Walkway at SF Transit Center park crumbling just one month after opening

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - The rooftop garden at Salesforce Park has an issue and Kim Verzano of San Francisco noticed it right away on her hour-long lunch stroll.

"I thought it was going to be brand new no wear and tear at least not this soon,” she said.

Verzano was talking about the footpath that circles the park which opened August 11 of this year. In just over a month, the path around the Transbay Transit Center is riddled with the equivalent of pot holes. The divots are noticeable in high traffic areas near bathrooms and elevators.  

“It's interesting because when you start walking at the beginning it's very soft on the ground and when you get to the other half it starts to crumble and you’re like: ‘Wait a minute, what just happened here?’”

Christine Falvey, a spokeswoman for the Transbay Center, said, "The pathway here is made of decomposed granite. It's not asphalt, so we do expect some kind of loose material,” she said. “But not so much.”

The crumbling footpath also had visitors to the park like Harris Taback wondering about construction efficiency especially when the $673,000 price tag to build the path was mentioned.

“When you look at the ground you’re walking on and it's falling apart already you wonder how many corners did this contractor cut and what on earth are they going to do about it and when. Because it seems you cannot approach this fix in a piecemeal way,” said Taback.

The path is under warranty and Falvey says a fix is underway. “In the short term we'll make sure it's swept up and make sure to do some patching in the areas where we need it, we want to make sure we know what the problem is before we identify a solution,” she said.

The park itself cost $32M to build and repairs to the path will continue while the park remains open. Harris Taback argues that with this kind of foot traffic the path will only get worse.

The rooftop path guides visitors to a host of attractions like the botanical gardens, art displays and more. Visitors will now need as much patience as they had before during the construction of the Transbay Terminal.

Christine Falvey says the material chosen for the path is quite common. 

“This material has been used throughout the Bay Area and throughout the country in park type atmospheres and has worked very well. So were going to find out why it's not performing 100 percent well here at the Salesforce Park.”

A daily patrol of crews will continue the monitor the path and make repairs for now until a long term solution and fix can be found.