Transportation planners in the city will study a Central Subway extension to North Beach following approval from city supervisors to allocate local transportation sales tax dollars to fund the study.
Sitting as the San Francisco County Transportation Authority board, supervisors on Tuesday approved $230,700 to help pay for a study to see what it would take to continue the Muni’s T-Third rail line from the Chinatown-Rose Pak station to North Beach. Unused funds from a previous T-Third rail extension study, amounting to approximately $370,000, will also be used to fund the current study.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) will lead the study and work with planners at the county transportation authority to help predict ridership and planning portions of the study.
District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter, who represents Chinatown and North Beach, held a hearing in January to urge transportation officials to begin studying options to extend the Central Subway at least to North Beach. At the hearing, transportation officials were cautious about looking into a Central Subway extension, given the agency’s current financial situation.
“This is a really important project for my corner of the city,” Sauter said at the board meeting. “There were certainly many mistakes made in the last phase in terms of the delays and overruns, but I see this as a chance to learn from that.”
Officially opened in January 2023, the nearly $2 billion, 1.7-mile-long Central Subway faced numerous construction delays and was over budget.
Andrew Heidel, a transportation planner with the county transportation authority, said the study will examine conceptual engineering, design, and cost estimates for an extension to North Beach. Heidel added that a one-station extension might be cost-effective and that the study will help planners understand the benefits and trade-offs of building the station.
Heidel also pointed out that during the construction of the Central Subway, the boring machines continued past the Chinatown station so they could exit the tunnel. While the tunnels are there, they are without tracks, signaling, and power infrastructure, he added.
One written public comment was submitted by Bob Feinbaum, president of the SaveMuni organization, opposing the allocation of funding. One of the reasons cited was that the SFMTA has already “higher priority” projects that need funding.
While the presentation said the study would be completed by May 2028, Sauter said he wanted to see if the SFMTA could complete it by the end of 2027.
A routine second vote will take place at the board’s June 23 meeting.
