I’m not sure anything substantive has changed since we last looked at the Broadway grade separation saga in January here. We read about another 2 million here or 50 million there, but not much in the way of firm plans to start. Measure XYZ funds are collected. The city website returns 953 hits on “Broadway grade separation”, but the top 10 are all from 2024. In the meantime, high-speed rail got another $1.5 billion in the latest state budget. While back in B’game there are more accidents. From the Comicle we read and see a photo:
Caltrain service was disrupted Wednesday evening after a train struck a vehicle near Burlingame, causing major delays during the weekday rush hour, according to a passenger and an announcement made aboard the train. (Train passenger) Bilani said he could see a blue Subaru with its rear window shattered. The Subaru appeared to have been pushed into another vehicle that had been waiting near the railroad crossing between Burlingame and Millbrae, he said.
The talk elsewhere on-line is that there were two Caltrain incidents in B’game this week. Since only one has been reported on that I can find, the other might have been a suicide. Caltrain and the local papers, led by the Daily Post, are no longer reporting on suspected suicides although they may get counted in the annual totals.
Back in June 2019 the situation looked like this. Since then the Caltrain’s electrification has upped the cost due to the shortened work hours available each night while they deenergize the line. It’s like chasing a faster guy. Be safe out there.
I know a bit about premium priced consulting services that I learned over 30 years including some engagements with government agencies. When the Daily Journal headline screamed “High pay for Caltrain consultant”, I thought “How high?” Luckily the subhead read “Transit agency pays $1.4M for deputy leader, amount over three times top-paid executive director’s salary”. Wow. Is that for a one person, one year extension, not a contract with a firm staffing three or four or more consultants? That’s premium with a capital P. But it gets worse. That front page piece on July 6th came out the same day the purported million-dollar consultant, Sherry Bullock, was scheduled to present the state of the B’way grade separation to our city council.
Thanks to a tipster, I got the word that the presentation didn’t go so well. The video is not streaming smoothly for me, but around 1:05 on this link you can start to feel the confusion and maybe a bit of desperation from the 20-year Caltrain veteran! When asked to spell out some of the arcane acronyms (and there are many) lower-priced staff had to jump in with an assist. The $1.4 mil was looming large given the newspaper was probably still in the box outside city hall. The piece is a little convoluted, but according to a later LTTE from Jeff Gee (Caltrain board and RWC councilmember) “That was a max authority to a consulting firm. Caltrain paid a quarter of that and is closing out the contract.” So perhaps we are down to $350K–that still some “max authority” for someone who is also charging overtime.
And yet we know, because Caltrain told us, that it is on the brink of disaster. Per the DJ
After adopting a $270 million operating budget, Caltrain is reiterating short- and long-term plans to narrow its deficit with a state loan and upcoming sales tax ballot measure — or else it could shut down entirely, leaders say.
Cue the DJ two days later discussing the formation of some opposition to the “Connect Bay Area” 14-year duration sales tax increase.
The measure would be the sixth transportation-dedicated sales tax in San Mateo County. Measures A, W, RR and the San Mateo County Transit District tax are administered by the county, with a portion of the state-mandated 7.25% sales tax going to local transportation efforts as well. They’re thinking, ‘well we’re getting bailed out by the government,’” said Peninsula resident Gregg Dieguez, a member of the Committee for Affordable Bay Area Transit. “They are used to spending our money, rather than reforming what they’re doing.”
This ain’t rocket science, kids. The primary Caltrain commuter rail line spans 77.2 miles between San Francisco and Gilroy. The core corridor between San Francisco and San Jose Diridon Station is approximately 48 miles long. We not running Amtrack or the TGV here. And this is going to be a very tough election for new taxes, bond measures, and whatever else got thrown against the wall by anyone other than the Howard Jarvis people. Couple that with the fact that the B’way grade separation (remember that?) is still not close to being fully funded. The question is “are we getting what we are paying for?”
A guy pulls into a parking space on Broadway. It’s at one end of a block with an odd number of spaces so it has one of the new meters that does not have a A and B side like the one shown below. He hops out with some change but first checks the time remaining. It’s a little difficult to see because it’s a sunny day, but he gets lucky– there’s 1:35 left on the meter which should be enough. He sets the alarm on his phone to 1:30 for a five-minute buffer and goes about his business. Business takes about an hour. Returning to his car, he checks his phone, cancels the alarm and decides to check the time on the meter. The meter shows an hour left, not 35 minutes! Guys scratches head, wonders if a) some Good Samaritan walked by and kicked in a quarter or two or b) it’s all messed up and he will get a ticket in the mail…..
