Promises, Promises

This isn’t another diatribe aimed at the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board. Its members have heard plenty from the media and – more importantly – from the citizens of cities stretched out along the Caltrain line between San Francisco and San Jose. It’s important to remember that, even while rightfully expressing opposition to plans to shutter up to seven Caltrain stations in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, assuming that board members are sitting in high-backed leather chairs somewhere, twirling their moustaches with glee, does absolutely nothing to help resolve this difficult situation.

Instead, show up at 1250 San Carlos Blvd., in San Carlos for the Board’s two public hearings, scheduled for March 3, at 10 a.m.

You can also go to www.friendsofcaltrain.com. There you will find no shortage of action to take.

If, in the end, efforts fail and the Burlingame station is shut, it will be difficult, but not disastrous. People in Burlingame will adjust; Caltrain will join the growing list of long-gone landmarks like the old ice skating rink and the drive-in movie theater, missed but kept alive by the active memories of long-time Burlingame locals.

Day-to-day life will continue, a bit worse for the wear but not beaten. For Burlingame, the tragedy would be in losing – perhaps for the first time in 100 years – a key component of its original plan. Unlike almost all of its Peninsula neighbors, Burlingame has remained faithful to its original goals. For a century of residents, the “City of Trees” has delivered the goods, exactly as promised. In doing so, it’s created a covenant between city and citizen.

Look around: San Mateo, Redwood City, Millbrae, San Carlos – all have undergone radical transformations since their founding. All have grown dramatically, changing their focus from “small town” to “suburb,” in some cases forcing them to rediscover their commercial districts after years of drawing attention away from Main Street toward the car culture-based charms of subdivisions.

Not Burlingame; Pottery Barn may have replaced Levy Brothers Department Store on Burlingame Avenue, but the town’s basic infrastructure, appearance and lifestyle is unchanged.

“A Sunshine Suburb: the definitions,” begins a brochure created by the Burlingame Realty Company, in 1927. “Burlingame basks in the sun 280 days of the year. The high hills on the west act as a bulwark against shifting currents of hot and cold air, and as a result, Burlingame is truly a sunshine suburb.”

Except this week. The Burlingame Realty Company never met Al Gore. There’s more:

“Burlingame is located thirty-five minutes from Market Street, San Francisco, and offers for the commuter a choice of 50 fast trains a day; 25 in either direction.”

From the start, Burlingame has sold itself via three-pronged package: weather, schools and convenience, i.e. commute. The brochure goes on to say that in the past decade the city had spent over $1 million “toward establishing and maintaining elementary schools and a high school.” It also predicts “a rapid transit system, in the not far future, which will bring to Burlingame and its neighboring communities a growth which will rapidly absorb available homesites,” predating BART by 45 years.

Unfortunately, BART never made it to Burlingame, despite futuristic-looking newspaper renderings dated 1960 that show a Jetsons-like Burlingame BART stop planted north of the existing Caltrain station. If it had, these Caltrain debates would be moot. There would be no Caltrain station in Burlingame.

Almost every new community comes out of the gate with ambitious plans and promises it hopes to keep. Burlingame is among the few that have actually followed through. The city still enjoys 280 sunny days each year; its schools are among California’s top-rated, and, as long as there’s a Caltrain stop at Burlingame Avenue, it’s still within easy, hassle-free (and green, lets not forget green) commuting distance from both San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

Over the past century, the promises Burlingame made to its citizens have become second thought. Their permanence is the fourth element of Burlingame’s allure to homebuyers. The city has so far fended off the Disneyification of itself, earning the trust of its residents – something not to be trifled with.