With State Supreme Court Decision, Dogpatch Streetcar Loop Clears Last Legal Hurdle

With State Supreme Court Decision, Dogpatch Streetcar Loop Clears Last Legal HurdleThe T line on Third Street. | Photo: Todd Lappin/Flickr
Shane Downing
Published on March 17, 2017

By declining to hear a case, California’s Supreme Court removed the last legal hurdle preventing the construction of a T-Third streetcar loop in Dogpatch, reports SFGate.

The Dogpatch turnaround project is planned to run along 18th, 19th and Illinois streets, and will be an important link to the Central Subway, which is set to open in 2019.

It's part of a project that city officials approved over 15 years ago, but it wasn’t until the city received a $10 million federal grant in 2014 that construction was authorized.

The group opposing the proposed loop—the Committee for Re-Evaluation of the T-Line Loop—argued that the environmental impact report that was prepared when the project was first proposed in 1998 didn’t take into account the number of apartments, condominiums and stores that have since been added to the neighborhood. They wanted the loop rerouted to an existing Muni yard, about six blocks to the south.

But the ensuing legal dispute ended on Wednesday, when the state’s Supreme Court declined to review a lower-court ruling from November, which concluded that another environmental impact study wasn’t necessary.

SFMTA says that the loop will increase light-rail service, especially during peak traffic times (like basketball games at the forthcoming Golden State Warriors arena).

Transit officials expect the streetcar turnaround to be completed by July.