There is, of course, one part of the M Ocean View line with sufficient density to start to justify a subway–and that’s
Park Merced, which was always the driver for this project. But Park Merced is also close to BART, which is much faster and has higher capacity than the M Ocean View could ever have, even in a subway tunnel. If the point is to serve Park Merced, why not consider a spur that branches off from BART’s line between Balboa and Daly City at Alemany Boulevard and then use the trench of Brotherhood Way to reach Park Merced? Since it’s already below grade, no subway tunnels would be required, and only a few short sections of aerial track are needed to connect to the existing BART right of way.
With a BART connection, Park Merced residents would get a much faster and more reliable, higher-capacity train to downtown San Francisco (and beyond) for a fraction of the cost of putting the M Ocean View underground. David, meanwhile, just wants to see efficient transit moving lots of people to and from denser housing. “I’m agnostic on how we accomplish that. The subway doesn’t have to be dug. If we can use other methods, cool – let’s go for that”
If Yee is still determined to improve the M Ocean View, forget subways: let’s start with something simple, such as removing the turning pockets at the Stonestown Galleria, which forces trains full of hundreds of people to sit behind left-turning cars waiting to enter a shopping mall. That would cost less than the subway study did, and would actually improve the commutes of thousands of Yee’s constituents
