Transbay Transit Center reopening date announced

At long last, a reopening date has been announced.

The $2.2 billion-dollar Transit Transit Center and rooftop park, which closed six weeks after opening after workers discovered two cracked steel beams on September 25, 2018, will open to the public on July 1.

“We are pleased to welcome the public back to the transit center and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this temporary closure has caused,” said Mohammed Nuru, chair of the board of directors at Transbay Joint Powers Authority, on Tuesday. “I thank Mayor Breed and Mayor Schaaf for calling for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s independent review, which has now concluded.”

Measuring four city blocks long in San Francisco’s recently rechristened East Cut neighborhood, the transit center and rooftop park opened in August 2018 after 20 years of planning, nearly a decade of construction, and one multimillion dollar rebranding. The structure, located between Beale and Second streets, opened to great fanfare and a public party featuring food, live bands, and snaking lines of people waiting to see the rooftop park.

But civic spirits soon deflated after two fissures were found on structural beams by workers installing ceiling panels on the center’s third-floor bus platform.

All transit inside the terminal—which included Muni (the 5, 5R, 7, 25, 38, and 38R), Golden Gate Transit, and AC Transit—moved to the old temporary terminal one block away.

Following the July reopening, Muni and Golden Gate Transit will once again provide limited bus service from the street level bus plaza. (No set date has been announced.) AC Transit’s 26 Transbay bus lines, Greyhound, and Westcat Lynx are tentatively scheduled to restart from the bus deck in late summer 2019.

No word yet as to when the storied gondola will take flight.