Golden Gate Bridge officials have secured $26 million in federal funds to build a new “gateway” to the North Bay: a transit center where people can walk across the train platform to a bus stop, or sip coffee in a leafy green plaza.
The new complex would bring a San Francisco Transbay vision to downtown San Rafael, where the current transit hub is really a grid of canopied bus shelters bisected by train tracks. Although the tracks are a sign of expanding transit infrastructure, from when Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit, or SMART, extended its train system through San Rafael and out to Larkspur, the configuration makes little sense to transportation planners.
Running train tracks through a bus terminal limits space for the buses, and forces riders to cross the railway in order to make transfers, said Ron Downing, director of planning at the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District. He deemed the design “less than optimal.” One could imagine the tragic consequences of a harried commuter trying to outrun an oncoming train.
Downing views the forthcoming center as a vast improvement. It will sit about a block north of the current facility, at what’s now a depot beside the San Rafael SMART train station. Crews will convert the existing building, along with a bank and underused parking lot, into rows of bus bays and other amenities, all wrapped around the train platform. Plans call for a spacious customer service center, a bus driver break room and a tidy courtyard with benches and patio umbrellas. The three-acre site will have ample curb space for shuttles, taxi drop-offs and bicycles, with room left over if a bus has to pause to board a wheelchair…