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Comment by rsync | Hacker News Reader

Will San Francisco ever get a big dig ?

Genuinely curious if it is ever proposed for the 101 corridor that goes through the city.

For those who don't know, the 101 "freeway", which is the main artery north/south through the city, turns into a neighborhood street for several miles (and for several other miles (van ness) goes through a busy city center).

If you are north of the golden gate bridge and you need to go to SFO, you will drive through single family, residential neighborhoods, stopping at stop signs and traffic lights. That's the route.

But there's no other route, so the only solution would be a tunnel, as far as I can tell.

Is this ever proposed ? Does anyone else want this ? Basically Presidio to SFSU, I think ...

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Read up on the Centeal Freeway, Embarcadero Freeway, the Freeway Revolt, and the eventual demolition of those freeways.

What you describe was almost complete in SF in the 1960s and it was stopped by mass citizen opposition. It was a complete disaster for the city and quality of life.

Then in the 1990s the remaining stubs -- except 280 -- were mostly removed so it could never happen again. The city is more beautiful and live able now than it was in those dark freeway decades.

Underground construction would be just as bad in promoting traffic nightmares but less bad in destroying street life and at American construction prices would cost as much as half a dozen Mars missions for no traffic benefit. (Around US$200 MMM probably)

Yes, no traffic benefit. When we removed the half completed system, traffic actually improved. If you wonder why, look up Braess Paradox and induced demand.

"What you describe was almost complete in SF in the 1960s and it was stopped by mass citizen opposition. It was a complete disaster for the city and quality of life."

I am fully aware of that history, and it's not what I am describing at all.

I am speaking specifically of a long-haul, point A to point B tunnel. Imagine getting all of the pass-through cars (and trucks!) off of Van Ness and the GG Park <--> 19th ave. corridor...

Traffic didn't improve. It got rerouted elsewhere, sure. Ultimately what happened was that neighborhoods with freeways nearby appreciated in property values, and those without freeways remained sleepy and suburban. Except Van Ness and Lombard, which became traffic death traps.

What happens when San Francisco refuses to build transportation infrastructure (which, yes, includes both subway and freeway tunnels and bridges, just like in dozens of other grown up cities around the world) is more suburban office park and subdivision sprawl around the bay, or an outflow of resources to other metros.

The most appropriate solution for SF is to build a vehicle and rail tunnel just under the bottom of the bay that goes from Candlestick to the on-ramp of the GGB.

It sounds crazy, but much easier than digging through the city (and going above ground is a non-starter).

BART did this at reasonable cost (less than $2b in today's dollars) from SF to OAK in just four years with the Transbay tube. So it's very doable and would solve massive traffic issues in SF.

The difference would be that the trans-bay tube sat on the floor of the bay, this would need to be under the floor (at least when it crosses the tube). Probably still the most cost-effective solution...

Ahh, yes - that would be a good idea.

Well, really anything would be better than stopped at a stoplight in front of some dudes yard on 19th ave....

280 also just terminates to city streets as well...it is quite a disaster in urban planning all around.

Pretty sure a while back there was an extension project that just got canned - don't remember the reason, but if you look at the satellite view it looks like both 280 and 101 were interrupted in the middle of construction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_revolts_in_the_United_...

building a lane of high speed urban transport is really expensive.

And a rail lane has 50 times the passenger capacity of a private motor vehicle lane.

So if the problem is linking people to sfo, rail is much cheaper.

You need to get the link to rail at both ends right. Maybe you need baggage check and parking available in Marin county where you get on the train.

"Maybe you need baggage check and parking available in Marin county where you get on the train."

Does that exist anywhere ? Genuinely curious ... is there anywhere where you can check luggage at the train embark 20-30 miles prior to the airport ?

Park and ride is something I already do while traveling solo[1], but three kids, strollers, skis, whatever ... there's no way we're packing, unpacking, and packing again to do a park and ride ... we just need to drive to the airport.

Travelers who rented cars at SFO are in the same position. Like it or not, no matter how smartly we Jane Jacobs up the place, people are gonna need to drive to the airport.

[1] Marin Airporter

    is there anywhere where you can check luggage at the 
    train embark 20-30 miles prior to the airport ?

You can do that with the CAT[1] in Vienna, IIRC.

[1] http://www.cityairporttrain.com/

It's common in urban Japan to have a courier company take your luggage to the airport a day or two before you leave, and then you can just take the train or a bus without taking up so much space on it.

A number of cities do satellite airline baggage checks, primarily on the city end of airport express rail.

Here's an example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoyuan_International_Airport_...

Here's another one:

http://www.hongkongairport.com/eng/transport/to-from-airport...

It would be awesome to see this happen, but perhaps building more subways (BART southern crossing, Geary subway, Van Ness subway, Central subway extension to North Beach/Marina/Presidio) should be higher priority. With the rebuilt Doyle Drive, we could build a big parking structure under the Presidio and have people take the subway to downtown.

As another poster mentioned, completing the 280-80/101 link in SOMA also has a high payoff. They're separated by less than three blocks - even a single lane tunnel in each direction would take a big load off SOMA streets. (Instead the current mayor wants to demolish the nortnern two miles of the 280, which is insanity)

Yes, I think SF desperately needs more subway, and given the choice, I would allocate resources to that (making the city healthier and more robust) than a tunnel through the city (which helps people get through the city).

Presidio to Financial subway would be amazing.

At some point, however, people north of the GGB need to get to SFO and while I, traveling solo, would be happy to park and ride in Marin (which I already do with the Marin Airporter) if I am a traveler who rented my car at SFO or if I am traveling with an entire family, you need the ability to drive to the airport...

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