestly a waste on money. They should have waited until San Francisco Westfield died out than demolished that. Then you would already have trains served by BART and Muni at the underground Powell Street station below.
I will say one thing about the name: while I don’t like it, to be fair, most old train stations in the U.S. were named for the private rail company that operated it. Either that or they were “Union” stations if multiple companies built the station together.
We were a French group of tourists visiting San Francisco for the first time last month. We genuinely had no idea it was a transit center. Thought it was a very fancy overground park for Salesforce workers 😂 that said the park was very nice and the views were amazing especially during sunset.
At least Salesforce and San Fran share initials so you can just call it the SF Transit Centre
Yes been doing that except spelling it Center.
The thing is a white elephant. Soon after it opened, it was closed for a year for structural repairs -- cracks were found in the structural beams. A bad omen. I fear that the building will be obsolete by the time (i.e., if) HSR or the Caltrain extension is built out (or there won't be any need for it, at least in downtown SF). A new transbay tube/tunnel? Not this century. And $6.7 billion for the tunnel from the current Caltrain station to the Transit Center? Given the huge cost overruns (and extra years) it took to build the Central Subway, doubling or tripling these cost estimates for the tunnel would seem prudent.
The tunnel's new guestimate is up to $8.2 Billion. This is a bad joke.
At first I was like: "Something that looks like a train station, but filled with buses, instead of trains?"
But then I remembered that this is in the US where they have a fetish by anything that goes in a asphalt road or any road in general as long as it doesn't have rails of any type... 😅
That’s the whole Americas sadly
Then stay away from Amurica which rules and the rest drools.
It's a common modern design for bus stations. I used to live in a British (now) city that has a smaller bus ststion with the same principle.
The problem here is the lack of connections. In the city I mentioned the ststion was connected to the train station.
But it is a (future) train station..... that was literally proven in the video...
@@Yvonne-Bella Are you patient enough to wait another 20+ years before trains arrive?
It’s frustrating that China can build and overbuild infrastructure in undeveloped areas and receive the benefit of the doubt from transit advocates, but CA tries to invest in one of their most developed areas and everyone starts losing their mind. SF is doing something big here, they already have half the funding needed for the downtown extension from the federal government. We just need to finish the damn CAHSR and everyone will forget the Salesforce Transit Center ever had problems.
OR San Francisco should do what NYC did build a double deck tunnel. Subway on the top Heavy Rail on the bottom.
San Francisco is so poor they had to auction off naming rights for their grand terminal? How embarrassing.
The Grand Central of the west is Los Angeles Union. One of the most beautiful and functional stations in the world. Genuinely stunning, they've filmed everything from the dark Knight to the Oscars there
When evaluating if an overbuilt transit project was a waste you need to evaluate what other transit projects could have been implemented using the money.
At a cost of 2.2bn, that’s multiple new streetcar lines and operation funding for years. Or dozens of new infill BART and Caltrain stations. None of these will be built now because of the money spent on this useless bus loop.
My take: BART and Caltrain service levels are atrocious. This money should have been spent to have trains come more than every half hour off peak.
At most you'd get one or two infill BART stations for 2.2bn. Maybe 3 Caltrain stations. How did you come to dozens?
Most train stations in the US were named by corporate sponsors in the form of the Private railroads that operated in them. A good number would be replaced by Union Stations as the Union was reference to multiple railroads.
I worked at the top of the building across the east end of the building as it went up. Was very dull until the plants went in up top.
Running trains out the east towards a second bay tunnel will require knocking down several skyscrapers, but with development rights to rebuild on top taller should helm make it practical.
Please consider doing a video on Radburn NJ. I heard you mention it during one of your videos and would like to hear more about it.
If the money goes into subsidizing the center and not into someone's pocket, they can call it whatever they want for $100m. Eventually after it's been commonly used it will pickup is own nickname, no one is going to say, "I'm going to head to the SaleForce Transit Center" at the very least it'll become the STC or SFTC.
it is weird to name it after accounting software though
San Fran started this before Covid. They couldn’t have predicted this but a lot of people believe that throwing funds into a state that’s rapidly depopulating with a shrinking economy would prefer to send that money to developing states like Texas and Florida instead.
Spending should follow economic development and population growth.
San Francisco is not rapidly depopulating.
@@vpolite1 can you prove @mevans4953 otherwise?
