That group pushing for a Central Subway extension to Fisherman's Wharf - mentioned in Wednesday's column - is making some headway, but it's not quite time to start planning your trip to Scoma's on Muni Metro. The San Francisco County Transportation Authority, which administers the city's transportation sales tax money, is prepared to dedicate $150,000 to a feasibility study for the extension. The study, according to Tilly Chang, the SFCTA executive director, would move the notion of an extension of the T line past the Chinatown station beyond the idea stage. "It's intended to flesh it out a little bit," she said - "to look at potential alignments, whether it should be on the surface versus underground, what it might cost." That preliminary study, Chang said, would then be handed over to the Municipal Transportation Agency for a more in-depth look. The authority's Plans and Programs Committee will consider funding the study at its meeting Tuesday.

If approved, it would go to the full county transportation authority board, which also happens to be the Board of Supervisors. Chang said the study is "just the beginning of the process to consider and assess the project," which would need to be assigned a place in the MTA's capital spending plans as well as the Bay Area's regional transportation spending strategy. So while the Central Subway tunnels to the North Beach extraction site will be done within months, and trains will run to the Chinatown end of the line in early 2019, it would be many years more before the T line could reach the wharf. But it's a start.

- Michael Cabanatuan

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Muni-Central-Subway-wharf-extension-rides-on-many-5312267.php