1968 Geary – Third – SFO Subway
More Eric Fischer retrofuture scanning – SFO rapid transit alternatives from 1968.
($300 mil is ~$1.8 billion in today’s dollars.)
I’d take the Geary section over the Central Subway in a second. Hopefully the 1968-Third would have been faster than today-T-Third’s 29 minutes from Embarcadero to 3rd/Carroll. BART is 32 minutes from Embarcadero to SFO, but it that just seems like a lifetime.
As an aside, here’s a fun smackdown comparing the T-Third to Dublin’s theoretically more expensive LUAS.
They were also considering a Third St monorail to SFO. Yours for under $100 million 1968 dollars! And don’t forget the 1956 Valencia-Mission Skytrain! Man, that that would have sucked.
I still say that we keep that Central Subway tunneling machine running to dig out a crosstown subway — take a left at Divis, then shoot through Castro and Noe to hook up with a 30th St BART and the Muni ROW coming down San Jose Ave. That would make it way easier for me to see shows at the Independent. Also, I’d be able to take the Geary subway to get to GAMH. That just leaves Slim’s, but a Van Ness line would take care of that nicely. Anyone have five billion handy?
Burrito Justice 
As a fellow fan of retro-futurism, I’m fascinated by Daniel Burnham’s 1905 plan for San Francisco:
http://bit.ly/blzDi3
Oh, the amphitheaters, parkways and boulevards. Shall we enjoy a concert in the Athenaeum or stroll down the Mission Parkway from Eureka St to the Potrero Park? What joy to live in a city unfettered by bridges, freeways or mass transit (just lots of diagonal streets).
I guess it was unrealistic for Burnham to offer this; it would take a near total devastation of the city to make this plan even remotely possible. And that didn’t happen until…
I accuse Daniel Burnham of masterminding the 1906 earthquake and fire.
Left hand turns would have been a bitch, but other than that it would have been epic.
Would this statue have been a worthy Sutro Tower substitute?