Palo Alto residents will have a chance to give input Wednesday evening on one of the most ambitious projects in the city's recent history: the potential reconstruction of four rail crossings.
The meeting will focus primarily on the Churchill Avenue grade crossing, which city leaders are considering closing to traffic. It will also include a discussion of a citywide tunnel, an option that has remained popular despite high costs.
The Churchill Avenue plans have already stirred anxieties among residents in the Old Palo Alto, Southgate and Professorville neighborhoods, with some fearing that closing Churchill will direct more cars toward Embarcadero. Earlier this month, dozens of residents weighed in on the city's plans for "grade separations" at a City Council meeting, with some calling for the city to conduct more traffic analysis before selecting an option.
Rachel Kellerman, a resident of Professorville, told the council during a March 18 discussion of grade separations that existing studies don't include any discussions of mitigations to keep increased traffic from flowing to neighborhood streets.
"We are very concerned that city leaders are making an important decision about rail crossings without the benefit of a city transportation and traffic expert to guide consultants and the council," Kellerman said.
The goal of Palo Alto's grade separation project is to accommodate the expected increase in Caltrain service. With Caltrain looking to electrify its corridor by 2020, the agency is expecting to have 20 trains per hour travel through Palo Alto during peak times by 2025.
"This would leave the gates at rail intersections down 25 percent of the time, and create traffic backups during daily peak periods," the city's announcement of the meeting states.
The community meeting comes just about a week after the council voted to modify its process for selecting preferred designs for the four crossings: Palo Alto Avenue, Churchill, Meadow Drive and Charleston Road. At the March 18 meeting, council members agreed to extend the target date for the decision from June to October and to create a working group that would consider ways to finance the construction.
While the council had originally considered grade-separation options (the separation of roads from railroad tracks so that they will no longer intersect) for all four crossings, council members have largely backed away from the idea of pursuing dramatic engineering alternatives for Palo Alto and Churchill avenues. Under the current plan, Palo Alto Avenue would be evaluated separately as part of a broader downtown study.
Churchill, meanwhile, was deemed to be a poor candidate for several grade-separation options such as trenches, tunnels and viaducts because such options would require some property takings.
The meeting that will take place on Wednesday, March 27, at 6 p.m. in the El Palo Alto Room at Mitchell Park Community Center. For more information on the project, visit pagradesep.com.
Comments
Old Palo Alto
on Mar 27, 2019 at 10:11 am
on Mar 27, 2019 at 10:11 am
This topic is getting so tiresome & old. Can't the City of Palo Alto & Caltrains simply agree to build an underpass beneath each grade crossing & be done with it?
The acquisition of properties via eminent domain might be required but it's been done before...for the public good.
Either that or shut all three crossings down.
Registered user
Mayfield
on Mar 27, 2019 at 10:43 am
Registered user
on Mar 27, 2019 at 10:43 am
The decision by the new Governor to cancel some of the HSR plans, I fully support eliminating the San Jose-San Francisco leg. The other part will eventually be build.
I never understood the rationale to go beyond San Jose from the South. I was trying to understand the hidden cascade of wrong decisions. But I recently read the proud account of somebody, who’s name shall stay an anonymous Mudd, how she was instrumental to get the mini-bullet going. And the mini-bullet then spawned the idea and demand for a HSR leg SJ-SF. She says.
The mini bullet cost of $130 Million for a 10 minute improvement in time from Palo Alto to San Francisco.
Instead of working in 2008 toward an electric powered people mover which would come every 30 minutes and whose carriages allowed low dwell time level entry (for handicapped and older people) into the carriages, and new carriages that furthermore reduced the dwell time in the stations by having separate entry and exit doors.
So CalTrain invested more into the heavy long-haul impractical wagon stock it had, including rebuilding platforms to match those carriages. And even so it was clear that the main public traffic backbone of the Silicon valley would eventually have to go first to 30 minute tact, and then later to 20, 15, 10 minutes, no effort was made locally, or even regionally for grade separation. To confront grade separation locally is abstruse to begin with.