@@MaxFridman-iy6by Population has decreased from 880k to 790k since 2018.
Imagine if the homeless never got a foothold and we held the line.: 20+ extra billion dollars to spend, flocks of happy tourists, happy active residents, clean streets. We could have done so much.
"Imagine if the homeless never got a foothold and we held the line."
@@TheDanEdwards Yes, but between the homeless and the homeless advocates, I'd say the advocates are worse by a mile stretch. They're the ones that decided to distribute alcohol, methadone- and the like- substances, stopped street sweeps, sued people when they defended themselves or their property, created injection sites, and of course slurped up all that money without ever telling us where they're spending it.
Bruh imagine if Philly’s station was named “Comcast 30th street station” I’d hate that
Take the William Grey name off while you're at it.
That's a really pretty looking building, but 125 million over a quarter of a century is a very low price to sell your soul for
You are certainly catching a snapshot in time. The fairest comparisons for the new *TransBay Terminal* are its original sketchy New Deal-era building (now demolished) and the temporary site that served bus commuters while the whole area was being rebuilt. That temp site will be redeveloped into more towers for offices and housing. So in comparison, you have to look at both ridership and land uses - there are way more residents in that area now than before, so the elevated park is as much an amenity to them as office workers. Eventually HSR and Caltrain will terminate in the TransBay building, and the relative distance to BART and the Central Subway are no worse than the current King St distance to the Transbay Terminal, and is comparable to distance between different-era transit nodes in London and Paris. Good enough is alright for now. If you are looking for a mega-transit center, consider what SJ Diridon and LA Union Station will offer.
"Eventually" is several decades from now.
@@davidjackson7281 : all infrastructure is incremental, even civilization resets will follow existing patterns.
@@davidjackson7281 : all infra is incremental.
They desperately need to improve safety and cleanliness on BART. My daughter loved the convenience but stopped taking it because of that. Scary especially for young women.
CA Lawmakers must do better.
Fun fact: the water fountain follows the bus that runs one level below.
I stayed a block away from that station this summer, and I had no idea all of that was there. The name "Salesforce transit center", especially right next to Salesforce tower, made me think it was just a random subway station, and maybe not all open to the public.
It was also totally empty, like most of downtown. Maybe it would have been easier for me to see the intended use, If there had been more people using it. The transit center might just be suffering from bad timing
You have ignored the primary reason this was rebuilt. The salesforce transit seater is a replacement to the old transbay bus station. The old bus station had a maze of freeway ramps that ate up a major portion of the land south of market in downtown SF. This maze of old freeway ramps consumed many blocks of downtown SF and was a massive waste of land. The replacement was developer driven to free up a vast amount of real estate, demolish the spaghetti maze of highways, for many of the new towers in SF. So the project is already a massive success as it replaces the original functionality of the old transit center, added a great park and allows construction over many blocks of new high rise towers. The extension of Caltrain/HSR and a standard rail link21 tunnel to the east bay will also vastly improve this transit center, and will be a major bonus No added BART tunnel is needed as you noted it is incompatible with standard gauge rail and has very limited and expensive expansion constraints.
Do you know where I could read more about this perspective?
This transit center replaced the old one which was small, dark, and crowded. They intentionally wanted to make it larger than they needed to accommodate future expansion in transit service which the old transit center could not do. It was never built to be a train station. It was built to replace the old bus transit center with the ability to accommodate trains later when/if needed. It's a bus station first.
False. I used to use that building and it was very well lit because the sun would shine right in the giant open sides of it where the buses drove out on the second floor.
Sorry but you a so wrong. The original served passenger trains just as this replacement is intended to do "eventually". However the SF Transit Center will be atleast 25 years old before that ever happens. Atleast the unfortunate naming rights will have expired by then. Salesforce should be embarrassed and ashamed for naming an empty bus station.
@@davidjackson7281 those trains were removed in the 60s. Buses used their old ramps. I actually went to the building. What about you? How can I be wrong? Do you explain how I’m wrong when I actually went there and use the building multiple times.
@@davidjackson7281 they were electric streetcars anyway not passenger trains. The Key system and Sacramento Northern Railway.
Im assuming you didnt mean to include Greyhound when suggesting consolidating. That would be nice to get a more universal fare for BART and local busnetworks, for now we have clipper that can be used anywhere but still sucks for those who depend on multiple agencies to get to their destinations even if they get a small discount when transferring. Except if your going Bus to Bart, that's only the other way around.
