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Announcement of Pro- ject 2001 Size 1,000,000 sq. ft. on app. 12 acre site within 40 acre downtown rede- velopment district Start of construction 2010 Est’ed completion 2014 Cost $ 4,200,000,000 + San Francisco – Transbay Center, USA San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal was originally built in 1939 for the California Toll Bridge Authority to facilitate com- muter rail travel across the lower portion of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and designed to handle as many as 35 million people annually with a peak 20- minute rate of 17,000 commuters that were transported in 10-car trains at headways of 63.5 seconds. Yet, after WW2 the Terminal’s use began to steadily decline and by 1958 the lower deck of the Bay Bridge was converted to automobile traffic only, the Key System was dismantled, and by 1959, the inter- modal Transbay Terminal was converted into a bus-only facility. In 2001, the City and the County of San Francisco, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit, and the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board created the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) to design, build, oper- ate, and maintain a new transportation terminal and associated facilities on the site of the current Transbay Terminal. The new terminal will centralize the region's transportation network by accommodat- ing nine transportation systems under one roof, including Alameda-Contra Costa Transit, Caltrain, the San Francisco Municipal Railway (MUNI), Golden Gate Transit, San Mateo County Transit (Sam- Trans), Greyhound, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Western Contra Costa Transit (WestCAT), and future California High-Speed Rail. Moreover, the projects includes several sustainability elements like passive solar shading, wind turbines, geothermal heating and cooling, and a rain and gray water recycling system. Furthermore, Transbay Terminal is part of and surrounded by a 40 acre redevelop- ment area that is supposed to turn the SOMA (South of Market Street) district into a new transit-oriented neighborhood with additional retail, offices, and 3000 residential units. The Transit tower – ad- jacent to the terminal – is proposed to become not only the city’s but also the West Coast’s tallest building and poised to redefine San Francisco’s skyline. The top of the terminal will accommodate a 5.4 acre green roof as a public city park that will host various cultural activities as well as function as an educational re- source “exhibiting several local ecolo- gies and sustainability strategies, and presenting interpretive information for each”. Regarding to Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Transbay Terminal “can inspire change to an environmentally sustainable model of living while also enhancing economic growth in our City, region and State”. Resources: Official website www.transbaycenter.org San Francisco Redevelop- ment Agency - Transbay Re- development Project Area http://sfgov.org/site/sfra_pag e.asp?id=5583# Transbay Temporary Bus Terminal http://temporaryterminal.org Transit Center District Plan www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedf iles/planning/City_Design_Gr oup/CDG_transit_center.htm Metropolitan Transportation Commission www.mtc.ca.gov/projects/tran sbay/ Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects – Transbay Transit Center and Tower www.pcparch.com/#/projects /new-work/transbay-transit- center-and-tower/ Architectural and engineer- ing reviews www.inhabitat.com/2008/05/2 8/san-francisco-transbay- transit-center/ http://caltrain- hsr.blogspot.com/2009/03/foc us-on-sf-transbay-transit- center.html Numbers: + Inspiring “civic pride and progress” Sources: Google Earth 2009; www.transbaycenter.org; sfgov.org. Project partner Transbay Joint Powers Authority (controlled by the City and County of San Francisco, the Alameda- Contra Costa Transit Dis- trict, and the Peninsula Cor- ridor Joint Powers Board) Projects Components Transbay temporary bus terminal Multimodal Transbay Ter- minal serving 9 transport systems Residential, retail, office, and park developments incl. Transit tower Ecological components This project profile was developed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) Emmy Noether Research Project on “The Urban Renaissance Potential of Inner-City Rail Station Redevelopment Mega-Projects.” For additional information on the project: http://megaprojects.metropolitanstudies.de
