The award is the largest in this year’s round of state transit grants, but the project’s own funding plan already counted on it, and a $587 million gap remains ahead of a federal grant agreement targeted for next summer.
For eight years, the lowest level of the Salesforce Transit Center has been a finished concrete box with no trains in it. The tracks meant to fill it would run about two miles from Caltrain’s terminal at Fourth and King Streets, under Townsend and Second Streets, into the heart of downtown. On Tuesday, the state put $750 million toward building them.
The California State Transportation Agency awarded the money to the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the agency that owns the transit center, for The Portal, the rail extension once known as the Downtown Rail Extension. It was the largest award in the eighth cycle of the state’s Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program, which the governor’s office announced on Nov. 10 alongside smaller grants for zero-emission buses, Metrolink service and track work across the state. The program is paid for by Senate Bill 1, the 2017 gas-tax law, and by the state’s Cap-and-Invest program.
What the $750 million pays for
The money arrives in two pieces. According to a statement from the authority’s board chair, Jeff Gee, and its executive director, Adam Van de Water, $100 million in this cycle will pay for preconstruction work “to make The Portal one of the most shovel-ready transit projects in the United States.” The remaining $650 million, committed over several years, is for construction and is meant to “help leverage $3.38 billion dollars already committed” through the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grants program.
The project would extend Caltrain, and eventually California high-speed rail, into the transit center’s train box, with a new underground station at Fourth and Townsend Streets. About 1.05 kilometers would be mined tunnel, with the rest built by cut-and-cover, the Tunnelling Journal reported. The authority projects an average of 90,000 daily riders once it opens.
“California is turning big transit ideas into everyday trips,” said Toks Omishakin, the state transportation secretary, in the governor’s announcement.
The gap the award does not close
The award is large, but it is not new money in the project’s books. The authority’s September status report lays out a funding plan, current as of July, against a cost estimate of about $7.57 billion. It already listed $750 million from this state program as “planned,” alongside $553 million in Cap-and-Invest funds passed through the High-Speed Rail Authority. Tuesday’s decision turns the first of those from a hope into a commitment. It does not reduce the line at the bottom of the table: a “funding gap – to be planned” of $587 million.
The rest of the plan, in millions of dollars:
- Federal Capital Investment Grant: $3,384, which still has to be locked in through a Full Funding Grant Agreement with the federal government.
- Committed local and regional money: $1,304, including $577 from Transbay district sources such as impact fees, $325 from the Regional Measure 3 bridge-toll program and $321 from San Francisco’s transportation sales tax.
- Planned state money: $1,303, the new $750 award plus the $553 high-speed rail pass-through.
- The 2010 investment in the train box: $729.
- Other planned or potential sources, including a South of Market tax district: $265.
The high-speed rail share is not settled either. The September report says that because of recent changes to the High-Speed Rail Authority’s business plan, the Transbay authority “will need to recommence conversations” with it about its funding commitment.
The federal clock
The schedule depends on the federal grant agreement, which the authority targets for July 2027. Its report lists “delays in securing capital funding for local match” among its top risks, warning that such delays could push back that agreement. CalSTA’s award documentation also includes a contingency tied to the federal agreement, the Tunnelling Journal reported.
The authority has some new tools. In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2308, by Assemblyman Matt Haney of San Francisco, which extends by 25 years, past a scheduled 2050 sunset, the net tax increment from development on state-transferred land around the transit center. The authority says it is also weighing other local sources.
On the current schedule, preconstruction contracts for the main tunnel package, which is being procured through progressive design-build, would be approved and awarded into spring 2027, with construction readiness targeted for 2029, according to the Tunnelling Journal’s reading of the authority’s Nov. 10 project update. The status report puts the target date for passenger service in November 2036.
For Peninsula riders, that is the practical meaning of Tuesday’s award. Caltrain’s electric trains now stop at Fourth and King, a transfer or a long walk from the Financial District. The Portal would bring them to a station one block from Embarcadero BART, with connections to the transit center’s bus operators. The state has now committed its largest share. Whether the trains arrive in 2036 depends on the last $587 million and a federal signature.
The Transbay Joint Powers Authority, Caltrain, the California State Transportation Agency and SPUR, the urban-policy group, did not respond to questions sent Thursday about the remaining gap and the construction schedule.
Celia Marroquín covers San Francisco City Hall, the Board of Supervisors, city departments and the neighborhoods where their decisions land, for the Inquirer’s City Desk. More from Celia Marroquín
