SAN FRANCISCO — The transit center that will eventually be the San Francisco terminal for high speed rail could remain closed another six months.
The San Francisco Chronicle offers that estimate in its latest report on the Transbay Transit Center, which was shut down just six weeks after its opening in August. [See “San Francisco transit center to remain closed another week following discovery of second cracked beam,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 27, 2018.] The newspaper reports that welding problems are suspected as the cause of cracks in two 4-inch steel beams that shut down the $2.2 billion facility, designed to handle buses and, eventually, high speed rail.
If that proves to be the case, a fix is likely to take months, and it’s possible other beams will need to be checked for similar defects.
Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesman Randy Rentschler told the Chronicle, “It’s simply too early to speculate” about a time frame for reopening the facility.
If this is bad welds then who inspected and signed off on the welding, and who did the welding? In the industry with which I am associated all welds must be inspected and certified (and radiographed) and records kept. While radiography might be a little over the top here, didn’t the construction firm have any quality control inspectors on the job?
The above comments are general in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
$2.2 billion could have been spent on construction of a stately terminal building above ground. Instead, officials seemed intent on replicating New York’s Pennsylvania Station completely underground. Every attempt to make corrections to flawed projects like Transbay Transit Center brings added expenses to the extent it may be more economical to just construct from scratch.
Once again this report starts off by focusing on the role of the transit center in HSR in California. Note the HSR logo and the beginning first sentence:
The transit center that will eventually be the San Francisco terminal for high speed rail.
Some of us commented when the closure first occurred that many serious passenger rail supporters have serious doubts that HSR as it is currently constituted will ever reach San Francisco. Just extending CalTrain tracks to the new center from the existing terminal at 4th and King is projected to take another 12 years.
The transit center plays a very important role in local and regional transportation and its closure has a major impact. But reporting this story in terms of HSR misrepresents the significance of what has happened.
I’m pretty sure those beams are a lot larger than 4″(just by looking at them I’d speculate they’re closer to 4′ as there’s almost no way a 4″ steel beam is going to hold up the earth above it, as those beams do).