Balboa Park station

Balboa Park
Rapid transit (BART) Light rail (Muni)
The concourse of the Balboa Park Station
General information
Location	401 Geneva Avenue San Francisco, CA 94112
Line(s)	BART   Yellow Line   Blue Line   Red Line   Green Line Muni Metro J Church K Ingleside M Ocean View
Platforms	1 island platform (BART) 1 side platform (MUNI)
Tracks	2 (BART), 1 (MUNI)
Connections	MUNI 8X Bayshore Express 8BX Bayshore "B" Express 29 Sunset 43 Masonic 49 Van Ness-Mission 54 Felton 88 BART Shuttle Brisbane Shuttle Red Brisbane-Bayshore Caltrain Blue Brisbane-Crocker Park
Construction
Bicycle facilities	12 lockers
Accessible	Yes
History
Opened	November 3, 1973
Passengers
FY 2010	12,414 exits/day (BART)  12.09%
Services
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Balboa Park Station is a Bay Area Rapid Transit station located south of Balboa Park in southern San Francisco, California. Interstate 280 runs along the west side of the station, and City College of San Francisco is to the north.

Seven San Francisco Muni bus lines and three Muni Metro lines connect with this station in the vicinity. In addition, the station is popular with passengers who kiss and ride, due to its proximity to Interstate 280, a major commuter route into San Francisco. The station is the southernmost in the BART system that passengers can access using an SF Muni FastPass (which is valid for travel only within San Francisco); the next southbound stop, Daly City Station, is just outside San Francisco, across the San Mateo County border in suburban Daly City.

Balboa Park serves as an official transfer station in the BART system. Although all four BART lines that pass through the station currently continue southward to Daly City, the Balboa Park Station design offers southbound passengers transfers between trains without having to change platforms (the Daly City Station has an island platform and a side platform; southbound lines terminating at Daly City use the former, while those trains continuing on to Colma primarily use the latter). The Balboa Park Station also serves as a major intermodal hub by its multiple local transit connections.

Service at this station began on November 3, 1973.

Architecture and layout

The station consists of two main BART tracks and a single island platform. Unlike most other BART stations, which are either completely underground with artificial lighting, or elevated and open to natural daylight, Balboa Park Station has a trench-like design of uncovered, below-grade boarding platforms with a centrally located, at-grade entrance area covering its midsection, such that a significant amount of sunlight can penetrate the uncovered platform areas at each end of the station. The midsection at-grade level spans the platform area using a series of open arches, and most of the interior walls are finished with rough-textured concrete. The original architects of the station were Corlett & Spackman and Ernest Born. Born also designed the decorative station graphics.

In 2011, a new entrance was opened on the north side of the station to facilitate access to San Francisco City College. The new entrance replaces cumbersome pedestrian routes along steep hills, back allies, and Muni train tracks with a tight clearance against a wall, all to use the original south side entrance. The entrance is a rampway from Ocean Avenue however there is no station agent at this end but an intercom and sliding gate was installed for contacting him or her.

A Muni Metro rail yard, the Curtis E. Green Light Rail Center, takes up most of the rest of the block, bounded by Interstate 280, and Ocean, San Jose, and Geneva Avenues. Muni Metro trains stop outside between the BART concourse and the rail yard near the corner of San Jose and Geneva Avenues. Then, rather than proceeding to sidings or reversing back like in other terminus stations, the trains circle the rest of the complex.

See also

• List of Bay Area Rapid Transit stations

External links

• BART - Balboa Park Station Overview