Embarcadero station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit subway station in the Market Street subway in downtown San Francisco. Located under Market Street between Drumm Street and Beale Street near The Embarcadero, it serves the Financial District neighborhood and surrounding areas. The three-level station has a large fare mezzanine level, with separate platform levels for Muni Metro and BART below. Embarcadero station opened in May 1976 – almost two years after service began through the Transbay Tube – as an infill station.

Embarcadero and nearby Montgomery Street stations are typically the two busiest in the BART system. The station is served by the BART Blue, Green, Red and Yellow lines, and the Muni Metro J Church, K Ingleside, L Taraval, M Ocean View, N Judah, and S Shuttle lines. A major Bay Area transit hub, Embarcadero is also served by numerous bus routes of several other agencies which stop above the station and on surrounding streets.

Station layout

thumb|left|Muni K and BART trains at the station in 2025. No direct connection exists between the two platforms.

Like the three other shared Muni/BART stations in the Market Street subway, Embarcadero has three underground levels. The uppermost level is a fare mezzanine, with one Muni paid area in the middle flanked by two BART paid areas. The second level has a single island platform (of which only the center portion is used) for Muni Metro, and the third level has an island platform for BART. The station is narrower than the other three – rather than – because of adjacent buildings and the high water table. It has six street entrances along its length. BART service at the station began on May 27, 1976, three years after the other San Francisco stations. As a result of increasing development in the lower Market Street area, the basic structure of the station was added into the construction of the Market Street subway, anticipating a later opening. This resulted in the Embarcadero station having a different design than the other three Market Street stations. The station was designed by chief BART architect Tallie Maule and Hertzka & Knowles & Associates in collaboration with Parsons Brinckerhoff, Tudor Construction, and Bechtel. The station cost $30 million to construct.

Muni Metro service began in February 1980 and Embarcadero was originally intended to be the inbound terminus for all of the Muni Metro lines. In 1998 a new southward extension was opened, extending the N Judah along the Embarcadero to the Caltrain station at 4th and King Streets. On March 4, 2000, F Market & Wharves streetcar service was extended northward to Fisherman's Wharf, with new stops above Embarcadero station at Main Street (inbound) and Drumm Street (outbound). Because the station is adjacent to the Transbay Tube, brake dust and other particles from train operations coat the walls of the station. A sandblasting in 2014 revealed the original white terrazzo platform walls under the dark grime.

Since before 1992, the station was serenaded by Ronald Brewington, known as the "Jazz Man". He would play saxophone for commuters, and entertain them with conversation and charm.

thumb|left|The 2025-opened canopy at Drumm Street

Following the 2015 addition of a canopy over an escalator at 19th Street Oakland station, which reduced escalator downtime by one-third, BART decided to add canopies to all downtown Oakland and San Francisco entrances. Construction of the Market Street entrances was to begin in 2020, with completion in 2027. The entrances on the southern side of the station were closed from April 13, 2020, to May 15, 2021, due to low ridership during the COVID-19 pandemic. Concourse-level preparation for canopy construction at Embarcadero station began on November 15, 2021. The entrance at Davis Street was closed for canopy construction from June 13, 2022 until October 2023, followed by the Beale Street entrance from September 5, 2023, to March 2024. The Federal Reserve Bank entrance was closed for construction on October 18, 2023; the Pine Street entrance closed on March 14, 2024. A canopy at the Drumm Street entrance opened in January 2025. The canopies at Embarcadero station include artwork entitled We Touch Here by Norie Sato.

Thirteen BART stations, including Embarcadero, did not originally have faregates for passengers using the elevator. In 2020, BART started a project to add faregates to elevators at these stations. The new faregate on the platform at Embarcadero was installed in December 2021. This allows passengers using the elevator to enter and exit fare control through the faregate, rather than having to use a "difficult and cumbersome" process of tagging in or out at the concourse faregates. Bathrooms at underground BART stations were closed after the September 11 (2001) attacks due to security concerns. The bathroom at Embarcadero station reopened on June 30, 2023, after a renovation, with an attendant on duty during all operating hours.

Artwork

thumb|left|upright=0.75|The bottom part of Wall Canyon

Although original plans to include public art at every BART station did not come to fruition, several artworks were included in Embarcadero station. The platform walls and street entrances feature circle-based reliefs by William Mitchell. A duotone granite portrait of Tallie Maule – the chief architect of the original BART system – is on the mezzanine level. Legs soon accumulated the same dark grime as the station walls, hiding the original color. BART was required by the artist's contract to clean the sculpture but several attempts were unsuccessful. The sculpture was removed in June 2014 and returned to Shawcroft – a professor emerita at UC Davis School of Design – who planned to repurpose it into other pieces. The second phase of the Salesforce Transit Center – the Downtown Rail Extension (now known as The Portal) – will include an -long pedestrian tunnel under Beale Street connecting Embarcadero station with the underground rail concourse.

References

  • BART: Embarcadero station
  • SFMTA: Embarcadero inbound, outbound