A brand-new elevated Caltrain platform officially opened to passengers in San Bruno Tuesday morning and nearby shop owners are hoping it brings an upswing of business.
The grade separated San Bruno station between San Bruno and San Mateo avenues at 833 San Mateo Ave. replaced the station at Sylvan Avenue and is part of a $155 million project to elevate the Caltrain tracks above three existing at-grade street crossings at San Bruno, San Mateo and Angus avenues. The grade-separated crossings are intended to improve safety conditions for both pedestrians and motorists in San Bruno, while also easing traffic congestion to and from Highway 101.
Since 2010, Caltrain customers have been using a temporary boarding platform on Huntington Avenue near Sylvan Avenue and there were some street closures due to the construction.
“It affected us when they were doing construction, but things are back to normal,” said Dennis Pieraldi, owner of Dennis’ Barber Shop at 737 San Mateo Ave.
Cecilia Leger, owner of HPR Bistro at 741 San Mateo Ave., agreed with Pieraldi, noting that now the platform is closer to restaurant and she hopes it will bring in more customers.
“We’ve been struggling for the past year,” she said. “We’ve lost 50 percent of our business. I’m crossing my fingers it will pick up again.”
The first train at went through the station at 5:15 a.m., said Caltrain spokeswoman Christine Dunn.
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“It went great,” she said. “The station is beautiful.”
San Bruno resident Tina Marie Keeling agreed, saying the new platform looked grandiose and was state of the art.
Safety will be improved and hopefully business will as well, said Joe Munoz of the American Legion that has an hall at 757 San Mateo Ave.
“It’s going to prevent a lot of traffic,” Munoz said. “We hope it brings business our way and will help the downtown.”
March 31 was the last day of service at that site, which will be removed in coming weeks. Caltrain will continue to operate the same weekday and weekend schedule at the new San Bruno station. Work on this project is not expected to disrupt Caltrain service.
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