As Palo Alto moves toward a December decision on the best way to separate the rail tracks from local streets, city leaders are starting to winnow down their list of options and discarding those deemed too costly, unsightly or disruptive.
The City Council’s goal is to narrow down the current list, which has 34 options, to about 16, before ultimately choosing between four and eight for an in-depth study. On Wednesday morning, the council’s Rail Committee generally endorsed this approach as part a wide-ranging discussion about the different alternatives.
The list of 16, which is slated to go to the City Council on May 7, is just as notable for what’s not in it as for what is. None of the choices include a citywide project — a key omission for those who have long clamored for a trench or a tunnel from one end of the city’s 4-mile corridor to another. Though a citywide tunnel has not been technically excluded from consideration, staff and the Rail Committee have been backing away from this alternative because of its high cost and potential for significant construction disruption and traffic impacts.
Among the drawbacks for a citywide trench or tunnel is the need to create temporary tracks on Alma Street during construction, which would require closure of parts or all of Alma to traffic.
The list does, however, include an assortment of more modest proposals, some of which bely the commonly stated notion of grade separation as one of the biggest infrastructure projects in Palo Alto’s history. Three of the 16 are “no build” options, which include minor safety upgrades like quad gates, which bars access to the tracks when a train is arriving.
The 16 alternatives include four different options for the Palo Alto Avenue crossing and four for Churchill Avenue crossing. The remaining eight design options in the staff list pertain to grade crossings at Meadow Drive (five) and Charleston Road (three).
At Palo Alto Avenue, two of the options on the table call for simply closing the grade crossing, in combination with either a new bike-pedestrian path on Everett Avenue or a widened University Avenue (Chief Transportation Official Josh Mello said the city can also consider doing both). A third would create a viaduct structure over the tracks, to Menlo Park. The fourth would limit improvements to quad gates and creation of a quiet zone.
The four options proposed at Churchill are:
• Closing the grade crossing in conjunction with either a widened Embarcadero Road
• A new bike-pedestrian path at Seale Avenue.
• Reconstructing the grade crossing so that Churchill goes under the tracks.
• A “no build” alternative that includes “minor safety improvements” that would eliminate the need for train horns.
At Meadow Drive, one solution would close the crossing and create a bike-pedestrian underpass at Loma Verde Avenue. Two others would reconstruct Meadow under the tracks (what staff is calling the “hybrid” option), one in conjunction with the Loma Verde underpass and one without the underpass. The fourth is the “no build” alternative, while the fifth is the most ambition option on the table: a rail trench under both Meadow and Charleston Road.
The list also includes three alternatives for Charleston, two of which call for placing the road under rail (in one case, along with Meadow; and the other, without Meadow). The last option would create a trench just at the Charleston crossing.
The difficulty of constructing a trench or a tunnel in the northern half of the 4-mile corridor was highlighted last month in a white paper from the city’s consulting firm, Mott MacDonald. In addition to construction costs that would exceed $2 billion, these alternatives could have significant operation and maintenance costs, Mello told the committee.
Caltrain and Union Pacific, the freight operator, are not interested in operating a trench, which could curb their opportunities for future expansion, Mello said. This could leave the city on the hook for the ongoing operation and maintenance, he said.
Elevating trains over roads would bring its own challenges, including significant visual impacts and privacy concerns.
“There are people along the corridor who are concerned that train riders will look into their backyard over their fencing, and they’d lose some of the privacy they have,” Mello said.
Notably, the only options on the list of 16 that call for trains over roads are “hybrid” alternatives that combine the raising of the tracks with lowering of roads, including Alma.
To narrow down the list, staff relied largely on the criteria that the council approved last year, though officials also tacked on three new criteria. The most important factors that were considered in scoring the options were their ability to facilitate movement for all modes of transportation; to reduce delay and congestion; to improve bicycle and pedestrian connectivity across the corridor; and to improve rail operations.
Other factors that were considered (but deemed less critical) centered on noise reduction, visual impacts, construction impacts, estimated community support and the need to acquire properties near the right-of-way.
Options that were deemed financially infeasible or impossible to construct under existing technical standards were also discarded as “fatally flawed.”
The Rail Committee didn’t formally adopt the list of 16 options, though several members said they support staff’s method for narrowing down the options. They also offered a few other ideas that they want staff to look at, including closing the Churchill Avenue grade crossing and creating at Churchill a bicycle-and-pedestrian underpass.
Not everyone, however, is convinced that the new list fairly represents the desires of the community. Resident Steven Rosenblum, who earlier this month attended a community meeting on trenching and tunneling, suggested that the city has moved too quickly to eliminate the most ambitious options: trenching and tunneling.
Rosenblum disagreed with staff’s conclusion that a trench or a tunnel is not feasible and pointed to the central tunnel project in San Francisco, a $1.9 billion extension of the city’s subway system between Chinatown and the Caltrain station at 4th and King streets. About half of the cost is being borne by the federal government, while the rest comes from state, regional and local sources.
The city has also considered the idea of “value capture” to pay for the tunnels, the idea that it can sell development rights over the tunnel to finance its construction. Ultimately, staff and Rail Committee members concluded that this method is unlikely to succeed in raising the type of funding that would be needed for a citywide trench or tunnel.
