A sparkling, multi-billion-dollar transit hub sits in the heart of a major American city, but it has absolutely no trains. This bizarre situation is the daily reality at San Francisco’s Salesforce Transit Center. The city spent an incredible $2.32 billion on a world-class terminal that currently functions as a glorified bus stop.
Commuters walk past empty underground spaces where active rail lines should be humming. Local Supervisor Aaron Peskin famously complained that it “looks like the most expensive bus terminal in the history of humankind.”
The lack of rail connections keeps the terminal operating at a tiny fraction of its true passenger capacity. The statistics reveal why this massive project became a ghost terminal and what’s being done to fix it.
The grand design without any tracks
Deep beneath the streets lies a massive, two-level concrete shell that cost $728.5 million. It’s about four stories high and stretches for nearly four blocks. This subterranean structure, known as the “train box,” was custom-built to hold six trains at once.…