Just call it “SFTC”. It’s what it says on Muni busses, it’s technically correct for either “SF Transit Center” “SF Transbay Center” or “Salesforce Transit Center”. It even rhymes with SFDC which is what most end-users call Salesforce.
SF's "grand central station" was the Ferry Building ♥️ it just makes sense being surrounded on three sides by water. I understand their reasoning for planning to extend train service to the Transbay Termninal but there is a reason Oakland has always been the terminal for long distance trains.
Fun Fact... the fountains are timed and controlled by the buses below. As the bus pass by, it triggers the fountains above the bus. So, when you see the fountains spouting, a bus is directly below.
I'm actually going over to Salesforce Park for a co-working event today. It's a popular spot for outdoor meetups because the location is relatively central to everyone in the Bay, even with a four-block walk.
The building is promising, other than the structural issues. But we have some time to "wait and see" on that. In the 2010's the star when it came to Bay Area transit expansion was really the ferry system, but who knows, by the end of the decade we might have fleets of robobuses routed into Salesforce.
Such a stupid location. It should have been built in front of the Ferry Building, which would have allowed BART, Muni Subway, and ferry connections, and they could have reinforced the Embarcadero Sea Wall at the same time. Sigh…
Back then, before the rebuild, it was called the Transbay Transit Center. I feel like they should've kept the transbay in the name, but as Salesforce Transbay Transit Center. It's right next to the Salesforce Tower anyways. Dreamforce is coming soon too!
The main problem imo is that public transit *within* SF and the greater Bay Area is pretty terrible! Muni is notoriously slow, unreliable, and runs weird routes that don’t go everywhere in the city that you’d want, so getting from many oneighborhoods to the business district can be a 30-60min affair despite the city’s relatively small geographic size. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Soma, where as you note there is no easy transfer between Bart and Caltrain or Bart and the new transit station. For the number of people living here and the amount of economic activity, it just doesn’t add up. See Tokyo, NY, or London for examples of what much better looks like.
seems like a massive waste for a shrinking, dying city that should be planning to downsize its public services as it depopulates
One solution to the "which tunnel?" dilemma that I haven't seen discussed, is what about having a four-track tunnel (two BART, two regional trains) that comes in perpendicular like the BART-only option, but uses 2nd St instead of 4th St? The Downtown Connector (which will be built under 2nd St) could be built as two levels of rail, just like Market Street, with BART on one level and regional rail on the other. The regional rail would then link up with the tracks coming in from Caltrain 4th/King so that East Bay trains would enter/exit the Transbay Terminal from the same side as Caltrain/HSR. This would unfortunately leave the station as stub-end, restricting capacity, but it would solve the issue of having to pick one tunnel for (realistically) the next 50+ years.
Soon it will be Salesforce Bay and Salesforce City.
Still SFC so don't gimme no bammer weed.
SF... Initialism.
Might be Google Bay. Salesforce is small change comparatively.
@@mattbosley3531Isn’t Google moving most of their people out of S.F.?
If I'm writing for leftists I say no, if I'm writing for conservatives I'm gonna say yes. Then I'm gonna go cash my check.
I used the station quite a bit when I lived in Oakland. I moved to SF after Covid, so it's not that I don't use it, but the local transit busses seem to use the bottom floor, and the top floor is reserved for transbay busses. Back then, while the the space seems long and empty, the space space was packed, and full of people going in and out. Specially during rush our. The last time I used the top floor to go to Oakland, it was a completely different picture. Back then, if felt like the space was correctly designed and utilized, and nowadays, yeah, it feels like a bit of waste of space. It's crazy what one pandemic can do.
I do think it would get new life once it connects to both Bart and the train, but... it takes a long time for SF to do anything...
AC Transit (the main bus operator for the terminal) runs a fraction of the commuter buses it ran before COVID and only 3 of their bus routes run everyday all day. Muni runs one line within SF, from the terminal to Treasure Island. Its so under utilized, they should be exploring expanding regional bus service throughout the region to complement the Bay Area's regional rail system.