“To come anywhere close, we’re talking about a wall of eight-story buildings,” Scharff said Wednesday.
The Rail Committee is scheduled to further narrow down the list in June, at which point it will select one or two alternatives for each of the four grade crossings, for a total of four to eight.
Related content:
Close East Meadow, grade separate Charleston under the tracks, and convert Charleston back into a 4-lane 35-mph road. Cancel the crazy Charleston corridor project.
1. Block all three crossing at Churchill, Meadow and Charleston.
2. Build Bike/ped crossings under Churchill and Meadow include Alma.
3. Improvements at Oregon and Embacadero.
“city leaders are starting to winnow down their list of options and discarding those deemed too costly, unsightly or disruptive.”
That pretty much rules out everything.
I’m just waiting for transportation guru Josh Mello to propose building giant bulb outs that force trains, cars, and bikes to all share the train tracks peacefully.
Car drivers and bike riders merely have to learn to “take the lane” from the trains.
“Among the drawbacks for a citywide trench or tunnel is the need to create temporary tracks on Alma Street during construction, which would require closure of parts or all of Alma to traffic.” – This is a pure falsehood, it seems to me that someone in charge is deliberately stacking the deck against tunnel / trench, the solution that the community has preferred when polled numerous times.
Off the top of my head, here are a few simple ways that “temporary tracks on Alma Street” can be avoided:
– Do construction on nights and weekends when Caltrain is closed or lightly used.
– Start digging at Castro St on one side and University Ave on the other side. At most you would need a few tens of feet of temporary track, the rest of the disruption would be underground.
– Close pieces of track on a temporary basis and bridge the gap with busses.
These are basic solutions that any middle schooler could come up with. Who seriously proposed “temporary tracks on Alma Street”?
But as long as we’re considering terrible solutions that nobody rational would ever consider, I guess we can’t build over / under Meadow, because “the need to create temporary Meadow Rd on top of Mitchell Park / schools / hundreds of houses during construction, which would require closure of Mitchell Park / schools / hundreds of houses”.
We’re actually going to put this project in the hands of the group that can’t manage a basic task such as parking permits or timing traffic lights? Hope is lost.
@Juan,
Are you an engineer, or did you just stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night? I can’t tell based on your suggestions for making a citywide tunnel more practical.
As for the Palo Alto Ave crossing, as a resident of Downtown North who uses that crossing all the time, I can say that I’d personally always vote to at least have the choice of waiting there. The idea of shutting it down seems pointless. What would we gain from that?
The included map purports to show all present crossings, including bike and pedestrian tunnels like the one at Homer. Looks to me like they forgot the tunnel at California Ave.
“The idea of shutting it down seems pointless. What would we gain from that?”
I can’t figure that one out, either. Leaving the crossings as is with the gates up except when a train is crossing would be preferable to closing them completely and losing all cross-town connectivity over the affected street permanently.
To bury the tracks in a trench you have to take up both tracks and relocate them on the trench floor. This requires what are called “shoofly tracks” to divert trains around the construction area. Caltrains barreling down Alma street on shoofly tracks are but one fly in the ointment of trenching/tunneling.
My vote is to start with a trench at both Charleston and Meadow and make a park and bike path around the track in that area. It is easy to do there because it is wider.
To work northward areas that are already grade separated like Page Mill road and Embarcadero would need to be reconfigured to continue with the trench and that might take some time. But if the city was focused on the project (a big IF), then the entire span could slowly be trenched to include Page Mill, Embarcadero, Chruchill and University and then the park/bike path and trenched trains could extend the entire length of the city. The Alma street crossing may be tricky due to the creek and the close distance to the Menlo park station.
This would be a wonderful addition to the open space and livability of the city. It would keep the trains in the ground and quiet. And a trench is much cheaper than a tunnel, lets fresh air in and people out in case of emergency, and give us the option of many crossings over the top to add connectivity to the city.
The Stanford GUP should not be approved by theCounty supervisors without a HEFTY requirement that Stanford contribute MILLIONS and MILLIONS to the Tunneling of Caltrain. The proposed growth is a 100% dependent on Caltrain and the negative impacts of traffic increases are not able to be mitigated at all.
The city should impose business tax that creates Millions and Millions over time to pay for tunneling Caltrain.
Any other approach is unacceptable. The Residents of Palo Alto should not have to pay again and again for developers and Stanford to get richer while their needs are ignored and the city leaders are planning for their very homes to be taken from them.
Enough we are tired of the incessant preferential treatment to the few at the expense of the many.
We need accountability from Council members and City managers, and a renewed commitment to serve all the people of Palo Alto not just the billionaire developers and Stanford University.
How about just having high speed rail stop in San Jose instead of San Francisco? Then use the existing Caltrain service to take any who want to go to SF there. Or Uber’s self driving cars… Or hovercraft, which might just be a reality before this project is complete.
“How about just having high speed rail stop in San Jose instead of San Francisco? Then use the existing Caltrain service to take any who want to go to SF there.”
I don’t think you quite understand the problem, Allen.