We have not had a Guest Author on the Voice in quite awhile, but when San Matean David Long asked me why I had not weighed in on the “sobering center” controversy I asked him to pen his perspective for us. I wasn’t really paying attention to the issue when it was in San Mateo and he has, as you will read here. The DJ had a piece two days ago that noted
San Mateo County will purchase a $13 million Burlingame property to hopefully open up a sobering station as soon as possible, house the Pride Center and provide an option for a treatment facility, with supervisor approval Tuesday. The property of more than 2 acres at 818-828 Mahler Road was the former site of First Chance, a 14-bed sobering center operated by since-closed nonprofit StarVista.
Since First Chance closed, individuals who get arrested for driving under the influence are brought to county jail, rather than a station that promotes wellness and provides offenders with resources and opportunities to rehabilitate. It costs double the amount to house a DUI offender in a county correctional facility than a sobering center.
Here is David’s perspective on the switch from central San Mateo to Mahler Rd.:
San Mateo County’s proposed sobering and treatment center at 101 N. El Camino Real has felt like an experiment in how many bad land-use decisions could be shoe-horned into an already congested corridor.
Dense residential neighborhood? Check.
Multiple schools and daycares nearby? Check.
Dense senior housing within walking distance? Check.
Breakneck traffic at a pockmarked El Camino intersection seemingly designed by bumper-car enthusiasts? Absolutely.
And yet somehow, this was presented as the “best” location for a large detox and treatment facility projected to generate up to 17,000 annual client trips with 24/7 intake activity? Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.
On Tuesday, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to purchase the former sobering center property on Mahler Road in Burlingame for $13 million. Only a single speaker opposed the purchase. Even the Burlingame City Council – never mistaken for a drum circle – gave Mahler Road unusually ‘high’ marks at its 4/20 meeting. Why? Because Mahler Road makes sense.
At two acres, it’s a large parcel in a light industrial and emerging biotech corridor with sparse nearby housing. It sits just one mile from Highway 101 and three miles from Mills-Peninsula Medical Center. Most importantly, it has a long, proven history as a sobering center serving San Mateo County. The Mahler sobering component is expected to open within six months. By comparison, the 101 ECR proposal likely faced a three-to-five-year runway filled with entitlement battles, lawsuits, redesigns, and enough public hostility to power a small city.
Burlingame’s Supervisor Jackie Speier deserves enormous credit for recognizing the broader potential of the Mahler site. In addition to treatment services, discussions have included a future home for the San Mateo County Pride Center – which has been without a permanent location since 2024 – as well as possible housing for essential service workers increasingly priced out of the communities they serve.
Which makes San Mateo’s Supervisor Noelia Corzo’s continued attachment to the 101 ECR location all the more puzzling. This debacle echoes her divisive performance during COVID while serving as SMFCSD’s school board President, where her stubbornness and delays reopening San Mateo public schools were epic. Her tone-deaf obstinacy has triggered a June primary write-in candidate (Taso Zografos) and a recall effort (you heard it here first).
At some point, leadership means recognizing when a better option has emerged. Corzo’s four Supervisor colleagues did exactly that. They listened to residents, looked at operational realities, and pivoted toward a faster, cheaper, and far less divisive solution.
These are important services that our families, friends and neighbors need ASAP. The Mahler location delivers services quickly and in a location that is well suited for this use. Only time will tell, but San Mateo County appears to be getting this right.
David Long is a San Mateo Park resident who continues to view the failed 1909 Burlingame annexation effort of his neighborhood as one of local history’s great missed opportunities.
—————
With all the fuss about commercial properties not turning over and thus never being revalued per Prop. 13, my hope is that even if the County did get a deal at $13 million, I hope they are paying full property taxes on the purchase. We shall see how the Broadway overpass handles another 17,000 trips per year. And yes, San Mateo Park would have made a great addition to South B’game. Thanks, David. I happened by 818 Mahler and snapped this photo. The building really looks like it needs some love.
Now that the El Camino Real project, The Little Big Dig, is in full swing things have gone from bad to worse on the reroute path–California Dr. It was unpopular two years ago as we noted here. But now with the additional volume it’s downright frustrating. The bike lane seldom has even one biker on it. Turning left out of Floribunda or Douglas has become perilous due to the steadier flow of traffic. The cars parked alongside the bike lane all seem to know how to protect their mirrors and doors by parking as close to the bollards as possible. And the mostly empty middle turn lane beckons to drivers like the sirens of Greek mythology calling sailors to the rocks.
