San Francisco Planners Pitch Freeway Removal

A new $1.4 million study would examine the benefits, and financial realities of removing part of a freeway and converting an existing rail yard into a “high quality urban environment,” if approved by the city and county of San Francisco.

“[The study] will look for the best way to transform the three-block-long rail yard into a new urban neighborhood before building the downtown rail extension that will bring Caltrain to the new Transbay Transit Center, the planned electrification of Caltrain and the opening of still-uncertain high-speed rail system, which would also go to the transit center,” reports John Wildermuth.

The proposed study follows “[a] preliminary and much-less-detailed study in 2012 of the area suggested that land freed up by moving the rail yard and converting the freeway into a surface-level boulevard at 16th Street near Mariposa Street.” The conclusion of that idea: “[the land] could be sold to developers for up to $228 million, an estimate the study described as conservative.”