Train
in vain
Will the new Third Street light rail actually improve commute times?
By A.C. Thompson, Greg Miller, and Moriah Kinberg
FOR FOLKS LIVING in southeast San Francisco, the 15 Muni bus has long been a lifeline, an umbilical cord connecting largely African American neighborhoods like Hunters Point, the Bayview, and Little Hollywood to the rest of the city.
The 15, which trundles along Third Street, can also be a drag. Buses are often late – on a recent morning a Bay Guardian reporter waited an hour for a 15 at a stop on Third Street near Innes Avenue. When the bus finally arrived, it was, of course, a total sardine-can situation. And these days, with construction turning Third Street into a bump-infested obstacle course, the ride is uncomfortably jarring.
That construction is supposed to improve life along Third Street, replacing the 15 with a new, $620 million streetcar line that will run from the southern border of the city, near Brisbane, to the Mission Bay area. Along the Third Street corridor, opinion about the project, which is scheduled for completion in early 2006, is deeply divided; some locals welcome the light rail, figuring it'll be a rising tide that lifts all boats in a hard-luck area, while others see it as the first step in gentrifying the heart of black San Francisco.
Obviously it's too soon to say what the long-term impact of the train will be. But with little notice from the city's press corps, some very interesting things have been going on as the construction crews make their way down Third Street.
• • •
In some ways, Muni's decision to pour more than a half-billion bucks into the light rail is a little baffling. Because when you delve into key Muni planning documents, it starts looking like the light rail isn't going to massively improve the transportation situation on Third Street.
Buried in a thick, two-volume environmental impact report on the project is a pretty intriguing fact: In a best-case scenario, the light rail won't reduce wait times for people riding public transit on Third Street. Presently, according to the report, wait times are about five minutes during peak hours; after the tracks become operational, they will still be five minutes.
And though the light rail is expected to trim commute times between the southeast and downtown – as a rule trains are faster than buses – we're not talking about a ton of time. Most trips will be one to five minutes faster than today.
In fact, as much as anything, the planning documents reveal the fact that Muni is building the train line now to handle the possibility of a population boom along Third Street, something many demographers – and developers – expect.
Perhaps the biggest plus of the light rail is the fact that it'll replace a lot of dirty, smoggy diesel buses with zero-emissions electrical-rail cars, hopefully bettering the air quality.
Taking diesel buses off the road "is an environmental justice issue for people in the Bayview," says Muni spokesperson Maggie Lynch, adding that the light rail will "increase convenience" for people in the southeast, making it easier to get to BART and Caltrain.
• • •
For Third Street merchants like Alfred McAfee, the constant construction along the corridor has been a nightmare. McAfee has been in the dry-cleaning business for 32 years and for the past 9 years has run One Hour Martinizing, a small dry-cleaners on the 4100 block of Third Street.
"We feel like the city is taking advantage of merchants here," says McAfee, standing behind his shop counter, the odor of chemicals hanging in the air. "Our customer base avoids this area completely, the road's all bumpy, it's dirty."
He claims business is down 70 percent since construction began in the neighborhood about a year and a half ago, and he says patrons couldn't even get into his store for a period of time. For three months, McAfee says, the road and sidewalk in front of his store were completely torn up and "nobody knew what was going on."
McAfee found last year's holiday break especially infuriating – he claims workers chopped up the sidewalk before Christmas and then, basically, abandoned his block for several weeks.
At the Bayview Merchants Association, president Al Norman Jr. says the group is considering suing Muni over "lost revenue and lost parking." According to Norman, who owns Al Norman Plumbing, the proprietors of G. Mazzei and Sons' Hardware and Cliff's Barbeque and Seafood, are particularly annoyed with the situation.
Others, like Sonya Dowthard, who runs Sonya's House of Styles, a salon just off Third Street, are more upbeat about the light rail. The construction, she notes, has slowed down traffic, which used to roar up and down the drag, impeded by few stop lights. "I think it's a good thing," Dowthard says, while taking a quick break from cutting hair.
Marcellus Prentice of Young Community Developers, a Bayview-based nonprofit group, is focused on a different economic issue. The light rail is the biggest construction gig to hit the corridor in generations, and Prentice wants to make sure locals get a piece of the action.
Early on, Muni set up a somewhat cumbersome hiring system. Rather than opening a hiring hall where locals could apply for jobs on the light rail, the agency hired Young Community Developers and other nonprofits and paid them to place people in jobs, an arrangement that cost an estimated $5.5 million.
Prentice, for his part, has been quite successful, finding employment for about 120 residents of southeast SF. "We exceeded the numbers we were striving for," he says, adding that "people trained through our organization are still with those companies."
Some of his counterparts aren't so enthusiastic, however. At the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, Edward Hatter, who's supposed to be placing people in jobs on the section of the track that runs along the central waterfront, has few success stories. Thanks to his organization, he says, "two people were hired from Visitacion Valley to work on the platforms six months ago." Other than that, Hatter has had little luck.
Statistics provided by Muni offer a more complete picture. From May 2002 through July 2005, contractors hired 1,622 people to toil on the light rail.
In Lynch's eyes, "the local and minority hiring numbers are substantial" – especially since Muni, because of federal rules, couldn't force contractors to hire from the southeast.
• • •
Since we're getting into numbers, again, let's take a look at the project's ballooning budget. Initially Muni budgeted $569 million, but today, according to agency documents, the final tab is expected to be closer to $622 million.
Muni documents show some construction firms are getting millions more than originally planned. For example, Mitchell Engineering and Obayashi Corp., two local companies collaborating to work on the project, are $7.7 million overbudget.
Then there's the cost of all those newly planted palm trees: Financial reports show Muni is shelling out $2.4 million on "trees and landscaping," an expenditure some might question given these tight economic times.
The budget overruns, Lynch says, are largely due to increases in material costs and the unforeseen need for major renovations on the Fourth Street and Islais Creek bridges. "Steel and concrete prices skyrocketed while we've been working," she says.
E-mail A.C. Thompson at acthompson@hushmail.com.
Research assistance provided by Matthew Hirsch.