Atherton to discuss future of Caltrain service in town

Atherton continues to regard itself as something special, and not just another town in the urbanized area extending from San Francisco to San Jose.

Absolutely the train station should stay and daily service added; not just weekend service. Using it for shopping, going to work and going to San Jose or San Francisco makes it a great alternative to a car or Uber/Lyft.

Use it or lose it!

Atherton can use Menlo Park as it's close. Right now, it's one stop too many for a very small population of riders. Scrape the parking lots and build the city hall there instead.

As a long time employee in Atherton, my commute costs have increased by not having the train stop there during the week. Walking a few blocks is one thing, transferring buses and walking a half mile is quite another. I don't think service workers were considered when the M - F trains were stopped, and I don't think it did anything to alleviate train noise.

@Cayo, feel free to email me at aswartz@almanacnews.com if you'd like to talk about this further.

Why doesn't the Town simply guarantee CalTrain a certain number of paid trips for every train that stops at Atherton?

Sounds like the dialogue around rail service in Atherton is utterly clueless and untethered to reality. Guess what, if you have no weekday service and at last check only generated 150 daily riders, you are probably not in a position to demand express service. Sounds like the whole Caltrain corridor would be best served by eliminating your station altogether, along with the grade crossings, whatever environmental impact that may entail. Good riddance.

"Why doesn't the Town simply guarantee CalTrain a certain number of paid trips for every train that stops at Atherton?"

Because it costs money?

Caltrain is not a taxi service. Unless they can demonstrate meaningful ridership, they tax themselves and pay for it.

And I gotta laugh that a tiny town that doesn't use its train station gets to dictate to state of California how many tracks Caltrain can put down on its own property,

Keep the train for very limited service on the weekends. It really should be tied to SF Giants games. SJ Earthquakes games. Holidays. Big festivals/concerts/etc.
During the week; One in the morning north and south -Last train back at night. And make it a neutral zone two go north and south (don’t charge me one more zone to go from Redwood City to Atherton).

Instead of keeping the Atherton train station, how about running an hourly shuttle bus from city hall to the nearest active Caltrain station?

Absolutely NO to daily service, even on local trains. Many people are forced to take local trains to places like Cal Ave, and an added stop means those trains go even slower. The few Atherton residents who use the train can easily drive/walk/bike the mile to the Menlo station.

This list of recommendations is (typically) selfish and incoherent. "We want full weekday service, and a better station, but we want two tracks, which will choke Caltrain's ability to deliver a higher level of service to the other communities it serves."

The way to make all this work is for Caltrain to emulate Berkeley's example where its residents voted to tax themselves in order to pay for putting BART in a tunnel. Heck, several of Atherton's wealthiest residents could write a check for the cost of this on their own.

Points well made! Here's the deal:

If Atherton wants train service, then they need to allow two extra passing tracks. I wonder how far that will go.......

The unelected Town Council ( all of whom have been appointed to their current Terms) continues to fancy itself as being in control of things for which it has neither responsibility, authority or public support.