http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 007&sc=481
The new 3rd street line in SF opened yesterday. Think of of a Line down Independence Ave., not down Wornall.
SAN FRANCISCO
A light-rail ride that gives view of city in flux:
Look north from the light-rail platform at Kirkland Avenue and Third Street in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, and the view includes the Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Island.
Closer at hand -- right across the street -- a mortuary stands next to a market that advertises check-cashing in English and Spanish, and a store named Da Corner has a T-shirt on display that cautions "Can't Sell Dope Forever."
Yesterday, the San Francisco of postcards and its gritty counterpart were linked by the opening of a 5-mile light-rail line running from King Street near AT&T Park south to the Brisbane border. Not only does the $667 million project connect downtown to the city's southeastern neighborhoods, it also reveals a San Francisco that many Bay Area residents won't recognize.
And for first-day riders, that was part of the appeal.
"I like neighborhoods. It's nice to see different ones," said Jim Ward of Walnut Creek, a software development manager and an electric rail buff. "It'll be interesting to come back in a couple of years and see how things go."
Service on the new T-Third line doesn't start on a daily basis until April 7. But on weekends until then, free rides are being offered between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. while Muni engineers and train operators work out the kinks of a line that crosses two drawbridges, climbs over a freeway and for eight blocks of Third Street shares a lane with automobiles.
Yesterday's opening also drew Muni officials and local politicians, who crowded into two light-rail cars at the Castro subway station at 8:30 a.m. and spilled out onto the Kirkland Avenue platform 40 minutes later. They were greeted by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, whose district is home to nearly the entire extension.
"Being connected to the city is so very, very important," Maxwell told the crowd. "I can get on a streetcar and go to work for the first time. Not two or three buses, having to risk my life in some strange place to get home.''
The northern end of the new T-Third line is the Castro Station. From there, it slides east below the Financial District and emerges on the Embarcadero along a light-rail route that opened in 1998. It then swings onto Fourth Street, cuts over to Third Street south of Mission Creek, and follows that road for several miles down to Sunnydale Avenue in Brisbane, just across the border from the Visitacion Valley neighborhood.
Along the way is an up-close view of a city in flux.
The first stretch heading south goes through Mission Bay, a redevelopment district where cranes and construction sites frame Third Street. Then comes the so-called Central Waterfront, where businesses such as Grabber Drywall Supply and Rent-A-Wreck are being joined by loft condominiums, and the Dogpatch Saloon sits next to Yield Wine Bar.
In Bayview -- a neighborhood that has both called for better connections and worried about gentrification -- the Third Street commercial district clearly has seen better days.
There are storefront churches where stores used to be, and boarded-up windows, and signs that proclaim former tenants such as Art the Tailor with "Quality Clothing." At Newcomb Avenue, four stories of housing are on the rise -- and a posted public notice says the corner is being considered for a "community safety camera" to keep a 24-hour watch on the scene.
But the T-Third line itself is distinctive, with palm trees on the median and customized streetlamps along the way. There's public art unique to each stop, such as the mosaics of birds -- a starling, a lark and an egret, for example -- embedded in the platform at Shafter Avenue.
There also are retailers gambling that the new line will mean better days.
One is Yvonne Hines, who opened Pralines by Yvonne at 5128 Third St. in October -- using a home equity loan to expand her baking business from street fairs and festivals to a shop open four days a week.
"I decided to step out on faith," Hines said while her niece served a customer and her young daughter played nearby. "You can find shoes on Third Street, you can find clothing, you can find restaurants. What we need are more people."
By 1:30, Hines said, she'd had 10 customers come in whom she hadn't seen before. Like the T-Third line, it was a start.
http://www.sfmuni.com/cms/mms/routes/tthirdsvc.htm
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