I know it’s hopeless, but I can’t help but wish things would just Go Back To The Way They Were on California. In the meantime, if you must park on the Caltrain side, do as the locals do. Squeeze in.
The Parking category here at the Voice is the repository for weird maneuvers, usually by drivers. But the City is not immune from having its weird moves get memorialized as well. Popular restaurants often require diners to be in and out in some time limit–often 90 minutes– so the restaurant can turn the tables at a profitable pace. It’s polite and often loosely enforced– no fine for staying 95 or 100 minutes. Perhaps just a nudge by the server. One wonders if this new form of Dining Meter at Cafe Figaro’s parklet on B’way will be as flexible? Can Figaro issue tickets to slow diners?
I get why the City might have either a) left the old meter knowing investing in a new blue one would be a waste of money, or b) just taken the meter out altogether allowing staff easier access to the parklet tables. Installing a never-to-be-used new meter is odd. Could Cafe Figaro eventually give up its parklet? Sure, but that would be the time to refresh the meter. Otherwise, this looks like an expensive dog leash station.
Enjoy the free parking around town with all the headless meter stanchions.
I was pretty sure a lawsuit would be filed over the extended closure of businesses on and around B’way. I didn’t see the merchants being represented by one of the top 25 plaintiff law firms in the country, but offering local merchants support is meritorious. From the DJ piece
A class action lawsuit on behalf of merchants in Burlingame’s Broadway area has been filed against the owner and operator of A&A Gas & Mart, who were previously named as responsible parties in a gasoline leak that caused days of power outages and road closures in the business district.
Burlingame law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy chose to move forward with the suit, filed Feb. 23, to seek an undetermined amount of damages for businesses that lost customers, revenue and inventory as a result of those outages and closures, attorney Nanci Nishimura, who is representing the plaintiffs, said.
The merchants mentioned range from Maverick Jack’s at the old train station to Bonne Sante at the other end of B’way. The total number is more than 100.
In a real twist of fate, the A&A Gas website’s “About us” page shows the B’way station! They appear to have four of their six locations on the Peninsula. We’re not talking Shell or Chevron here so expect some sort of settlement as they realize what they are up against. In the meantime, Broadway is lovely shopping and dining district and there has been a lot of free parking as the city deinstalls the old parking meters and waits to install the fancy new ones.
B’game isn’t known as a high-end Peninsula dining town a la Palo Alto or, lately, Menlo Park as noted here. But we are apparently a mecca for “value dining” as determined by Opentable. The list is loaded with Italian restaurants as determined thusly:
Looking for the best value restaurants in Peninsula? You’re in the right place. Each month, OpenTable analyzes nearly 2 million global diner reviews from the past four months. We sort the results by location and category to help you discover new favorite restaurants.
The latest listing has B’game winning three of the ten spots on the Peninsula. Two are well-known, long-time stalwarts in town: Cafe Figaro and Rocca–both on the “value” commercial street- Broadway. The third one is new (at least to me) and also on B’way at Paloma. Nepalese restaurant:
Himali Bistro is a culinary delight that blends the vibrant spices and traditional cooking techniques of Nepali and Indian cuisine to transport your taste buds on a flavorful journey inspired by the majestic Himalayan region. At this modern restaurant, each dish is crafted with care and expertise to evoke the essence of the mountains, offering a fusion of unique flavors that pay homage to the diverse culinary heritage of the region.
The newest entrant to the B’way dining scene is also on the “value” end of the spectrum. Patty’s Diner is going for the ’50s vibe and has a $9.50 smashburger that you can upgrade to Wagyu for an additional 4 bucks. I’ll be in soon to check out the Philly Cheesesteak using ribeye for $16.
The last new entrant hasn’t opened yet, but that didn’t stop the SF Comicle from running a full-page “review” in the Sunday edition! Taking over the Flights space (or Left at Albuquerque or Nathan’s depending on how far back in time you want to go) is Amado. The Comicle calls it an “elegant new Mexican restaurant) here. Sounds good. Our scene doesn’t get much love from Comicle reviewers, so Amado must have something going for it.
