3rd Street Light Rail Spotted In Action!
After years of construction, I saw MUNI’s 3rd Street Light Rail (aka The “T”) operating today! It’s running for free on weekend until it officially launches in April. It connects the entire eastern shore of San Francisco - SOMA, Mission Bay, Dog Patch, Potrero Hill, India Basin, Hunters Point, Bayview and Visitation Valley. - with downtown SF, the Caltrain terminus and the forthcoming Transbay Terminal.
There has already been heavy speculation that DogPatch (the area along 3rd Street between 16th and Cesar Chavez) will be an entirely new neighborhood. Large empty warehouses are apparently now all spoken for and cafes, restaurants and even a wine bar have already opened.
We saw a lot of downtown Oakland neighborhoods near BART stations change in the roaring 90s. I wonder what will happen to these overlooked neighborhoods when daily service starts. It was a $668,000,000 project so let’s hope it helps connect and pull in some very cast-off neighborhoods. At the very least they can start charging for parking for the South Bay drivers who prefer to take the light rail the last 5 miles into the city ;>
I got a stern talking to by a couple police men as I had biked onto the northbound railway to take pictures of this southbound train. They were not humored. But they too were very pleased to see the new rail-line running
