Central Subway

The grand jury issued a damning report on the planned Central Subway this morning, calling on the SFMTA to redesign the project "to better serve the San Francisco population," and hire an independent auditor to determine whether the $1.5 billion price tag is realistic, given the pattern of increasing estimates, and the fact that city will have to pick up any cost overruns.

Much has been made over the past two days about the funding gap the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) needs to make up by spring of 2011 to complete the Central Subway, the result of an article in the Chronicle and a small dust up between the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) Executive Director José Luis Moscovich and SFMTA CFO Sonali Bose yesterday.

Dozens of local elected officials and community leaders donned their novelty hard hats today for a Central Subway groundbreaking ceremony under the I-80 freeway overpass. Tunneling for the subway won't start for at least another two years, so a utility relocation project at the future site of the tunnel's SoMa portal had to suffice.

The MTA received approval from the Federal Transit Administration on Thursday to enter into Final Design for the Central Subway project.

The Federal Transit Administration announced today that the long-planned and much debated Central Subway project will receive a $9.9 million grant to support ongoing preliminary engineering and design work. The project would extend light rail service on the T-Third line with a surface stop on 4th Street near Brannan and subway stops in the SoMa, Union Square and Chinatown neighborhoods.

Now that the Central Subway has received its Record Of Decision (ROD) from the Federal Transit Administration, advocates are pressing the MTA to start planning for the subway’s extension into North Beach and beyond.