Cracked beam at San Francisco Transit Center: New tourist attraction?

The new San Francisco Transbay Transit Center terminal became a short-lived tourist attraction as visitors stopped to take photos of a cracked steel beam in the new center.

City officials shut own the US$2.2 billion transit terminal today, September 25, 2018, after the crack was found in a support beam under the center’s public roof garden. Officials said the transit center will remain closed while engineers assess the damage and inspect other beams.

Coined the “Grand Central of the West,” the Salesforce Transit Center opened in August near the heart of downtown after nearly a decade of construction. It was expected to accommodate 100,000 passengers each weekday, and up to 45 million people a year.

Authorities in green vests immediately began moving people out of the building this afternoon and rerouted buses to a temporary area about two blocks away that had been used during the center’s construction.

Enveloped in wavy white sheets of metal veil, the five-level center includes a bus deck, a towering sky-lit central entrance hall, and a rooftop park with an outdoor amphitheater.

The terminal is managed by the Transbay Joints Power Authority. Executive director Mark Zabaneh said no other damage is suspected.