San Francisco's Central Subway project is taking a holiday hiatus near the city's popular tourist and shopping destinations, according to the Municipal Transportation Agency.

No construction will take place on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas Day or New Year's Day on the $1.6 billion project, which will create a new branch of the Municipal Railway's T-Third line linking the city's South of Market neighborhood to Chinatown.

Additionally, construction is pausing on Stockton and Ellis streets between Thanksgiving and January 2013 and the streets will be reopened to traffic to allow crowds to better navigate the area near Union Square, according to SFMTA officials.

A part of Columbus Avenue in North Beach, where utility relocation work was taking place for the tunnel boring machine's retrieval shaft, was scheduled to be paved and reopened to traffic by Thursday, SFMTA officials said.

Work will continue over the holiday season at the site on Fourth Street in SoMa where tunnel pre-construction activity is under way.

Construction will also commence in December in Chinatown, where crews will install several monitoring instruments for the subway tunnel along parts of Stockton Street.

Muni bus lines that have previously been re-rerouted around the construction activity will remain in their new configurations over the holiday season, officials said.

The Central Subway, expected to open in 2019, will start above ground near the Caltrain station at Fourth and King streets, then enter a subway tunnel near the Interstate Highway 80 overpass with stations at Yerba Buena/Moscone, Union Square/Market Street and Chinatown.

Updates on the project can be found at www.centralsubwaysf.com.