Welcome to San Francisco, sponsored by SalesForce (TM)
Just one more example of how California HSR is a wasteful project full of missed opportunities. Not connected to transit, not actually being used by any reasonable number of people to justify its cost, and Californians didn't get any new connectivity out of it. Meanwhile, Brightline built an entire rail line and station system for what it will cost just to extend Caltrain a few stops to meet this station, in a fraction of the time, and people actually use it! Whine all you want about the Port Authority Bus Terminal (or Penn Station, for that matter)--they at least get people from A to B. In the end, that's what should matter. Not if you have a fancy roof garden.
The station shows a completely lack of understanding about how a major train terminal should work. First consider the tortured route trains have to take to get to the terminal. Also how many platforms does it support? There are far easier and more efficient ways to connect to Muni and BART. There are far more visionary plans such as running Caltrain and HSR north under the Golden Gate and connecting to the SMART train line in Marin.
l believe frequent ferry service as fast as possible makes for a good connection from SF to Marin's three ferry terminals. The SMART transfer has improved with a shuttle service and shorter dwell times. Now if more passengers would use the train. l think it's still free for youth and seniors.
The reason the bus floor is so empty is because Bay Area Transit sucks outside of San Francisco. You don't get many out-of-town commuters when walking to the nearest bus stop takes 20 minutes.
My guess is that by the time all the projects its designed for come online, the building will be run down and out of date.
This is a nice video, as you always make. However, it does not address 2 issues:
1 opportunity cost. While the terminal is nice,but the funds for this overbuilt terminal could have subsidized a dozen bus lines. The architects could not have foreseen the effects of work-from-home since Covid, but the bus terminal is at least 50% bigger than the most optimistic ridership projections. In no way does DTSF need 20 buses to load and depart simultaneously.
Further, San Francisco Bay has long been multi-centric, with job centers in Berkeley, Oakland, Silicon Valley, and Palo Alto. It needs frequent reliable connection between the centers, not a centralized hub.
2 Countries with successful transit all have retail at the hub to generate funds and traffic, yet this terminal has essentially zero retail-passengers can’t even grab a coffee.
I truly worry about San Francisco's future. I know the City's doomsayers have been proved wrong before. But you see the raison d'etre for a busy and thriving downtown disappearing. Along with its inept politicians, I don't see hoe SF turns itself around under traditional models. There has to be another motivation for people and businesses to want to be downtown.
First: sponsors have built buildings since the days of the Romans. Carnegie hall, the Rockefeller center ect are examples of this.
Second: if you guys want transit to really take off as someone who hates public transit you have to push for policies that increase law and order. Every single one of my brothers and cousins have had horrible and unsafe experiences on public transit. It’s why we stopped. Something that’s often overlooked when discussing Scandinavian or European countries public transit is their high trust societies.
This is a sincere criticism. Most people I know who avoid public transit don’t do it for convenience, but from a complete lack of feeling safe, none of my friends want to risk the well-being of their wives on transit when they can put their brides in a climate controlled metal box with complete autonomy.
Thanks for covering this topic. California has a lot of big plans for transportation that will be transformative for the state. Given the complexity of these projects, moving forward on them is not easy. There has to be long-term thinking, but more short-term doing. Hopefully more federal funding is on the way after the elections.
Two transbay tubes? Yes Please. Both are needed.
Amtrak buses to the east bay don't stop at Salesforce which is BONKERS
Salesforce Transit Center is 1 of 2 California High-Speed Rail stations built decades before it'll see CAHSR service - the other is ARTIC (Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center) 4km/2.5mi SE of Disneyland.
I did a summer urban planning internship in sf where we went to the transit centre and none of the planners in the city liked the corporate naming either
9:30 you can put two rail gauges in a single tunnel usisng a dual gauge track. I believe this solution is often used in Australia
In Salt Lake, there's a plan for a Transit center. The plan is called "the Rio Grande Plan". I'd love if you covered it!
I think Penn Station was named after the business that developed the station and it could be argued that the sale of the naming rights to justify development/operational costs would be as vital to the existential question of either transportation hubs
THIS is how you do a "green" roof!
We should just build these over top all the roads in our cities, and make motorists drive underneath them, in darkness, until they learn to walk again.
To be fair, it is a 6 minute walk from the BART(and MUNI, too!) Embarcadero station to the salesforce transit center, so unless your so lazy that you can't walk 6 minutes, it isn't really the highest of our priority
You know people have disabilities and mobility issues?
