San Bruno station (Caltrain)

San Bruno station is a Caltrain station located in San Bruno, California. The station is located just northeast of downtown San Bruno, above the intersection of San Mateo and San Bruno Avenues, adjacent to Artichoke Joe's Casino.

History

The first Southern Pacific Railroad station in San Bruno was located off Huntington Avenue, which runs parallel to the railroad, at Euclid Avenue. It was moved one block south, approximately , to San Bruno Avenue and expanded in 1916. The second story was removed in 1953. A new station with small concrete and wood shelters opened approximately  further south of Euclid at Sylvan Avenue in 1963, and the old 1916 depot was demolished that September.

The construction of the BART extension to San Francisco International Airport and Millbrae required the construction of a BART tunnel under downtown San Bruno. The station at Sylvan that was completed in 1963 was demolished in 1998; in April 1999, the Caltrain stop was moved to a temporary location under the I-380 overpass, approximately  to the north near the Tanforan Shopping Center. A rebuilt station opened at the Sylvan Avenue site in 2003.

San Bruno grade separation

In 2010, construction began on the San Bruno Grade Separation Project, which included new elevated tracks and a new elevated station over San Bruno Avenue, approximately  north of the Sylvan Avenue station; the project included separating the existing at-grade road crossings at San Bruno, San Mateo, and Angus avenues, and would add pedestrian crossings at Sylvan, the station, and Euclid/Walnut. Tracks would be elevated by  while the roads would be depressed by . A monumental arch was planned over San Bruno Avenue, initially as a symbolic gateway to San Bruno on the east side of the new station, then repurposed as a tied-arch pedestrian bridge, but it has not yet been implemented. The elevated structure would be built wide enough to accommodate four tracks. Because the grade separation structures were built directly over the BART extension to the San Francisco International Airport, engineered fill was used with a density of , less than  the weight of the soil being removed.

Under the original schedule, preliminary work was to begin in October or November 2010, including construction of temporary shoofly tracks and utility work, and the new structures would be built between spring 2011 and summer 2012. The budget was  million, provided as a mixture of county (authorized by Measure A), state, and federal funds. In October 2010, trains began stopping at a temporary station at Georgia Avenue. Trains began using the new elevated tracks on May 26, 2013, and the new station opened on April 1, 2014. HNTB won the "Transportation Project of the Year" award from the San Francisco Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2014 for the San Bruno Grade Separation, although the project also has attracted criticism for failing to resolve a relatively sharp curve and excessive costs with few passenger benefits.

The expanded plaza adjacent to Artichoke Joe's Casino would be dedicated as Posy Park. Posy Park has a water feature consisting of a fountain with cascading terraces running down from the station to street level. However, shortly after the San Bruno Grade Separation Project was completed, inspections revealed cracks in the concrete and protective coating, causing rust to the reinforcing steel rebar, and the fountain was turned off. A request for bids to rehabilitate the fountain was posted in September 2017, but no bidders materialized, and a direct solicitation resulted in an estimate of $125,000 to recoat the concrete.

The station platforms are planned to be lengthened to accommodate through-running California High-Speed Rail service.

References

External links

Caltrain – San Bruno

Caltrain stations in San Mateo County, California
San Bruno, California
San Francisco Bay Trail
Railway stations in the United States opened in 1962
1962 establishments in California
Former Southern Pacific Railroad stations in California