(rshsdepot) Urban renaissance - Shops, restaurants, parks grow up around Caltrain stations

[Bernie Wagenblast <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

Link to story and additional information:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/06/10/BA243936.DTL

Urban renaissance
Shops, restaurants, parks grow up around Caltrain stations

Mark Simon, Chronicle Staff Writer

David Knight grew up in Southern California. The closest he came to riding
the train was the monorail at Disneyland.
So it was, in Knight's words, "a big surprise" to discover the joys of
taking Caltrain from San Francisco to various points on the Peninsula as he
pursued his Silicon Valley business interests.

The even bigger surprise was what Knight discovered at many Caltrain
stations -- things to do and places to go, all within easy walking distance.

"They've really done a good job of upgrading this stuff," he said in an
interview during a midweek ride on the rails.

For more than a decade, commuters, government officials and Caltrain
managers have complained that the train stations have not been exploited as
potential centers for retail businesses and office sites.

Critics bemoaned the squandered opportunity for a return to the central role
the train stations once played in the life of the communities that owed
their existence to the establishment of the Southern Pacific commute line
more than a century ago.

Now, quietly and with surprising collaboration and attention to detail, the
train stations are showing signs of a renaissance, a trend it took the fresh
eyes of Knight to notice.

So taken was he with the development, or redevelopment, of the train
stations that he crafted his own eight-page travel guide to the best of the
stops along the Caltrain line, complete with recommendations for coffee,
diners and even hair salons. The guide's not available to the public. He
wrote it just for fun.

"You'll be amazed at the general quality of food, drink and other essentials
within yards of the major rail stations," he wrote.

The historic Burlingame station is "very picturesque" with "lots of fun to
be had within walking distance."

The new San Mateo station is "Nice! Fully restored and updated." Within 100
feet are "more places than one can name" for dining. He recommends Taqueria
La Cumbre, partly because it's closest.

The San Carlos station is best for meeting someone who doesn't share his
commitment to the train because it's convenient to a major Bayshore Freeway
off-ramp. The station also is close to quality Indian and Italian
restaurants.

The Redwood City station is "in the heart of town" and next to Sequoia
Station, a shopping center built for the train station. You can go grocery
shopping, get the commuter mainstay of coffee and a bagel, or even a
haircut -- all a few paces from the station.

Knight, 40, the CEO of a startup company who is also an award-winning
engineer and veteran of several other ventures, began riding the train
regularly in January, when business interests kept drawing him from his Noe
Valley home to various points in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

He began noticing that some of the stops had much to offer.

As the owner of four cars spread out among homes in the Bay Area and
Southern California, Knight said the train is now his principal means of
business commuting two or three times a week.

The train is at least as convenient as driving, he said. Caltrain runs 40
trains in each direction every weekday, so there is no more than a 30-minute
wait, Knight said.

"I'm into going really fast on tracks," Knight said. "If you're in a hurry,
at peak rush hour, the train is certainly no slower than driving."

At some places, the convenience is compounded. The Millbrae and Santa Clara
stations offer free shuttles to the nearby airports. At Palo Alto, a
Stanford bus shuttles passengers all over town and the university campus.

What Knight has observed about the train stations is no accident.

Mike Scanlon, Caltrain executive director, said that many of the cities
along the rail line have been reviving their stations and putting in place
plans that would encourage commercial development at the station and nearby.

Through the auspices of the Peninsula Planning Partnership, a local business
consortium, many of the cities have consulted with Fred Kent, founder and
president of Project for Public Spaces of New York City, a firm that
specializes in teaching government how to rethink public gathering spots so
that they are more inviting.

Scanlon said the efforts of Kent and the cities have gotten officials to
think expansively about the rail corridor and to view it as part of a north-
south swath that includes El Camino Real, long a mishmash of residential and
commercial uses.

It's all about creating what Kent calls "a sense of place," Scanlon said.

"These stations can be a center of activity," he said. "I want to see them
be a little taste of Europe, a mix of residences and stores and restaurants
and businesses."

Cities such as Millbrae and Mountain View have tried to take fuller
advantage of their position as burgeoning transit hubs.

Millbrae, a center for Caltrain, SamTrans and the under-construction BART
extension, has built a multistory transit station that has the potential to
change the city's basic nature.

In Mountain View, the city is nearing completion of Centennial Plaza, a 26,
000-square-foot gathering place of trees and benches adjacent to the transit
hub for Caltrain, Santa Clara County's bus and light-rail systems.

The plaza is a short walk to downtown Castro Street, where dozens of
international restaurants make it "just like Epcot," Knight said.

Buildings constructed at the San Mateo, Redwood City and Mountain View
stations are designed to evoke images of rail commute from the early 1900s.

The main difference from that era is that the buildings are for offices and
retail outlets. The actual stations themselves are automated depots where
tickets can be purchased from machines. The passenger platforms have open,
unstaffed shelters.

Still, it's working, Knight said. He has seen the train stations become
places for people, and places that feed people into the downtown
communities.

In Palo Alto, "one of the best places for nightlife on the Peninsula," he
has seen large groups of young people get off the train for an evening of
fun and frivolity.

At any number of stations, he has seen mothers with toddlers step off the
train to meet waiting friends for a day that combines lunch and an outing.

And, as he said in his travel guide, "I found myself booking meetings and
arranging to rendezvous with friends, aligned with these waypoints -- with
great pleasure and success."

It is, Knight said, a return to what the train and the stations used to be
in their heyday -- a convenient means of travel and a focal point for the
communities they serve.

Bernie Wagenblast
Transportation Communications Newsletter
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transport-communications/


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