Thirty-eight years after planning began, San Francisco officials have landed on a spot for a future Caltrain station in Bayview: Oakdale Avenue and Third Street.
The choice of Oakdale Avenue came as a result of a study the San Francisco County Transportation Authority concluded this year. It comes after nearly four decades of back-and-forth studies that oscillated between two locations: A site on Oakdale, and another one half a mile away on Evans Avenue.
Once built, it would be the first time Bayview has had a Caltrain station since the Paul Avenue station closed in 2005 due to extremely low ridership and its isolated location.
The Oakdale location won out as it consistently scored higher in anticipated ridership, climate resiliency, access, and deliverability, according to the agency’s study.
The Evans location, which borders Islais Creek, may also be compromised by sea level rise in the years to come. The agency also found that it would likely cost $120 million more to build on Evans.
Even on Oakdale, the build-out will take time: Andrew Heidel, a planner for the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, said at a meeting on Monday evening that it may be a decade before the station breaks ground.
Roughly $27 million in funding from Prop. L, a 2022 sales tax measure, is already set aside for the station’s next phase: Planning and design. But Heidel said construction will require additional state and federal funds — a hurdle.
The cost of the project was pegged at between $100 and $200 million in 2022. Heidel said estimates have only risen since then.
“We’re still a ways off,” said Heidel.
The Transportation Authority Board, which is made up of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors, is expected to vote on whether to approve the study, and the choice of Oakdale Avenue, in October.
The process has been messy.
Since 1988, San Francisco officials have sponsored five different studies and spent thousands of dollars to find a new location for a Bayview Caltrain station. In that time, the neighborhood, environmental factors, and the rail line have dramatically changed, stirring a decades-long debate.
The most recent study settling on Oakdale took three years.
It won’t be the first time the agency finds itself recommending the Oakdale site. In 2022, a study found that a station at the location would not only be economically feasible, it would increase ridership on Caltrain. It presented those findings to the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors.
The Planning Commission approved the study and urged the agency to move it forward. But the board, led by Supervisor Shamann Walton, hit the brakes: Walton instead instructed the agency to conduct yet another study to consider Evans as an alternative location.
Walton said he was responding to residents’ demands: Evans has become a hub in Bayview. the Southeast Community Center moved from Oakdale to Evans in 2022, and the neighborhood’s shopping center, the Bayview Plaza, is located across the street. Many residents wanted the Caltrain station there, too.
“With the new Southeast Community Center on Evans and the Bayview Plaza in the same area, some residents wanted to know if it made sense for a Caltrain Station at that location on Evans,” said Walton.
This time, Walton will likely approve the choice. “I do believe that after further analysis, Oakdale is less expensive [and] is also centrally located,” said Walton. Ultimately, he said, “I will support [what] the majority of the community wants.”
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that the station would need to secure $27 million in funding for its next phase. The $27 million is already set aside.
Glad the study came out in favor of Oakdale, but it’s a little sad we wasted a bunch of time and money studying this obvious issue.
The Evans site is a wasteland. it’s in the middle of a bunch of industrial buildings, underneath the freeway, and at the edge of the neighborhood bounded in by Islais Creek. The neighborhood amenities supposedly nearby are a half mile away, on the other side of 3rd St. The actual lot next to the site is a metal scrapyard. And it’s less than a mile from the existing 22nd St stop.
By contrast, Oakdale is in the heart of the neighborhood, next to a bunch of residences and the CCSF campus. It’s directly served by the Muni 24 and 44 lines, meaning people from beyond the immediate area will be able to use it.
This wasn’t a close call, and I’m a little confused why we needed to waste 4 years to get to this conclusion.
It’s not just 4 years wasted. Well over 20 years ago I attended a public meeting on configurations for the new Oakdale station–actual platform and access diagrams. Veronica Hunicutt of CCSF attended. 4 of us from the public attended along with 13 consultants and transit staff. I will never forget one concern a neighbor raised that I didnt think of. Access to the platform would have required a ramp longer than a city block. Of course it would be ADA compliant but a lone passenger using it late at night might worry. I got shivers when she described the scenario and bring it up whenever I see such configurations proposed.
