# Daly City station

Daly City station is an elevated Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station in Daly City, California, just south of the city limits of San Francisco. It is adjacent to Interstate 280 and California Route 1, which it serves as a park-and-ride station. The station is served by the Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue lines; it is the western terminus of the Green and Blue lines.

## Station layout

The station has three tracks with an island platform between the east tracks and a side platform next to the west track. The side platform is used primarily by southbound trains continuing to terminals on the Peninsula. The island platform is used primarily by northbound trains on the east track and by southbound trains terminating at the station (to return northbound) on the center track.
Daly City station is served by a number of SamTrans and Muni bus routes. Most routes use the Niantic Avenue busway on the east side of the station; Muni route 54 and the shuttle routes stop on the west side of the station.
* Commute.org: Daly City Bayshore
* Muni: 14R, 28, 54, 57, 58, 714
* SamTrans: ECR, 120, 121, 10, 30, 110, 130
San Francisco State University operates the free Daly City BART Express Shuttle, stopping on the west side of the station. Its Campus Loop shuttle also serves Daly City station on a limited number of trips. Seton Medical Center and Skyline College also operate free shuttles to the station.

## History

San Mateo County pulled out of plans for the BART system in 1961. However, BART retained plans for a station at the north edge of Daly City, just over the county line from San Francisco, because it was expected to draw significant revenue. The station would be paid for by taxes in other counties because of San Mateo County's withdrawal. The BART Board approved the name "Daly City" in December 1965. Original plans approved by voters in 1962 called for an elevated station at Daly City. BART later considered an underground station and rail yard at the site. In 1966, facing a budget deficit, BART relocated the yard to Hayward and reverted to plans for a less-expensive elevated station at Daly City.
The Daly City–Montgomery section of the San Francisco line opened on November 5, 1973. Transbay service began the next year. On September 30, 1975, BART began construction on a $3.3 million parking garage, which doubled the existing 800-space parking capacity at the station. Until the extension to Colma station in 1996, Daly City was the southern terminus of BART on the Peninsula and the only station that was not in one of the three base counties of San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa. It still serves as the southern terminus for the Green and Blue lines, which do not continue to other San Mateo County stations.
A pedestrian underpass of John Daly Boulevard connecting to additional parking lots opened in the 1990s. Seismic retrofitting of the station and parking garage took place in 2008–2010. As of 2024, BART indicates "significant market, local support, and/or implementation barriers" that must be overcome to allow transit-oriented development on the surface parking lots at the station. Such development would not begin until at least the mid-2030s.

### Bus service

Daly City station's position as the terminus of BART on the peninsula led to connecting bus service. The station was initially served by local bus routes operated by the privately-owned Northgate Transit. Western Greyhound Lines, which operated commuter-oriented service from San Mateo County to downtown San Francisco, refused to add a Daly City station stop to its Pacifica-San Francisco route. Another private operator, ServiCar, operated two commuter routes between Peninsula points and the station from January 31 to February 27, 1974. Muni began serving Daly City with route 91 in April 1975; other routes were gradually added, including the 28 in 1982 and the 14L (now 14R) in 2012.
SamTrans was formed in 1976 as a publicly-owned consolidation of most of the existing private bus systems in San Mateo County. SamTrans began operating a Daly City–San Bruno–San Francisco International Airport bus route in July 1976, though Northgate continued to operate the Daly City-area local routes until they were taken over by SamTrans in early 1977. SamTrans also took over Greyhound commuter routes on July 2, 1977. The Pacifica buses were cut back to Daly City station during times that BART operated, and several local routes serving the airport and the El Camino Real corridor were redirected to terminate at the station as well. Golden Gate Transit briefly operated a Daly City station–Golden Gate Bridge toll plaza connector route beginning in June 1981.
Construction of a canopy over the bus platform took place from September 1983 to April 1984. Further changes to the busway, including reversing the direction, took place in 1996–1997. A 2017–2018 project replaced the canopy with newer shelters and added a layover area for buses in the upper (east) parking lot.