There are good examples how to solve the pearl on a string problems like Silicon Valley, the 1895 designed Wupppertal (Wupper Valley, a Technology Center between Solingen and Essen) elevated tram (Web Link would be an example, but there are also under grounds worldwide. There is the S-Bahn in Berlin, and there is RER in Paris.
There is the possibility, or even need, of a tunnel, which would solve long-term problems. Taking the recently finished 53km St. Gotthardt as an example, Italian Engineers should be able to build it for $300 Million / per mile. German builders are a good and proud people, but with tunnels, they give Italians pride of place.
Trying to get from one side of the tracks to the other side in Palo Alto is difficult now. Just spend an hour between 5 and 6 PM watching the Churchill-Alma crossing. The University underpass is too narrow already. The Oregon Underpass is flooded at moderate rainfall.
The Page Mill/Oregon/El Camino Interchange calls for a traffic circle, with one straight way underground, and a Dutch type suspended pedestrian and bicycle crossing (Web Link . But in its infinite wisdom the City allows building to go up (like the AT&T) which make a sensible solution more difficult.
Not living here from 2005 to 2012 I was told by friends of the increasing traffic problems, and followed the traffic problems on-line, and my thinking was to keep the train tracks for freight trains, but to build either a tunnel people mover, or an elevated mono-rail system.
Not using the cheap money of 2008 to get going, following Redwood City’s example, was difficult to understand. Lack of vision, or too many outside expert consultants? Of all Cities I have lived in, the Palo Alto Planning Department seems to be most incompetent, untruthful, and developer dependent I experienced.
Leland Manor/Garland Drive
on Mar 27, 2019 at 12:12 pm
on Mar 27, 2019 at 12:12 pm
A recent report said that the downtown San Francisco Transit Center currently only has room for 10 Caltrain trains per hour.
Source: Web Link
Old Palo Alto
on Mar 27, 2019 at 12:34 pm
on Mar 27, 2019 at 12:34 pm
"This topic is getting so tiresome & old. Can't the City of Palo Alto & Caltrains [SIC] simply agree to build an underpass beneath each grade crossing & be done with it?"
This question is getting so tiresome & old. Underpasses beneath each grade crossings require property takings, which is politically infeasible.
Downtown North
on Mar 27, 2019 at 12:41 pm
on Mar 27, 2019 at 12:41 pm
Thank You Rainer for your comments. Our infrastructure can not support the new needs. If you cut off Churchill and Palo Alto it will drive all the traffic to Middlefield and Embarcadero. Both those roads are backed up any time of the day. We will be trapped in our own town
another community
on Mar 27, 2019 at 12:42 pm
on Mar 27, 2019 at 12:42 pm
"It will also include a discussion of a citywide tunnel, an option that has remained popular despite high costs."
High costs? You mean astronomical costs! This is not an option, people. I own a house in Palo Alto, and heck if I'm gonna pay $500/year for 30 years to pay for this joke of a tunnel, that will no doubt go over budget by a couple of $billion.
Old Palo Alto
on Mar 27, 2019 at 12:44 pm
on Mar 27, 2019 at 12:44 pm
Time for another Mitchell Park coffee klatsch.
"the expected increase in Caltrain service. With Caltrain looking to electrify its corridor by 2020, the agency is expecting to have 20 trains per hour travel through Palo Alto during peak times by 2025."
In Silicon Valley we call this "vaporware".
Show me a Caltrain timetable with the new, increased service schedule. Does one even exist?
Fair question: has Caltrain factored the demise of the HSR "blended approach" into its forecast of train frequency?
More wheel spinning on a citywide tunnel. What's the plan when this citywide tunnel reaches S.F. creek and must cross the city limit/county line? How does Caltrain, owners of the ROW, feel about the plan and the undergrounding of two of its stations? Where is CPA going to come up with the multi tens of billions for this plan. How much will property taxes go up? You need to answer all of these questions before going much further with any plans for a citywide tunnel.
