Castro Street Station
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Castro station is a Muni Metro station at the intersection of Market Street, Castro Street, and 17th Street in the Castro District of
San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
. The underground station is served by the K Ingleside, M Ocean View, L Taraval and S Shuttle lines. The F Market line serves the station on the street level at 17th and Castro.


Station layout and history

The station consists of two
side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms, ...
s next to the tracks on the second level down with the concourse mezzanine level overlooking it. Uniquely among Muni Metro stations, the platforms are slightly curved due to the transition from the Market Street subway to the
Twin Peaks Tunnel The Twin Peaks Tunnel is a light rail/streetcar tunnel in San Francisco, California. The tunnel runs under Twin Peaks (San Francisco), Twin Peaks and is used by the K Ingleside, L Taraval, M Ocean View and S Shuttle lines of the Muni Metro sys ...
between this station and the now-disused Eureka Valley station, just southwest. At both Castro and , there is only one entrance on each side of Market Street leading into the station. (All other stations on the Market Street subway have entrances spread out along the length of the station.) The southern entrance is located in Harvey Milk Plaza on the southwest corner of Market and Castro, and the northern entrance and street elevator on the northwest corner of Market and 17th. The station was constructed by
BART Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves List of Bay Area Rapid Transit stations, 50 stations along six routes and of track, including eBART, a spur line running t ...
as part of the Market Street subway. The BART Board approved the name "Castro" in December 1965. It was designed by Howard Grant AIA of Reid & Tarics Associates and was completed in 1976. Service at the station began on June 11, 1980. Castro station features a transit plaza at the corner of Castro Street and Market Street. In 1985 it was dedicated to Harvey Milk, the slain SF supervisor and first openly gay elected official in California. In May 2016, the escalator in Harvey Milk Plaza was retrofitted with colored lights (to resemble the rainbow flag that flies above the plaza) after being rehabilitated. This test was considered a success; lights were added to 17 other escalators in the system, including the other three escalators at Castro, in 2018–19. Muni plans to construct accessibility improvements, including a second elevator, in Harvey Milk Plaza at the south entrance of the station. A 2020 determination that the plaza is eligible for inclusion on the
California Register of Historical Resources The California Register of Historical Resources is a California state government program for use by state and local agencies, private groups, and citizens to identify, evaluate, register, and protect California's historical resources. The Calif ...
was not expected to impact elevator construction, but could stall the larger plaza project. Elevator construction began in June 2023, with completion expected in 2026. In 2022, a new decorative railing was added on the F Market & Wharves boarding island as part of the Upper Market Street Safety Project. It features a quote from
Harvey Milk Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised i ...
's 1977 "You've Got to Have Hope" speech, as well as an illustration of streetcar #1051, which is dedicated in Milk's honor.


References


External links

{{Bay Area Rail Stations Muni Metro stations Castro District, San Francisco Market Street (San Francisco) Railway stations located underground in California Railway stations in the United States opened in 1980