When the Palo Alto City Council flirted with the idea of building a train viaduct in the south part of the city two years ago, the idea quickly went off the rails.

Neighbors near the Charleston Road and Meadow Drive rail crossings called the proposed elevated structure tall and ugly, an affront to their privacy and a badge of shame for the city.

Keith Reckdahl, who lives in the Charleston Meadows neighborhood and who served on a citizen committee that helped the city winnow down its options for redesigning its rail crossings, cited "almost uniform opposition" from residents to the viaduct.

Another resident, Deborah Ju, suggested in a letter that if the city were to pursue an elevated structure, "future generations will wonder how in the world a city full of smart engineers let this happen."

Most residents rightfully thought the conversation over viaducts had reached its final stop in August 2021, when the council voted 6-1, with council member Alison Cormack dissenting, to officially drop the viaduct from the city's menu of options for the two southernmost crossings.

Council members also showed no appetite for north Palo Alto viaduct, when they unanimously removed it from consideration for the Churchill Avenue crossing the following year.

But on Tuesday, June 20, the council's Rail Committee reopened the debate when it unanimously agreed to include the viaduct at Charleston and Meadow on a list of options that it will submit to Caltrain for review.

At the same time, all three committee members agreed not to resurrect the viaduct idea for the Churchill crossing, where there is far less room for an elevated structure and where properties are expected to be far more severely impacted than in the south.

The idea of bringing back the viaduct was championed in recent months by local bike advocates, including members of the Palo Alto Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. They have been arguing over the past month that the city dropped the option prematurely.

Though the bike advisory committee has not taken a formal vote on rail options, numerous members addressed the council this week and in recent meetings to advocate for the elevated option.

A viaduct does not require ramps, sharp turns and sudden stops for cyclists and pedestrians, who can simply go under the elevated trains when they want to cross the Caltrain corridor, supporters have argued. This stands in contrast to other options for grade separation — the realignment of rail crossings so that train tracks and roads would no longer intersect — which are proposing separate tunnels or indirect pathways for bikes and pedestrians.

Tom Martin, a resident who favors viaducts, also suggested that an elevated structure would create opportunities for "new bike and walking paths and green open space."

"The viaduct is a simple, clean and attractive solution that leaves the city much more interconnected than the hybrid plans," Martin said.

Steve Eittreim also called the viaduct the "simplest solution" on the city's menu list. It may be expensive to construct, but the extra price would be well worth it for the benefit of making Palo Alto a more "livable city," he said.

In 2021, the city's consultant, Aecom, estimated a southern viaduct would cost $400 million to $500 million; a viaduct over Churchill could cost $300 million to $400 million.

He requested that the city hire a new engineering firm to re-evaluate the costs and benefits of a viaduct. And while he acknowledged that many homeowners are concerned about the noise and potential visual blight of a viaduct, he suggested that these worries may be unfounded.

"They may be absolutely wrong on that," Eittreim said. "The noise may be less. The visual images might be much better."

Viaduct: unifying or dividing?

Others strongly opposed revisiting the elevated structure option. While its supporters suggested that the viaduct would improve connectivity, Keri Wagner, a resident of Charleston Meadows, argued that building a viaduct would effectively split the city.

"We already have one division at Oregon Expressway, which makes a clear demarcation between north and south Palo Alto," said Wagner, "The viaduct would make another cut through east and west. I don't think we want to do that."

Residents near Churchill echoed those concerns. Rachel Croft, who lives on Mariposa Street, said she was stunned to learn that the city is reconsidering the viaduct after neighbors and prior council members had vehemently rejected the option. The back of her property is near to the Caltrain tracks, and Croft argued that building a 20-foot-tall viaduct near her home would cause a major disruption and lower her property value.

"The thought of these freight trains and Caltrains passing just above our fence is terrifying, and the loss of privacy and peace in our backyard would be heartbreaking," Croft told the committee.

Costs for trench could exceed $1 billion

The committee agreed not to make any changes at this time to its plans for Churchill, the only rail crossing where the council had adopted a partial underpass for cars as its preferred alternative. Council members also agreed that if that option proves infeasible, they would consider closing Churchill to cars near Alma and creating new pedestrian and bike connections in the area.

Charleston and Meadow, however, are another matter. Though the committee didn't restore the viaduct to the menu of options, the three committee members all agreed to take a fresh look at the studies and arguments that had led to this alternative's elimination.

At the same time, the committee agreed not to have Caltrain review a trench alternative, which remains an option on the council's official list but which remains highly unlikely to be pursued further because of high costs and engineering challenges.

The city had estimated in 2021 that the trench would cost between $800 million and $950 million and given the recent cost increases for all major projects, the price tag could exceed $1 billion. Furthermore, the trench would cross two creeks, requiring the city to build pumping stations to divert the water.

And because Caltrain is still considering the possibility of building a four-track stretch, which may include a portion of south Palo Alto, there are concerns that the trench would preclude that alternative, making it incompatible with the transit agency's plans.

Council member Pat Burt, who chairs the Rail Committee, suggested that picking the most expensive options would make it more difficult for the city to obtain the state and federal grants that would be crucial for the grade-separation projects to proceed.

While the city has about $400 million in county funding earmarked for grade separation thanks to Measure B, it has nowhere near enough funding to actually complete work on all of its rail crossings. And federal and state agencies are less likely to support some of the costlier designs.

"They will help pay for a Chevy, but they're unlikely to help pay for a Cadillac," Burt said Wednesday.

Aside from the trench, the only two other options on the table for Charleston and Meadow are a "hybrid" design that combines elevated trains and car underpasses and a "partial underpass" that would leave the trains in their current alignment but construct new car underpasses and bikeways near the south Palo Alto crossings. The former design would cost between $190 million and $230 million; the latter somewhere between $340 million and $420 million, according to analysis by the city's consultant, Aecom.

While the viaduct remains a longshot because of its high cost and the political opposition surrounding it, committee members agreed that it warrants another look, at least in the south end of the city. Council member Vicki Veenker insisted that the committee is not restoring the viaduct to the menu but merely investigating whether or not the prior decision to remove it was fully informed.

"Because there are concerns it was not," Veenker said.

Committee weren't entirely sold on the merits of the viaduct, including the potential to create greenspace under the structure. Around Churchill, there's simply no room for any type of recreational space (other than in the area of Peers Park, which is already a park). There may be some opportunities near Charleston and Meadow, but these spaces would be very limited and city would need to find ways to create access points to them, according to Nadia Naik, who co-chaired the Expanded Community Advisory Panel, a committee that analyzed all the grade separation alternatives.

Given these challenges, Council member Ed Lauing argued that the city should not think of new greenspace as a significant benefit when considering grade separation options.

"I don't think there's going to be any soccer games underneath these viaducts here," Lauing said.

At the same time, committee members, staff and viaduct proponents suggested that viaduct critics may be overstating the noise and vibration impacts of the elevated structure.

Naik asserted that any grade separation alternative would reduce noise when compared with how the corridor functions today.

"The majority of the noise that occurs today is the constant bells and whistles that happen every time a train preemption goes on and the gates have to come down," Naik said. "So by creating any grade crossing, it doesn't matter what it looks like, you're taking away all those horns and whistles. So that is actually the main reduction."

The committee's unanimous vote means that the council will now have to amend its recently signed contract with Caltrain, which is providing a technical analysis of all of Palo Alto's grade separation alternatives. The council is expected to approve the changes — removal of the trench and reinstatement of the viaduct in south Palo Alto — in August, when it returns from its summer break.