page_title: Paul Avenue station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Paul Avenue station / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The former Paul Avenue (Caltrain station) in San Francisco, California, USA. The station lean-to used to sit in the flat patch of ground adjacent to the far track. This view is from the eastern end of the Paul Avenue bridge looking northwest.
context_page_description: Paul Avenue was a Caltrain station located in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The lightly-used station was closed on August 1, 2005, and the platform and shelter were removed in 2009. A replacement station to the north has been proposed.
context_section_description: Soon after Caltrans took over operation of the Peninsula Commute service, a study was published in 1982 recommending that Paul Avenue be closed. Service was reduced after the 1982 study. A 1987 ridership survey showed that on a typical weekday, 37 northbound passengers disembarked at Paul, 1 northbound passenger embarked, and 43 southbound passengers disembarked. In the late 1990s, Caltrain staff recommended that the station be closed due to low ridership – it was located away from residential and commercial areas, and riders found it unsafe. It was to require $3.65 million to stabilize a crumbling embankment, and modernizing the station was to have cost significantly more. However, the Caltrain board voted in February 1999 to keep the station open due to pressure from the neighborhood and from mayor Willie Brown.
  After the Caltrain Express project was completed in 2004, only four weekday trains stopped at Paul Avenue: one northbound and one southbound local in the early morning, and one northbound and one southbound local in the evening. Before its closure in 2005, service remained at four weekday local trains, and no service on weekends.
  The Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, the governing body of Caltrain, voted in April 2005 to suspend service to Paul Avenue effective August 1, 2005. Weekday service was also suspended at Broadway and Atherton in order to add twelve more Baby Bullet trains to help close a funding gap, because the limited-stop express trains had typically operated at capacity and generated higher revenues than locals since their introduction in 2004.
  The abandoned station was soon covered with trash and graffiti. Caltrain cleaned up the larger debris in March 2009. That July, the platforms and shelter were removed, the graffiti painted over, and a fence installed to deter access.
caption: The former station site in 2012
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