The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which oversees transportation in the city, including the Municipal Railway (Muni), today announced that the entrance to the Powell Street Muni Metro/BART Station located at Stockton and Ellis streets will close August 27.

The closure of this entrance, also known as the Apple Store entrance, will be in effect for approximately six years to facilitate construction of the Central Subway tunnel and Union Square/Market Street Station.
When the Central Subway is complete, this entrance will provide convenient access to the T Third Line at the future Union Square/Market Street Station. An underground concourse connection will link the Union Square/Market Street and Powell Street stations, allowing customers to transfer easily between the T Third Line and the BART and Muni Metro lines operating in the Market Street tunnel.
To facilitate access to Powell Street Station while the Apple Store entrance is closed, signage will direct customers to the nearest alternate entrance at 4th and Market streets.

The Central Subway Project will extend the T Third Line from the 4th Street Caltrain Station to Chinatown, providing a direct, rapid transit link from the Bayshore and Mission Bay areas to SoMa and downtown. Four new stations will be built along the 1.7-mile Central Subway Project alignment – a street-level station at 4th and Brannan streets and three subway stations: Yerba Buena/Moscone Station, Union Square/Market Street Station and Chinatown Station.

Travel times through this busy corridor will be significantly reduced by the Central Subway. During peak hours, current travel between Stockton and Washington streets and 4th and King streets takes more than 20 minutes on Muni bus routes. On the Central Subway, the same trip will take less than eight minutes. The Central Subway Project is the second phase of the SFMTA’s Third Street Light Rail Transit Project. The first segment of the T Third Line opened in April 2007, restoring light rail service to a high transit-ridership area of San Francisco for the first time in 50 years.

The $1.6 billion project will be funded using a variety of federal, state and local sources, including $942.2 million from the federal New Starts program. Of the total New Starts investment, $92.4 million has already been awarded to the Central Subway Project in anticipation of a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) later this year.

The Central Subway is expected to open to the public in 2019.