Ghost station

The massive, thoroughly-modern station, with its barrel-vaulted roof, delta trusses and atrium-like setting, stretches down Huntington Avenue on the backside of the Tanforan Shopping Center. It houses the new San Bruno Police Station tucked between the station and the parking garage.

As the station neared its debut more than a year ago, San Bruno braced itself for a deluge of commuters expected to bombard the Fifth Addition neighborhood. Residents were worried that a $2 parking fee at the station would send commuters onto the narrow streets of the adjoining neighborhood where parking is already at a premium.

But the commuters never materialized.

And now even after BART eliminated the parking fee, commuters still haven't caught on.

To promote the station, BART launched a massive marketing campaign in March that included sending out $1.8 million in free $15 tickets to 120,000 addresses on the Peninsula.

"We've also begun to educate people that the typical BART rider saves between $5,000 and $10,000 per year by riding BART rather than paying for gas, insurance, depreciation and wear and tear on their car," said BART spokesman Linton Johnson.

The total cost of the BART to San Francisco International Airport project cost taxpayers $1.5 billion, Johnson said, and about $18 million of that went into the construction of the San Bruno station, according to OPAC Consulting Engineers, the company that prepared the structural design for the project.

Two years ago, U.S. Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, who helped obtain $75.6 million in federal funds for the extension, applauded the first test run from San Bruno to SFO and told the public that approximately 70,000 passengers were expected to use the new four-station extension everyday, with 17,000 traveling to and from SFO alone.

But in June of this year, only 19,355 passengers boarded at the four-station extension every day while 6,533 passengers boarded at SFO, Johnson said.

BART reconfigured early projections and shrunk the lofty figure of 70,000 projected riders down to just over 39,000 on the four-station extension.

For June, BART anticipated 5,669 riders to board at the San Bruno station. Only 2,947 boarded.

The San Bruno station is accommodating only 52 percent of BART's revised projected ridership and the Millbrae station is accommodating a dismal 28 percent of BART's projections.

With urban planners pushing for high-density housing built around transit corridors, San Bruno is primed for future development.

Tanforan and a new 20-screen movie theater is scheduled to reopen some time in late 2005. A new 300-unit housing development on the other side of El Camino Real near Sneath Lane will open within the next few months.

San Bruno Mayor Larry Franzella said he never expected BART to have an impact on the city's economy.

"I wish the ridership was higher. I think they took the right step to not charge for parking. But it hasn't been any great impact and I'm not expecting any major impact," Franzella said.

Vice Mayor Irene O'Connell is optimistic ridership will be up when the economy improves.

"It's a function of the economy. People will use it when the economy picks up," O'Connell said.

But renegade Councilman Chris Pallas voted against building the station and said San Bruno got railroaded by BART.

"The council was pressured into approving the project by a looming deadline," Pallas said. "I wanted more time to study their proposal but I was told we'd have to vote on it immediately or risk losing the station."

BART required San Bruno to put up $500,000 in good faith money to build the station, Pallas said.

Pallas predicted ridership would be low and warned not to build it so big.

BART built the new police station on the property because San Bruno put up $2 million of its own money to build the complex, Pallas said.

"We are going to be paying $600,000 a year for the next 30 years to pay for that station. If we didn't do all these things we'd have money in the bank," Pallas said.

"We are in trouble because we don't watch our spending," Pallas said. "And I don't think most people in San Bruno even know where the BART station is."

Former mayoral candidate Joe Welch, who runs the San Bruno Investment Co., echoed Pallas' grievances.

"This thing is so screwed up from day one," Welch said. "It hasn't turned out like they promised."

Welch owns a lot of commercial property a short distance from the BART station in downtown San Bruno and said it is unlikely a spike in ridership in coming years will bring shoppers to the downtown business corridor.

"I don't know anybody that would get off at San Bruno BART to shop," Welch said. "If BART was running full every day it would help. But they don't have half the ridership."

Saturday marks the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the economic impact haunts even transit projects 3,500 miles away from New York City.

"More than a decade ago when the forecasters calculated the ridership numbers, they didn't know 9/11 would happen or the horrendous effect the terrorist attack would have on the economy," BART spokesman Johnson said.

The recent modest growth rate indicates more riders are discovering the Peninsula BART extension. But it would take years to match the transit agency's early ridership projections, Johnson said.