After ushering a building boom of public facilities before and during the pandemic, Palo Alto is eyeing more modest improvements for its capital program in the years ahead, with the reconstructions of the Mitchell Park fire station and the Newell Road bridge topping the city's list of infrastructure priorities.

At the same time, the city's five-year capital plan now includes about $175 million for projects that are unlikely to be constructed any time soon: the redesign of the city's rail crossings to separate train tracks from roads.

Even though the city has yet to finalize its design options for grade separation any of the crossings, the new capital plan for 2024-2028 includes $115.1 million for design work on the Meadow Drive and Charleston Road crossings (which are being evaluated in tandem) and $59.3 million for the Churchill Avenue crossing.

"Funding for three grade separations has increased substantially now that preferred alternatives have either been selected or narrowed," Naomi Hsu, a management analyst in the city's budget office, told the council's Finance Committee during its review of the capital budget last month.

The City Council is preparing to approve the capital improvement program as part of its June 19 approval of the city budget for fiscal year 2024. The council's Finance Committee unanimously recommended advancing the plan at its May 9 meeting as part of a broader review of infrastructure priorities.

To date, the council has been struggling to choose preferred alternatives for its rail crossings despite roughly a decade of debate. The process could be further lengthened next week, when the council's Rail Committee considers the option of reinstating a train viaduct as an option at Churchill Avenue, the only crossing where it had actually picked a preferred alternative.

How the money will be spent

The city's capital plan assumes a significant ramp-up in spending on grade separations. It calls for spending $4 million on Churchill grade separations in fiscal year 2024, which begins on July 1, and another $4.4 million in 2025. It would then spend between $16 million and $17 million in each of the following three years. Much of this funding is expected to come from Measure B, the county transportation measure that allocates a total of $700 million to Palo Alto, Mountain View and Sunnyvale for grade separation.

The project is expected to stretch well beyond the plan's five-year horizon. The capital plan assumes that the city would have to spend an additional $136.8 million for the Churchill grade separation, a project that staff is tentatively projecting to cost about $196 million.

Palo Alto is also preparing to spend big on the Meadow and Charleston crossings in south Palo Alto, even though all the expenditures at these crossings would be devoted to design costs. The city is preparing to spend $6.1 million and $7.6 million over the next two years, respectively, on according to the capital plan. In the following three years, the expenditures would be $33 million per year.

The capital plan expects the Meadow and Charleston grade separations to ultimately cost nearly $400 million and it offers no estimate for when either project would be completed.

Chief Transportation Officer Philip Kamhi told the committee on May 9 that the budget is trying to "not preclude the option of advancing the project into the next phase of design."

"Say we determine that we have a preferred alternative for any of these locations and we want to move it into the next phase, this would make these projects more competitive for federal funds and that might actually allow us to leverage federal funds for these projects," Kamhi said.

While grade separations remain a distant dream, the capital plan includes two limited and tangible near-term improvements near the Churchill rail crossing. Over the next four years, the city is preparing to implement a $9.6 million improvement plan for a segment of Churchill Avenue just west of Alma Street.

According to the budget, the design includes, among other things, traffic signal modifications, street lighting improvements, roadway resurfacing, sidewalk realignment and/or widening, drainage improvements, utility re-locations, signage and striping and way-finding improvements.

West of this area, the city is preparing to install an enhanced two-way bikeway that would run along the north side of Churchill. Between the existing paths at Castilleja Avenue and the Stanford perimeter trail. The project also includes a new westbound right-turn lane at Churchill and El Camino Real.

During its review of the budget, the council strongly supported the Churchill improvements, with committee Chair Pat Burt also urging staff to consider safety measures east of Alma Street, citing the large number of students who bike all along the corridor.

"It is chaotic and highly dangerous and until you see it in person it's an abstraction, but I think it's something that we really need to address," Burt said.

Other projects in the capital budget

Altogether, the five-year capital program for 2024-28 envisions $1.2 million in spending, which includes $432.2 million on projects that do not involve utilities, vehicle replacements or otherwise benefit the city's enterprise funds. The $432.2-million fund encompasses 91 projects, including Fire Station 4 and Newell Bridge.

While transportation projects will take up a larger share of the capital budget this year than in the past, the budget also suggests that Palo Alto's recent building boom for public facilities is winding down. The city has largely finished implementing the list of infrastructure priorities that the City Council identified in 2014, which includes the recently constructed bike bridge at Adobe Creek over U.S. Highway 101, a rebuilt fire station at Rinconada Park, a large new parking garage near California Avenue and a new police headquarters that is now being built near garage on Sherman Avenue.

The city has also mostly wrapped up the streetscape project at the Charleston/Arastradero corridor, though officials have yet to repave the corridor section near El Camino Real (they are waiting for a sewer replacement project to be completed in this area before doing the paving).

The last major project on the list is the reconstruction of Fire Station 4 at Mitchell Park, a facility that has been deemed undersized and functionally obsolete. The project will cost about $15.3 million, with the city preparing to spend $10 million in 2024 and $5 million in 2025. It is also benefitting from a $5.2 million state grant.

Another long-planned infrastructure project that will advance this year is the reconstruction of the Newell Road bridge between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto – a key step in a regional plan to improve flood control around the San Francisquito Creek. The capital budget indicates that the $26-million project will be completed by fiscal year 2025.

The budget largely shies away, however, from making any big commitments to redevelopment of Cubberley Community Center, an aged but critical 35-acre hub in south Palo Alto that is jointly owned by the city and the Palo Alto Unified School District. In recent months, the two entities have been discussing ways for the city, which owns 8 acres, to increase its share of the community center to support a redevelopment plan.

While the city has a dedicated fund for Cubberley upkeep, the five-year budget does not commit any significant funds for new facilities. The only two capital projects that involve Cubberley are the replacement of the HVAC system in the community center's gym and replacing the synthetic turf at Cubberley's playing fields.

Palo Alto resident Ken Horowitz, a long-time advocate for redeveloping Cubberley, told the committee during its review that he was disappointed by the lack of progress in fixing up the dilapidated center.

"How do we feel about our kids running around in a facility that's relatively unsafe?" Horowitz asked. "What happens if there's an earthquake, a fire, etc.? We need to do something about it. We can't push it any further."

But staff and the committee noted that any type of full-scale rebuild of Cubberley would depend on two things: getting the needed land and finding a revenue stream to fund the improvements. Burt said this may include debt financing or a new income source.

"Council and the community have not moved forward yet on such a major endeavor, and it's certainly recognized that it's very much on the horizon."