Took more than a decade, cost more than $2,000,000,000, goes nowhere, and still isn't perfect....

Central Subway, San Francisco's newest Muni line, opens to riders, links Chinatown with SF

SFGATE's David Curran rode Muni’s new Central Subway on its opening weekend

David Curran

You may have noticed San Francisco’s Central Subway under construction at various points over the past 14 years. Well, now it’s done — or done enough to be welcoming folks to hop on board to experience this new crosstown adventure. As a bonus, rides are free when it’s open on weekends from now until January 1. 

 

I boarded the Central Subway on Sunday morning to see how this project that broke ground in 2010, and cost just under a staggering $2 billion, had turned out. I was happily reminded that public transit in San Francisco can be a really enjoyable experience.

The pleasure began above ground outside the Yerba Buena station at 4th and Clementina streets near Moscone Center. Here, two Muni ambassadors greeted me with smiles and assurances that, yes, the subway was now open and indeed free. As you experience the new subway, these ambassadors are literally everywhere you turn.

 

The trip down to the Central Subway is steep and long — you don’t want to be at the bottom of this if/when the escalator breaks. But rest assured, it's anything but a descent into hell. Unlike other Muni experiences that may have left you a little wary — perhaps even traumatized? — this brand-new line is as clean and safe as it may ever be.

As it was the subway line’s debut weekend, issues were inevitable. One rider noticed how Muni had peculiarly addressed some of its drainage inside the tunnel. Danielle Baskin shared photos online to show how water flowed out of a tube onto the tracks; as a solution for the tube’s mouthpiece, she noted, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency had apparently inserted plastic red cups into the wall to assist the flow.

A spokesperson for SFMTA told SFGATE that the plastic cups were “an interim solution to extend the (drainage) water past the wall” and were expected to be replaced before the Central Subway becomes fully operational on Jan. 7, 2023.

“We’re using the weekdays to continue critical operator training and are finalizing any changes or construction fixes that need to occur for January,” the spokesperson said. “We’re also collecting feedback we’ve learned from our riders during this soft launch period.”

The Chinatown-Rose Pak station faced a mishap on Sunday as well and was forced to temporarily close. The San Francisco Fire Department responded to an active fire alarm that spurred an evacuation. The department determined it was a false alarm.

Still, such mishaps could not dampen my excitement. I had been eager to ride the Central Subway for years. With my mother living in North Beach, I couldn’t wait to take BART from the East Bay and quickly transfer to a speedy subway instead of getting onto the 41 Union or, especially, the very sluggish 30 Stockton, and then pop out of a station right at Washington Square. 

Sadly, while I was excited, I was also misinformed. I quickly found out that the Central Subway didn’t even go to North Beach. Alex Heim, the helpful Muni ambassador at the Yerba Buena station, broke the news to me. Alex told me the end of the line was the Rose Pak station in Chinatown. There was no North Beach station. It didn’t exist. 

“I am here to help people be without confusion,” Alex told me, and I thanked him. 

 

What Alex didn’t explain was why I may have been confused about there being a North Beach station. One, the machines boring the Central Subway tunnels in fact bored all the way to Union and Columbus even though the last station is on Stockton and Washington in Chinatown. Two, people have been clamoring for years for a North Beach station. Maybe I just took that clamoring and made it my reality because it would have been extremely convenient.

After I had spent a few minutes on the platform, the train showed up. You may have heard there were huge crowds on this first weekend, but on Sunday morning, while people were standing, the cars weren’t packed at all. There was plenty of room to move; this was not a pre-COVID-19 rush-hour situation, when passengers squished into Muni trains to the point of having a panic attack. Nothing like it.

 

And this was just part of what made this whole Central Subway experience so refreshing. The train cars and stations are super clean. There's no graffiti, no trash, no strange puddles of ooze. You can sit with confidence, if you so choose, that your rear end won't land in something that won't let go. 

Plus, the subway is home to by far the best transit art I’ve ever seen in San Francisco. Remember the days of the grimy rope sculpture at Embarcadero BART that became so dirt-encrusted it was (generously) called "a hanging dish towel" by a former BART director? This is not that. 

There are some colorful pieces that cover entire walls and seem built for people to take selfies in front of. The amount of camera activity in front of the art at the Rose Pak station was fairly staggering. There is also an impressive display of huge black-and-white historic photos at the Yerba Buena station. All of the art had a single theme running throughout: very cleanable. 

The speed to travel across these neighborhoods on the Central Subway may be shocking — in a good way. Do not even bother to compare the 30 Stockton with the Central Subway. I clocked the time it took on the subway to get from Washington and Stockton to Union Square at around two minutes. Riding on the 30 Stockton, that would be the time to travel a single city block.

On the Central Subway ride, people were relaxed and enjoying the fun. Near where I stood, a woman kept exclaiming to a friend, “It’s free!” and they all laughed — not a sound you hear often on your average Muni ride.

Sure it took forever and was $375 million over budget, and may even hinder Muni for years to come, but on this day, there was a sense of celebration among the riders that it was finally running. Adding to that, Muni and the city took extra steps to make people feel at ease. Not only were there multiple ambassadors, but when I arrived at the Rose Pak station, there was other security, as well as several police officers.

And it worked. On my way back from Chinatown, I stood next to Steve Yeadeker, a 65-year-old transplant from Miami who’s living in San Francisco now. An apartment building manager on Russian Hill, Steve was eager to catch the new line because he loves a freebie — “I’ve had a free two-bedroom in San Francisco for 20 years” — and also loves his public transit.

 

But as a regular Muni rider, Steve told me, “I take my glasses off whenever I get on Muni in case someone attacks me.” On this day, however, riding public transit was very different. Steve kept his glasses on the whole time.