It’s been a rough start to the New Year for PG&E customers from EssEff to B’game and now to San Mateo. Fire in the city caused major problems including for the huge Waymo fleet. Here in B’game the multi-day outage on and around Broadway and California was especially tough for businesses and even more so if they happened to have perishable inventory. The news, like this report from ABC7, keep calling the leak into the utility vault a “petroleum product”. I suppose it could be diesel (does A&A sell diesel), but most likely it’s gas. ABC7 reported:
Even though PG&E provided generators for those impacted, businesses were told they had to hire a private electrician to do checks before the utility company would hook them up. “To be able to certify that it’s okay to turn on the power and use the generators so we don’t have explosions,” said John Kevranian of the Broadway Burlingame Business Improvement District.
That sounds odd and not very customer centric. If that is different skill set than PG&E electricians, then shouldn’t PG&E have hired a commercial electrician on the customers’ behalf? (kudos to John for stepping back in after his BID term ended to keep everyone up to date with many texts, etc).
And of course, all of this happened right as the Little Big Dig started halving the capacity on El Camino and thinking vehicles could reroute to California. As one of our regular, shrewd commenters pointed out on the Drop the Green Flag post, post-holiday rainy season wasn’t the best time to start taking down massive trees and figuring out power line routes.
ABC7 noted “PG&E is still working to extract all of the petroleum product from the vaults and identify where it’s coming from. They say it’s not something they use with their equipment.” Transformers use heavy oil as an insulator, but this isn’t that. Eventually we will find out if A&A gas was up to date and up to code on the tanks. Note that the station at the other end of B’way did theirs a couple years ago. And both the Chevron (finished) and the Shell stations on Peninsula are doing the same. The Google machine spit out this timely tidbit:
Older, single-walled tanks face strict deadlines for upgrades or permanent closure (e.g., by Dec 31, 2025, for many systems) due to corrosion risks.
Here’s a pic of the big generators that got people back online. Reports are they are just as noisy as the folks in the Richmond district reported. Caterpillar stock is up 75% in the last 12 months……
Broadway was buzzing today with the announcement that the long-time, tireless BID president is stepping down. John’s letter notes:
After deep reflection, I am formally resigning from my position as volunteer President of the Broadway Burlingame Business Improvement District, effective November 30, 2025. For 25 years, I have proudly served on the Board — including the past 11 years as President.
Unfortunately, I can no longer continue in this role in good conscience due to a series of troubling developments that have significantly undermined Broadway’s future and my ability to serve with integrity.
He notes three reasons that I will include here verbatim, so you get the full impact:
First, the City of Burlingame’s decision to terminate the Broadway Specific Plan — which was intended to guide development and investment over the next 5, 10, and 20 years — reflects a concerning lack of vision and long-term commitment to Broadway’s prosperity.
Second, the City Council’s continued refusal to support the reopening of weekday Caltrain service at the Broadway station further demonstrates a lack of understanding of the essential role of transit in our district’s history and future. The station, opened in 1910 as Easton Station in what was then known as Buri Buri, was the very reason the Broadway business district and surrounding apartments were built. When weekday service was removed over 20 years ago, the negative impact was immediate and profound. Restoring service should be a priority — not a political inconvenience.
Third, in late 2023, I opposed efforts by a City Council member and a Beautification Commissioner to weaken Burlingame’s flavored tobacco laws to benefit a personal associate. In retaliation, on October 8, 2023, both individuals called the Burlingame Police Department and falsely claimed I had threatened the commissioner. These fabricated allegations were clearly intended to intimidate and silence me. This misuse of public authority and law enforcement was not only inappropriate — it crossed a line, both legally and ethically.
I’m hoping BPD did the minimum perfunctory “investigation” of that last item. Item 1 reminds me of the sentiment on B’way that it is the poor stepchild of the Avenue. John has been a leading advocate for said refresh. I like Broadway a lot and actually spend more time there than on the Ave, but it could use a refresh and that takes help from the city. You have to wonder if moving to tiny district elections has narrowed the focus of city councilmembers.
It’s a shame John is stepping down, but he will always have a prominent voice in all things B’way. You can listen to Mark Lucchesi interview John here as well.
The Burlingame Voice is dedicated to informing and empowering the Burlingame community. Our blog is a public forum for the discussion of issues that relate to Burlingame, California. Opinions posted on the Burlingame Voice are those of the poster and commenter and not necessarily the opinion of the Editorial Board. Comments are subject to the Terms of Use.