How cool would it be if they put a dual-gauge track in the tunnel and BART would be on the same alignment as Amtrak 🔥🔥🔥
Yes, indeed
i just discover this place exist yesterday and you made this video. amazing timing. i compare this to port authority more than grand central
That bottleneck is like the one we have here in Stockholm at Slussen. All trains run through there now, except a light rail line. But we're building metro tunnels both east a d west, so part of the problem should be fixed in a decade or something.
I got my urban planning degree in 2018 and got the chance to do a deep dive into this project and the adjacent salesforce tower, and got to tour the then-construction sites. The Transbay Transit Center was planned very well. In the late 2010’s SF was growing at a very fast rate. Had SF kept growing at the same rate the city would’ve surpassed 1M people around 2021. Unfortunately the developers couldn’t predict COVID, the awful way the city handled the pandemic that led to Downtown SF emptying out, techies in downtown being replaced with homeless drug users, delays in the Caltrain extension and high speed rail, and the 20% population decline SF has experienced since 2020. I’m sure one day the transit center will function closely to how it was originally envisioned but it won’t be anytime soon.
The cracked beam and non-functional gondola are not good omens.
These numbers are not right. 20% population decline? Population in 2020 was 843,071. It's current population is well over 674,457, and it's population has been increasing the past couple years. And mishandling Covid? What should SF have done? It has among the lowest COVID death rates compared to every other metro center in the country. Yes downtown has lost a lot of business, but it has slowly been improving the past couple years. Please stop parroting Fox News talking points. If you like the city, you really are not helping by spreading misinformation.
SF voters and politicians can't seem to figure out if they want progress or hate progress. SF's problems are self-inflicted, and it's such a shame because some aspects of the city potentially make it literally the best city in the world. SF is like the mega jackpot lottery winner who ends up bankrupt ten years later.
Not all lines of buses go into the bldg plus I dunno why it’s called transit terminal when not everything is collectively in one place plus you got the homeless roaming and businesses leaving. Unless something has to change for the better good of the city
The vibe of the people strolling along the paths in the park was overlooked as it was used by millennials from surrounding offices actually taking & discussing a variety of issues in groups of 2-6. It was the kind of interaction we want to encourage that would bring people to offices in the city.
In Denver, we have a 3-block stretch of similar dimensions at street level cut by traffic sewers, so the vibe sucks by comparison & the new plans don’t seem to encourage or support the kind of active discourse the salesforce park does. It may be underutilized, but they can’t build for pandemics when exiting a Great Recession!
Honestly if they wanted a transit center they should have just built it where the 4th street Caltrain terminal is, yes it's not that close to downtown, but it has Caltrain & Muni all in close vicinity, they could have a smaller building in the downtown area connected by above ground light rail, already got a rail line along the Embarcadaro and it goes right onto Market Street, if you need to ferry people to the downtown area or next to BART. I feel like this is some boondoggle of a project pushed by guys like Senator Weiner who's all "Transit transit transit! now make someone else pay for it" without thinking about feasibility and long term goals.
It's a waste now, but once full recovery happens, the place will be buzzing. There aren't any businesses there but the storefronts just need to be filled. There's currently not enough foot traffic to support small businesses.
The naming is odd to me. In my country, in every city the main station is called just that: main station. It's the one where all the trains to and from other towns stop. You go to let's say Leipzig, you arrive at Leipzig Main Station. The secondary stations are named seperately, usually after the part of town they're in or a close-by landmark.
What nobody could have forseen is the massive numbers of people that now work from home. The Transit Center was planned for and built long before COVID and changes in technology.
Fun fact about the fountain you see at 5:25 -- the water jets are triggered by the buses driving below it! There are sensors on the bus level that detect the buses as they come and go, and the water spouts up to follow them.
Total consolidation of Bay Area transit is popular with advocates and nerds like us, but it's not great with the general public. IMO there should be a handful of agencies serving portions of the region (one for SF, one for the East Bay, one for the South Bay, one for the peninsula, and one for the North Bay) and a single agency for longer lines like BART to simplify things without making one mega agency that wouldn't really be apt for a huge region that doesn't need mass integration yet. Most people in the South Bay never go to the North Bay for anything, so they don't need to be especially well integrated. The East Bay should be well integrated with the South Bay and with SF through good connections and regional rail, but the entire region doesn't need to be all one agency.
If you want Big Corporations to "Pay their Fair Share", $100 million for mass transit is a good start.