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Supervisor candidate wants to reopen Atherton train station

by Andrea Gemmet

An election hasn't even been called yet, but Richard Silver is already wooing Atherton voters to his campaign for Jerry Hill's District 2 seat on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. He's calling for Caltrain to reinstate service to Atherton's train station — as well as return service to Burlingame's Broadway station and add a new train station in Brisbane.

Supervisor Hill is widely considered a shoo-in to win election to a state Assembly seat on the Nov. 4 ballot, which would leave open his spot on the county Board of Supervisors. It's up to the remaining supervisors to decide to call an election or appoint someone to fill the remaining two years of Mr. Hill's four-year term.

The loss of weekday Caltrain service to Atherton's historic station in 2005 has been a major bone of contention for town officials. Fierce lobbying efforts earned the town hourly stops on weekends, but for more than three years, the station has been empty on weekdays as trains chug past.

Mr. Silver, the former clerk of the Board of Supervisors and the executive director of the Rail Passenger Association of California & Nevada, said that while he understands Caltrain officials' reasoning, he disagrees with their decision.

"I think it was a mistake for them to close it," he said.

In the past few years, Caltrain's ridership has increased tremendously, and it should keep growing, Mr. Silver said. Stations on either side of Atherton — Menlo Park and Redwood City — are extremely busy, he said.

"We need Atherton to reopen if for no other reason than to handle overflow from those two stations," he said.

Low ridership may have provoked Caltrain officials to cut Atherton's service, but the number of rail passengers has doubled since then, and there's no reason to believe that the Atherton station's ridership wouldn't increase as well, Mr. Silver said.

There would be another, more intangible benefit to reopening the Atherton station, he said.

"Once Atherton lost its station, you (took) Atherton out as one of the advocates for Caltrain," Mr. Silver said. "You need support from all of the cities along the right of way."