Registered user
St. Claire Gardens
on Mar 27, 2019 at 1:11 pm
Registered user
on Mar 27, 2019 at 1:11 pm
Responding to the first comment on this article, I looked in vain for a "Dislike this comment" button. Where do I start in rebutting all the points in this ill-considered comment.
An underpass (with raised tracks)is one of the options for Meadow and Charleston. For those two crossings, there is considerable neighborhood opposition to the raised tracks. There are other options for those two crossings, with different costs, construction times, and neighborhood impacts.
For Churchill Avenue, an underpass option would have required considerable property taking, using eminent domain to accomplish that task. Legally it is possible, but hugely unpopular, and you can be sure that any eminent domain proceedings would be tied up in lawsuits for years, and the backers of these suits might ultimately prevail.
Now exactly how is it in the "public good" to take away the houses of a significant number of members of that public, in the year 2019 (or maybe 2023)? The housing market is insane, with many houses being sold for more than asking price after being on the market for less than ten days. For the people losing their houses, they are probably being forced out of Palo Alto, or maybe even the entire mid-Peninsula.
The eminent domain process will not compensate these people for the true market value of their homes, yet they will be forced to pay market value for replacement homes in Palo Alto or nearby communities. Even if these people could qualify for extremely large mortgages, exactly how is such a process for the "public good?"
When Palo Alto converted Oregon Avenue into Oregon Expressway in 1962, there was bitter opposition even then to the idea of eminent domain. The argument, "It's been done before," ignores how divisive the issue was at the time. Web Link And at that time, Palo Alto was still building new houses at affordable prices, so that people who lost their homes could still find replacement homes in Palo Alto. That's not the situation today, and everyone needs to recognize this fact.
Registered user
St. Claire Gardens
on Mar 27, 2019 at 1:16 pm
Registered user
on Mar 27, 2019 at 1:16 pm
Responding further to the first comment, it would be a complete disaster for Palo Alto traffic if all four (not three!!!) grade crossings were simply closed.
Imagine all the extra traffic on Oregon Expressway, Embarcadero, and University Avenue. You can't? That's because those roads are already operating at or above capacity during peak traffic hours.
Get out and drive on those roads during rush hours.
By the way, the grade crossings also experience significant congestion and delay.
Registered user
St. Claire Gardens
on Mar 27, 2019 at 1:30 pm
Registered user
on Mar 27, 2019 at 1:30 pm
Rainer's comment above shows a lack of understanding of the volumes of traffic (people) involved in the Caltrain operation. By the way, if you take a Caltrain during peak hours today, you may end up standing most of the way between Palo Alto and San Francisco. Caltrain needs to expand just to relieve overcrowding. And Caltrain is now working on a Business Plan that addresses expected future growth in ridership volumes.
Rather than criticizing Caltrain we should be thankful that we have an alternative to driving. Imagine how many more lanes would have to be added to US 101 and I-280 if Caltrain is not expanded. Imagine that the traffic congestion and delays would be much worse that the situation we have today.
People movers? People movers worldwide are low-capacity, slow moving. They are fine for connecting two terminals at an airport, for example.
The Wuppertal is an elevated monorail railroad that doesn't have the speed or the carrying capacity of Caltrain. Why should we replace Caltrain with an inferior option? One of the options for grade crossing elimination is a viaduct over Charleston and Meadow. This option is widely opposed by neighbors.
The RER in Paris and the S-Bahn in Berlin are underground, electric trains. As is BART or the subway in New York or Boston or Washington DC or Philadelphia or the State Street and Dearborn Street lines in the Chicago system. Again, one of the options for grade crossing elimination is a citywide tunnel, at a cost of well over $2 Billion. That option also has opposition due to cost. That option also requires significant eminent domain takings along Alma Street.
Old Palo Alto
on Mar 27, 2019 at 1:51 pm
on Mar 27, 2019 at 1:51 pm
To PhilB:
What is your solution to the grade-separation dilemma? The one that will make everyone in Palo Alto happy?