Oakdale seems like a far better location based on the potential to build around it and its proximity to residents and commercial zones. Evan’s is literally under a freeway, near the recycling center and a waste management facility.
I can’t imagine it’ll be a boon to the neighborhood but still upsetting how long it’s going to take to add a single station to the line.
CalTrain to San Jose is about 40 miles and already has about 20 stations. That is one every two miles. The last thing we need is even more stations that slow down the trains even more.
Exactly how many IT specialists who commute to Silicon Valley live in Bayview? I cannot see anyone using this service who doesn’t live in Bayview. So what is the economic justification here? The streetcar already goes close to 22nd St. and Bayshore stations.
Bob, you seem to miss the point. The Bayview is in need of transportation options that tie the community into the greater economy of the Bay Area. Located between South San Francisco’s biotech hub and Mission Bay’s biotech hub, if only the community were better connected, these jobs would seem more realistic to the residents here. Bayview, together with its sister neighborhoods, Dogpatch and Visitacion Valley, are the only communities in San Francisco where large-scale housing developments will be built, pointing to a future increased population, including tech workers, which a large number of the Shipyard development’s residents are.
SD, so build it and then they will come?
The problem is – we already tried that with the 3rd Street “streetcar to nowhere”. And guess what? Nobody came.
Except the ‘building it’ part is slow-moving and taking shape over the course of decades rather than months. There are plans for nearly 30K units of housing between Mission Rock and Visitacion Valley already approved (eg., Mission Rock, Pier 70, Potrero Power Plant, India Basin, Hunters Point Shipyard, Candlestick Point, Baylands, to name a few of the larger projects).
I think it’s fair to imagine there’s a rationale for adding stations and additional mass transit in the future. Building it sooner, rather than later, will not only help those who live in these areas now, but also create interest around the areas that are being developed.
You have no clue what you’re talking about, Bob. The T (it is light rail, not a ‘streetcar’) now has the second-highest daily ridership of any of the Metro lines. Also, the Bayview is a very large neighborhood that has the highest per-capita population of kids under 18 in the whole city. The more options for transit in this neighborhood, the better for Caltrain and Muni ridership. And yes, as mentioned, this new station site would be easily accessible for Noe Valley, Glen Park, Excelsior, and Sunnyside residents via the frequent 23, 24, and 44 bus routes. And finally—Caltrain is much more like BART now with its frequent headways all day and electricity that enables quick start-stop. Having stations in areas with dense population makes tons of sense, even if they’re only a mile or so apart in some zones.
It’ll be nice for Bayview to have that express alternative to the T. From 4th & King to 3rd & Oakdale is 25 minutes according to the T’s schedule. On Caltrain, 4th & King to this Oakdale station should be 6-7 minutes.
The precise location seems awkward, separated from 3rd Street and the T by two and a half blocks of single-family homes and churches. And all the bus connections, the 23, 24, and 44, are on Palou, one block south, not on Oakdale, making one wonder why they didn’t choose Palou.
Unless another station— like 22nd Street—gets closed, I would still vote NO.
The T line already stops so often it feels like it’s conducting a slow‑motion tour of its own uncertainty, pausing every few blocks to reconsider the meaning of forward motion. Caltrain doesn’t need to inherit that same existential hesitation; one transit line questioning its purpose is enough for the universe.
Caltrain needs weekend express service, which currently does not exist, leaving riders to drift through every stop like they’re on a guided tour of inevitability.
Good thing you won’t have a vote on this, then. At least directly. You seem to not understand how BART works. No tracks for passing, no express trains. It still is a way better use of your time than driving, unless you’re one of those FSD True Believers who thinks he can multitask while behind the wheel of Elon’s ‘safe’ vehicles that are suspiciously free of NTSB scrutiny after he DOGE’d everyone out of that department.
Why did they not have the “T” car line run to the Bayshore train station? Or at least allow people walk from Bayshore station to the Sunnydale Station? It is a long walk from Bayshore station to the Arleta/Blanken “T” line stop.