OPINION: An unbuilt subway line, kind of like a tech startup, is a pulsing vessel of dreams. But the constructed reality is often disappointing. That’s the Central Subway.
This is the question facing the Central Subway, San Francisco’s newest transit line. In my experience, it’s almost impossible to get Google Maps to show the line as a means to travel from point A to point B.
Which begs another question: Could the unsparing judgment of algorithms be the undoing of decades of politicking and planning that led to the subway’s creation? When I moved to San Francisco in 1995, I was already a transit nerd. With a pocket full of dime-sized tokens and the free system map, I explored The City. My first regular ride was the 8-Market bus, soon to be replaced by the F-Market streetcar. I lived through the 90s subway meltdowns, covered daily in The Examiner’s “Muni Watch.” While I loved learning the system’s history, I wasn’t nostalgic about it: I thrilled to the possibility of future expansions. . That’s the Central Subway, after reams of planning documents, years of delays and billions of dollars sunk into the ground. I say this as someone who desperately wanted to like it — and use it. My first two attempts to ride the system were thwarted, one by the recent rains and another by a tight schedule. Facing a downpour, I realized the connection between Powell Station and the new Union Square stop afforded me a rainproof route, even if I’d have to change to a bus in Chinatown. The broad underground walkway connecting the stations felt effortless, despite the hand-wringing about the three football-fields distance. The problem was this when I got down to the station: There were no trains for 20 minutes. So I kept heading north. Even if you’re not boarding a train, the station is a handy underground link between Market Street and Union Square, where northbound buses are just two blocks away. When I got to Stockton and Sutter, though, a fallen tree had taken out a 30-Stockton bus and the overhead electrical wires, blocking all service through the Stockton Street Tunnel. This would have been a time for an underground transit service to shine, except that the Central Subway isn’t just a subway. Most of the T line it carries is aboveground, and flooding at 16th Street was blocking the trains. That wasn’t a typical day, of course, so I gave it another shot, figuring I’d save some time by transferring at Powell rather than riding on to Montgomery and walking a block to pick up the 30 on Kearny, as Google recommended. When I got down to the station, though, there was an 8-minute wait for a train. I did the math and realized I was better off repeating my escape from the underground and picking up the 30 north of Union Square. I should have listened to Google. And that’s the rub for the Central Subway. It’s great if you’re starting along the T line and heading to Chinatown. But for most other trips, it doesn’t save time. If you’re trying to get to the FInancial District, it may even lengthen your travel. I had better luck the other day when I got off a crowded 8BX at Washington and descended into the Chinatown station, where a train was waiting. It wouldn’t leave for 7 minutes, but I figured I had time. I chatted up Erika Winton and her daughter Piper, who liked the train’s long straps — good for dangling. Winton estimated that the new line saved them 5 minutes versus riding the bus, and praised it as “fast and clean.” It felt fast enough, once the train got going. Winton and her daughter got off at Union Square, where they would transfer to BART toward the Mission. I rode one more stop to the Yerba Buena station, which was spotless but nearly empty at the evening commute time. As I walked north on Fourth Street to Cole Hardware, the same 8BX bus sped by. I might as well have just stayed on. Google Maps seems to have figured this out. I ran a series of origins and destinations from North Beach and Chinatown through its transit search, and it almost never recommended the T line. Want to go to Chase Center? Save 15 minutes by taking the 8 to the 15. Need to transfer to the Market Street subway? Stay on the bus and get off at Market. Even getting to Caltrain’s Fourth and King station, where the new line connects to the original T-Third line, is easier with a one-seat ride on the 30 or 45, according to Google. Hence the challenge for the Central Subway in attracting new riders. Joslyn Polzien and Jeannie Powers marveled at the Chinatown station as they got off a northbound T. Polzien said it was “like a whole new transit system,” though she doubted it would stay as clean as it was when it opened. But she and Powers were experienced T riders, since both work in Mission Bay. If the Central Subway hadn’t opened, they would have walked from a Market Street stop to the Vault Garden restaurant, they said; the new route just meant a slightly shorter trek from the station. Polzien got a car last year and now drives to work from the Richmond District, and says the new line wouldn’t lure her into returning to Muni for everyday commuting. Powers works from home most days, so she doesn’t anticipate frequent T trips. SFMTA did not respond to a request from The Examiner for Central Subway ridership numbers and other detailed questions for this column. A Google representative said the company had recently resolved a “technical issue” with the T and K lines related to the Central Subway’s opening; but even after that fix, Google Maps continued to disfavor the T in its results for most trips between the north side of The City and destinations south of Market Street. it’s not like we weren’t warned: A civil grand jury ripped the Central Subway project in 2011, finding it was doomed to underdeliver. The SFMTA touts the new stations’ escalators as “the longest...West of the Mississippi.” I’m not sure that’s something to brag about, since it means longer travel times for riders. But the worst thing about the system right now is its lack of frequency. Those expensive tunnels are barely being used. In 2015, the Federal Transit Administration described the system as running trains once every 3.75 minutes. The other evening, it was operating at 14-minute headways — a quarter of the promised service. Those waits, along with the time it takes to get 12 stories underground and back up again, erase its speed advantage. It may be that the Central Subway is simply too short. The tunnels run underground to North Beach, though The City didn’t seek funding for a station there. There are plans — in theory, at least — for an expansion to Fisherman’s Wharf, Ghirardelli Square or even the Marina. With more places to go, the subway might shorten more trips and attract more riders. Who knows? It might even sway Google’s search results. Place a free digital obituaryWe provide a free service for you to honor your loved ones. Click below to get started.
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