Proposed Union Square tram station
Via green consumer porn site Inhabitat, I see that a local designer has put together a proposal for a suspended overhead tram that would take the place of the proposed Central Subway. The idea is that if you build a suspension bridge that only has to support a couple train cars, rather than hundreds of cars, you can build it more cheaply and elegantly than, say, the Bay Bridge.
I am not convinced it’s hugely practical, but then by most standards, the Central Subway’s not necessarily the most practical of ideas, either. The Subway’s projected to cost $1.2 billion, which I think ends up being something like $500 million per mile. Which makes even BART–formerly the gold(-plated) standard for Bay Area transit systems–seem cheap.
I haven’t thought it through extensively, but a cheaper and more constructive way to address the need to get people from South of Market and the Caltrain station to Union Square, Chinatown, and the other points to be served by the Central Subway might be to just make Fourth Street and Stockton (or stretches of them) transit-only streets and run more and bigger buses.
Failing that, I’d certainly love to hear more about an aerial tram!