SF Mayor's Office Pushes for Redevelopment of 4th/King Railyards
Redeveloping the railyard at 4th & King in San Francisco has been a hot topic for the past year, but has seen much more press recently. Another article in the SF Streetsblog discusses the potential projects.
The proposal is to take down the last stretch of I-280, move the railyard, and redevelop the site where the railyards currently sit.
The Mayor's Office is behind the redevelopment which requires Caltrain to move its yard elsewhere. This could potentially affect the Downtown Extension of Caltrain and the electrification of the rail. It also affects High-Speed Rail (since they'll be sharing rail right-of-ways). CAHSR is fronting the cost for electrification.
As of now, there is an 8-month study to identify the feasibility of moving the railyards and developing over the existing site.
SoMa, Mission Bay, and Showplace Square neighborhoods each face the railyards and would benefit from redevelopment at the knuckle of the three. Showplace Square is cut off by the freeway, Mission Bay has a development plan that would border the existing freeway and rail route, and SoMa sits north of freeway/Caltrain route.
Last spring, a Stanford Urban Design studio class conducted a study on the area and produced development plans. My project can be found here. This particular development plan was presented to the SF Planning Department, the Mayor's Office, and Livable Cities in June 2012.
-Claudia P.