Registered user
Adobe-Meadow
on Mar 27, 2019 at 1:53 pm
Registered user
on Mar 27, 2019 at 1:53 pm
I think the residents in that Churchill crossing area and the Embarcadero neighborhoods just a little ways to the north, have a legitimate complaint. I think CC heard them loud and clear.
Community meetings are good because it gives PA residents a chance to speak out in a public forum on an issue. Most, I think, come with beefs about one plan or the other because of how it would affect them personally. That too is legitimate and normal human reaction/behavior. But, how the listening decision makers take that input and turn it into a real plan to move forward is another story.
There are big engineering challenges to some of the proposed solutions. Rainer (see above), seems to be very knowledgeable about similar debates, discussions, and decisions made, from the past. He also describes projects in Europe that were successfully engineered and accomplished many decades ago. I have had a little experience in rail travel in Europe. On one of our long trips back in the 80's (we bought Eurail Passes) we took a train from Switzerland to Italy, via a 12 mile long tunnel through the Alps. I have been told by a good civil engineering friend, Steve, that that effort was a lot different, and in some ways easier, than this one would be. Blasting rock is one thing...boring through mud to build a rail tunnel and designing ways to pump and keep water out of it, even with electrical power failures, is another.
Most important: "At the March 18 meeting, council members agreed to extend the target date for the decision from June to October and to create a working group that would consider ways to finance the construction". I don't blame any of the previous Planners or CC members for kicking the can down the road.
The critical part is coming up with the selection of those who will sit on the working group. How many will be in the group, and who will select them??
Please, please, please! Whomever the selectors may be (by the way, who will they be?), don't select your buddies for political reasons. Those selected need to be absolutely clean and clear of any political affiliation. We need tried and true financial experts who know the ins and outs of all the various ways to fund projects like this. Our tax dollars are at stake.
Don't bring the Feds problems, on how to govern, administrate, and legislate in D.C., down to the level of the problems we have in our city. They haven't figured it out yet. I think we can do a much better job.
Downtown North
on Mar 27, 2019 at 7:50 pm
on Mar 27, 2019 at 7:50 pm
"Underpasses beneath each grade crossings require property takings"
Only if we insist on taking properties. There is at least one simple alternative.
Just dig the x-streets straight under the tracks and Alma, staying on the existing x-street ROWs. Don't get fancy and we're done.
Old Palo Alto
on Mar 27, 2019 at 8:14 pm
on Mar 27, 2019 at 8:14 pm
"Just dig the x-streets straight under the tracks and Alma, staying on the existing x-street ROWs. Don't get fancy and we're done."
This has been studied by professional engineers and won't work without property takings.
It has been explained here many times in the past. How many times must it be explained before it sinks in?
Registered user
Mayfield
on Mar 28, 2019 at 12:32 am
Registered user
on Mar 28, 2019 at 12:32 am
When I say people mover I do not mean an airport type open moving platform.
It was used as an alternative to the long-haul type carriages CalTrain uses now, which is very counterproductive.
The subway type people mover has many fewer seats, no time consuming accident prone upstairs, level entry, separated entrance and exit.
Accepting one wheel chair bound passenger at the California Station it took 2 min and 48 seconds I measured the other day.
another community
on Mar 28, 2019 at 4:24 am
on Mar 28, 2019 at 4:24 am
^^^^^
Caltrain's new trains have 'level boarding' to increase boarding speed for all passengers including wheelchairs and bicycles Web Link .
The transition to level boarding is complicated. New trains have two sets of doors (high and low), after the last diesel train is retired, the height of station platforms will be raised to be level with the 'high doors'. After all station platforms have been raised, the 'low doors' will be sealed and extra seats installed.
Level boarding is a legal requirement now, but also trains can run closer together because less timetable padding is needed to mitigate random boarding delays.
The solution to lack of capacity is bigger trains and more frequent trains.