Fort Mason Tunnel

Fort Mason Tunnel
	The west portal of the Fort Mason Tunnel in disuse
Overview
Line	State Belt Railroad
Location	San Francisco, California
Coordinates	37°48′19″N 122°25′52″W / 37.8054°N 122.43118°WCoordinates: 37°48′19″N 122°25′52″W / 37.8054°N 122.43118°W
Status	Closed
Start	Van Ness
End	Marina Blvd. at Laguna St.
No. of stations	None
Operation
Opened	1914
Closed	1993
Owner	National Park Service
Character	Tunnel
Technical
No. of tracks	1
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge

Fort Mason Tunnel is an abandoned single-track railway tunnel in San Francisco which runs under a small hill upon which sits a portion of the old Fort Mason. The tunnel was constructed in 1913 and opened to rail traffic in 1914.^[1] The east portal is near the north end of Van Ness Avenue; the west portal feeds onto Marina Boulevard at Laguna Street.

History[]

The tunnel's construction served several purposes. The rail link supplied goods and mass transit to the Panama Pacific International Exposition the following year; the U.S. Army utilized the line for construction of the port of embarkation at Fort Mason.^[2] The tunnel operated as part of the State Belt Railroad until the route's suspension in 1993.

Future[]

Fort Mason extension

Legend

					Fort Mason	proposed
					Fort Mason Tunnel	proposed
					Van Ness	proposed
					Powell–Hyde
					Hyde and Beach	proposed
					Jones and Beach

In 2012, the National Park Service released a final environmental impact report on providing extended service through the tunnel to the San Francisco Municipal Railway F Market & Wharves line.^[3] The cost of refurbishment and extension of the rail line was estimated at $60 million in 2017.^[4]