Outreach begins on SF escalator and entrance improvements

Thanks to State Proposition 1B and the City of San Francisco, BART has received $12 million that gives us the opportunity to make extensive improvements to escalators and entrances at some of our downtown San Francisco stations.

We have entered into a planning and design process to determine the best use of these funds--the process will take approximately a year to complete. To start, we've identified two downtown stations that are in great need of improvement: Powell Street and Civic Center/UN Plaza stations. We've identified 2 escalators at Powell Street and 1 at Civic Center that are among our worst-performing escalators in our system.

We want our customers to have a chance to be involved in this process so we will be holding open houses over the next six months, starting this month. The first two will be held at Powell Street Station on Tuesday, December 16 during the commute hours of 7am to 10am and 4pm to 7pm. Then on Thursday, December 18, we'll have another set of open houses at Civic Center Station from 7am to 10am and 4pm to 7pm. If you wish, please take our  survey 

During these open houses we'll be looking for our customers' opinions on signs, escalator performance, lighting, safety, sustainability, usability, appearance and overall customer experience at these stations. The answers we get at the open houses will help to develop the designs and improvements going forward.

Once the planning and design process is completed in Fall 2015, we will be able to start work in mid-2016 to replace the worst-performing escalators at these locations. At Powell Street that is the escalator that is near the Ross store and the one near the Diesel store. At Civic Center/UN Plaza, it is the one near the CVS store. Because of new federal regulations in place, we are required to provide a protective cover or canopy for these new escalators. This will give us a chance to create entrances to our stations that will help enhance the appearance of Market Street and the neighborhood as well as helping to keep the escalators in better working order and protecting them from the elements.

We are also working in cooperation with the Mayor's office, SF Public Works, SF Planning, SFMTA and the Better Market Street group as well as other neighborhood improvement groups. When all the work is done in late 2017, we hope that the result will be better-looking, better-performing and more secure stations.