So let’s count the ways in which our city turns away grant & federal dollars while appeasing it’s high end SFHOwners. Delaying track train plans because of sea level rise? Uh wait. CC overwhelmingly votes in favor of what? 4000 homes on the bay shore, transitional housing units on the Bay Shore and two waste water plants on the Bay Shore — where the water will lap like Fukushima meltdown in a flood, quake. Yet cannot decide on track grade design 1 1/2 miles from said Bay Shore because of Sea Level rise??? What a ironic farce. Throwing down the toilet once again good money for bad leadership and private interests !

Isn't it telling that the CC gets awarded grants (Hooray!) and the first reaction is "oh no. now we need to actually execute. this isn't going to go well." How embarrassing.

Grade separation is a good thing. Its necessary. A temporary change in traffic patterns is exactly that, temporary.

Does the City and School District talk to each other?

In fact, does the writer of this article talk to the writer of the article about the new bike path on Churchill?

Is Churchill now being thought of as a bike blvd?

Traffic patterns in this city are happening every day. Charleston has been changed, now San Antonio is overloaded. !01 has been changed - did they all think that rush hour traffic would go away? Oregon at rush hour is fully filled up. If you add more people then you add more traffic - people cannot live here for free - they have to go to work.

I saw them building a loop under the ECR / tracks up in San Bruno area. They supported the construction with RR ties and got is done in record time. But the "tunnel" is for autos and small trucks only - no big buses or big trucks - there is a height limitation. This can be done fairly quickly - San Mateo County appears to move out fast and get good results.

To be fair Caltrain in San Mateo County is on an elevated piece of land with parking at street level. RWC is at street level. Each city has a different elevation of the tracks so no one solution for all.

The major obstacle to implementing grade separations in South Palo Alto is not Palo Alto but Caltrain. They have not been willing to commit to two tracks in South Palo Alto even though all current plans are for two tracks. They prefer grade separations designed for four tracks which could double the cost and require far more property acquisitions. That would provoke much more opposition from those losing their homes with little ability to find replacement homes in Palo Alto. Eminent domain seizures would increase costs and time of construction dramatically. If Caltrain would only commit permanently to their own 20 yearly plans, grade separations would be quickly approved and constructed. This is all dependent on Caltrain’s agreement to review plans for feasibility and compatibility with their own plans. Will they use their existing plans or insist that Palo Alto grade crossings accommodate some far future plan of four tracks in south Palo Alto that is highly unlikely to happen due to the financial cost and local opposition to Caltrain’s need to seize housing and/or two to three lanes of Alma to implement four tracks? Caltrain right of way shrinks to 60 feet around E. Meadow. Four tracks require a minimum of 100 ft plus more for construction.

Having moved to Half Moon Bay in June of this year I'm enjoying a cooler climate but missing the sounds of train whistles and the occasional rattle of those steel wheels on the tracks.

I've suggested before that the least expensive way to "solve" these railroad / automobile interchanges is with concrete barricades. They're cheap and there are a lot of old ones around. You could install them in a morning and voila, all issues are solved. (PS: Leave a small space for students and bicycles to pass by).

As alluded to near the end of the story, there will not be an increase in number of trains in the foreseeable future. Since the current crossings are working fine, it seems the least disruptive and cheapest option is to put off grade separation for at least another decade or two.

Only 9 months to make a decision that has been contemplated for a decade? Preposterous!

The continued existence of at-grade crossings of a busy railroad in the 21st century is unacceptable. San Carlos and Belmont did it years ago. Palo Alto can, too. Just do it! Hey, Menlo Park. Pay attention! The problems and challenges are the same.

A gift that could add some urgency to the project!!!!! I do not think the city understands what urgency means or possibly it means within a given century or two. Dither Dither Dither.

Sunnyvale is in motion with a Caltrain grade separation project: I happened to see it in the city’s newsletter sent to residents. If I can locate an online reference, I’ll post it. They’re taking ACTION.

@Stayinhome nailed it. If this was about the freeway going through Oakland in 1952, no problem. Losing six houses on a train corridor in PA for climate friendly trains is akin to the Oppenheimer’s Atom Bomb? Oregon expressway took out multitudes of PA houses. What’s left? A quaint outdated, ghostly sign saying “California Street Shopping District” and a gazillion Tesla’s limping by.

While the city manager runs city operations it is the responsibility of the council to set policy. Can't the council vote to take the money and then direct the city manager - in clear and unambiguous language - to make the completion of the needed work his staff's highest priority?

Oh. Wait. That would mean other projects might be delayed and some group or another might get upset and we can't have that can we.

Marie lays it out nicely in her post. As I read matters, until Caltrain makes clear that HSR will not be pushed through the Peninsula, thus relieving Palo Alto of the burden of choosing a locally preferred option that would not *exclude* a 4-track configuration at some future time to accommodate the vanishingly likely possibility that HSR will terminate in downtown San Francisco, this city will be artificially limited in its choice of grade crossing options.

Caltrain/HSR requires that no grade separation solution may preclude four tracks on the ROW. That ship has sailed, so what's left for Caltrain to decide?

The ROW is wide enough for four tracks in some places and too narrow in others. Caltrain cannot exceed the existing boundaries of the ROW without acquiring land from CPA. Caltrain wants two additional passing tracks somewhere on the ROW. They need to pick a track configuration where the ROW is wide enough for the additional tracks. Again, this needs to be within the existing ROW boundaries. No further decision making by Caltrain is needed.

How CPA implements grade separation is up to the city. CPA has been chasing its tail on this for 10+ years with no viable solution to show for it, despite engaging three different engineering firms, holding countless community-outreach meetings and appointing several rail committees to study the matter. That we haven't got a workable plan after lo this many years is due to CPA's indecision, not Caltrain's or CA HSR's.

I am not understanding why the City applied for time-sensitive grants, knowing the decisions about grade separation have not been made. Is that SOP?

Q to CC: unless doing nothing is a viable option, shouldn't we do as Bill Bucy suggests: make a decision (finally) and make grant-compliance a priority? We are repeatedly told that we must pay top-tier salaries to hire and retain top-tier personnel, particularly at the senior staff level. So we do. And yet we have an unacceptable list of problems. To name just a few: the Planning & Development Department makes people crazy (and has done so for years), our housing element is not in compliance, and now we are concerned about accepting $30M in grants b/c the necessary work might not get done. This doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Re: " unless doing nothing is a viable option" Isn't it, given that train numbers won't be increasing as thought, but instead decreasing? Not throwing good money after bad and all that. Or is there perhaps some law/directive that we have to grade separate all crossings no matter what?

"is there perhaps some law/directive that we have to grade separate all crossings no matter what?"

There seems to be, in the minds of city officials and the rail committee. AFAIK they have never given the "do nothing" option serious consideration.