Plans for brand new San Francisco Bay rail tunnels inch nearer to realization | Information
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Image courtesy of Flickr user Jim Maurer (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Efforts to build new railroad tunnels across San Francisco Bay are gaining momentum after the planning agency responsible for overseeing the massive planned Link21 infrastructure project released September 21 conceptual maps detailing a key stretch of the rail network presented.
The maps provide a look at two separate plans that would either split the tunnel along regional/local supply lines or combine both in a corridor connecting Oakland and Alameda County with the Salesforce Transit Center and Mission Bay. They also included hints of a “possible expansion” of the BART system, which runs west away from downtown.
Image: Link21 courtesy of sanfranciscoexaminer.com
Details released last week point to a number of important future projects that have been making headlines in the region for a number of years. Aside from improving connections to the larger regional Caltrans system, the plans call for the addition of new BART service routes along the controversial I-980 corridor, as well as four additional stations in Alameda, East Oakland, downtown, and Jack London Square previously announced as the site for the new Oakland A ballpark.
Formerly at Archinect: The Bay Area’s new Transbay gets a tiny step closer to reality
The name Link21 refers to the scope of the 21-county “mega-region” that the combined rail network will enable. His final vision would, for the first time, connect the cities of Santa Cruz, Salinas and Monterey to the south with the Sacramento region and communities in the San Joaquin Valley.
According to a report by the San Francisco Examiner, the estimated initial cost of the project is $29 billion. Link21 says this sum is likely to be supplemented by “various value capture strategies.” Once final approval is granted, construction could take around a decade before the project receives its finishing touches in 2039.
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