G-Geary: Beale Street Alignment

South of Market Street near the verge of the San Francisco Bay lie the most quickly densifying neighborhoods in San Francisco, namely the Financial District South, the Transbay District (surrounding a transit terminal of the same name), and Rincon Hill.

The South-of-Market (SoMa) component of this proposal includes an alignment along Beale Street to serve these neighborhoods, with a station stop at the Transbay Terminal to tie CalTrain, AC Transit, Golden Gate Transit and others in the new intermodal Terminal to the Muni Metro and BART systems under Market Street; the alignment then continues south, with a station utilizing an existing cut under Harrison Street through Rincon Hill to keep cost of construction low, finally connecting the new FiDi South Subway to the Southern Embarcadero light rail corridor at the end of Beale, where trains can run along the surface to serve the existing Giants Stadium as well as the future Golden State Warriors Stadium on the waterfront.

Sectional diagram looking south and west from the new FiDi South Muni Metro alignment. North of Market the alignment continues into the Clay-Geary Subway; South of I-80 it joins the Southern Embarcadero 

• The location of the Transbay Muni Metro Station at Mission and Beale allows easy access from the east end of the Transbay Terminal mid-block on Beale between Howard and Mission, with pedestrian tunnels constructed alongside the subway tunnel under Beale Street to tie the Transbay cluster of services to existing and to-be-expanded BART and Muni Metro service at Embarcadero Station.
• A right-of-way separated surface station under the existing overpass at Harrison Street keeps construction costs relatively low, and allows for connections up to the flank of Rincon Hill, above, with its thousands of new housing units proposed and under construction. With more than half of a dozen proposed and under construction high-rises within a two block radius, the usage of this station could be staggering within a decade; the new MTC offices on Main would have their own transit stop. Potential use of the Bay Bridge Maintenance Facility just south of the overpass as Muni train maintenance and staging could be highly beneficial in such a central location.
• An additional line serving the Muni Metro Extension (MMX) along the Southern Embarcadero with service to the existing Giants and future Warriors Stadia would help alleviate overcrowding of the N-Judah trains during game periods.