SF's $15 Billion Transit Overhaul: How It Stacks Up Against London, Tokyo, and Bogotá

San Francisco's Metropolitan Transportation Commission formally adopted a $15.3 billion transit capital plan last month, the largest infrastructure commitment in the city's history, covering BART system upgrades, Muni Metro modernization, and a long-delayed extension of the Central Subway line north through Chinatown toward Fisherman's Wharf. The vote was 14-2. The money is supposed to arrive over 12 years, from a patchwork of federal grants, state bonds, and a proposed regional sales tax measure slated for the November 2026 ballot.

The timing matters because the window for federal infrastructure dollars is narrowing. The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated roughly $66 billion nationally for public transit, and cities that cannot demonstrate shovel-ready projects by 2027 risk losing unobligated funds back to the U.S. Treasury. San Francisco has already banked $1.1 billion in committed federal money for the Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit corridor rebuild and the Caltrain electrification project, which finished 14 months behind schedule in late 2024. The pressure to show competence before asking for more is real.

What Other Cities Are Actually Building

The $15.3 billion figure sounds enormous until you place it next to peer cities. London's Crossrail project — now branded the Elizabeth Line — cost roughly £18.9 billion, about $24 billion at current exchange rates, and carries more than 700,000 passengers on an average weekday through 41 stations. Tokyo's Chuo Shinjuku Line extension, approved in 2023, is budgeted at 1.3 trillion yen, roughly $9 billion, for a 10-kilometer underground stretch connecting Ōtemachi to Tachikawa. Even Bogotá's Metro Line 1, a city with a fraction of San Francisco's tax base, broke ground in 2020 and is on track to open its first 23.9-kilometer elevated segment in late 2026 for approximately $4.1 billion.

San Francisco's per-mile construction cost has become a civic embarrassment. The 1.7-mile Central Subway extension from Fourth and King streets to Union Square cost $1.3 billion when it opened in 2022 — roughly $765 million per mile. The planned northern extension to Fisherman's Wharf, just 1.2 miles, is currently estimated at $2.1 billion. By comparison, the Madrid Metro has historically built new lines at under $100 million per mile, attributing lower costs to standardized tunnel boring contracts and consolidated labor agreements that San Francisco has never managed to replicate.

SFMTA officials point to seismic retrofitting requirements, dense utility infrastructure under Market Street and the Tenderloin, and the sheer age of the Muni Metro tunnels — some sections date to 1918 — as cost drivers that cities like Madrid or Bogotá simply do not face. The agency's 2025 State of Good Repair report found that 34 percent of Muni's light-rail vehicle fleet required major overhaul, and that the Forest Hill and Castro Muni Metro stations needed structural reinforcement within five years to remain compliant with post-Loma Prieta earthquake standards.

What Riders Can Expect, and When

The plan's most immediate visible work involves the rebuilding of the Geary Boulevard bus corridor from Masonic Avenue to Market Street, where the 38-Geary line carries roughly 54,000 daily boardings — the highest of any Muni surface route. Dedicated bus lanes and upgraded shelters are scheduled to begin construction in spring 2027, contingent on the November ballot measure passing. BART's core capacity program, which involves adding a second tube under San Francisco Bay, remains in environmental review and would not break ground until at least 2031 under the most optimistic projections.

The November sales tax measure asks Bay Area voters to approve a 0.5 percent regional sales tax generating an estimated $1 billion annually. Similar measures failed in 2020 and 2022. Advocates at the San Francisco Transit Riders organization are pushing for a voter education campaign through the fall, but polling conducted in May by the Bay Area Council showed only 51 percent support — right at the threshold for passage under California's simple majority rule for special districts.

For commuters riding the J-Church line through Noe Valley or transferring at Embarcadero Station every morning, the plan represents a promise that has been made before. The difference this time, proponents argue, is that the federal deadline is fixed. If the November measure fails, roughly $3.4 billion in matching federal funds lapses. That is a number city hall would have difficulty explaining away.