The problem is not about HSR coming up the peninsula; it is what to do about the streets in Palo Alto that traverse the Caltrain tracks as they have for over 150 years.
South Palo Alto is a LARGE neighborhood. In my household, we cross the tracks at least two to four times a day between commuting to work, running errands, or going to synagogue.
Why have so many people urged the closure of the Charleston and Meadow intersections? Are they willing to solve our problem by transporting us across the tracks themselves every time we need it?
The Rail Committee should be dismissed and each be given a can of band aids. Apparently that’s all they want.
“city’s consulting firm, Mott MacDonald.”
Isn’t Mott MacDonald the consulting firm used by high speed rail to consult for them? In which case where there are judgement calls there might be a conflict of interest. Why did the city choose them?
Also, those who have suggestions for how the land could be used if the tracks are tunnelled need to keep in mind Palo Alto does not own the land. CalTrans does, and they are highly unlikely to sell it.
Flying Trains,
“Leaving the crossings as is with the gates up except when a train is crossing would be preferable to closing them completely and losing all cross-town connectivity over the affected street permanently.”
My understanding is that unfortunately the planned number and length of the commuter trains, one every few minutes, will effectively shut down the crossings. Perhaps the crossings could be closed during the hours when there is heavy commute traffic, which would cause gridlock for blocks, but open during the non commute hours. Also, if the crossings remain open during commute hours the backup could be a nightmare for residents of those streets.
I know Mott MacDonald has done work for VTA. Don’t know about HSR.
“keep in mind Palo Alto does not own the land. CalTrans does, and they are highly unlikely to sell it.”
The land is owned by PCJPB, Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, a consortium of San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties through which Caltrain passes. But you are correct; they are highly unlikely to sell it. In addition, PCJPB will have to approve any plans involving their land or their tracks such as placing them in a trench, tunnel, viaduct or hybrid crossing. To my knowledge, no one from CPA has reached out to PCJPB/Caltrain to find out if they would approve any of the options in principle.
If you built an overpass over the tracks, such as at San Antonio, the tracks would not be touched. You might need to coordinate construction with Caltrain.
“Perhaps the crossings could be closed during the hours when there is heavy commute traffic, which would cause gridlock for blocks, but open during the non commute hours. Also, if the crossings remain open during commute hours the backup could be a nightmare for residents of those streets.”
How does this solve anything? Your plan would be a nightmare for people trying to drive across the tracks.
Check your assumptions about the crossings being “effectively closed” during rush hour. The gates will come down more frequently with more trains, but I have yet to see a proposed timetable from Caltrain for service under an electrified ROW, have you?
What might help a little bit is no turns across the tracks from Alma st. during the hours of, say, 6am to 9am and from 3pm to 7pm. You could still cross the tracks as long as it doesn’t require a turn from Alma st and are going straight through.
Close all three, think of the GLORIOUS Traffic Calming affect! Cheap, easy fast!
Perfect solution! Gets my vote!
Now that sanity is starting to prevail, a lot of Rip Van Winkles are coming out of the woodwork showing they have not been paying attention.
Not understanding when and why shoofly tracks would be required
Not understanding who owns the right of way
Not understanding this project is not about HSR but electrification of Caltrain
Not understanding the frequency of Caltrain once electrified
Over the last few years, this information and much more has been widely and continuously publicized.
There is no reason for people to come forward at this late date with incorrect factual information.
Thank you to those posters who take the time to set the No-Nothings straight.
As problematic as city government is, it makes you wonder whether citizen involvement is a net positive. Citizens should try to inform themselves before throwing opinions based on fantasy.
Maybe somebody with time on their hands could prepare a list of the most common misconceptions about this issue and it could be posted as boiler plate response to these Johnny-come-latelys.
Would the city please provide us residents crossing data for each crossing? in chart/graph form showing numbers of crossings per day, every day, over at least a two month period, and even down to crossings per hour during that period. It would help us understand the magnitude of the problem better I think, especially those commenters who have opined on the subject and offered solutions. Once presented with some facts they might think differently. If Meadow is closed, where will that traffic flow? I would guess most of it to Charleston and a little to Oregon and San Antonio. Now that all the combinations have been considered, it’s most important to evaluate the impact/consequences of each of the candidate options. If the bike lobby has its way there will only be bike crossings and nothing for cars. Blowing $8 M on Ross is one thing…but blowing $1.5 B on grade separation is another.
@chris
Well said. It would be nice if all the online experts would provide credentials…I assume they have advanced degrees in civil engineering, transportation, or some other related fields.
It’s time for an innovative Palo Alto solution. Close all the crossings: that will force people to use bicycles. Tremendous progress on 2 fronts at once!
Based on the last environmental impact statement I saw, part of Alma Street will be closed during any construction. All of Alma cannot he closed nor Alma lowered unless all of the properties along Alma are acquired. If I have no access to Alma, my house is uninhabitable. One 50 food wide property near Loma Verde just sold for $1.65M. Do the math. If there is a trench or tunnel, it would be much more likely that Alma would lose access to cross streets. I for one, could live with that.
None of the proposals include the cost of land acquisition. Backups into surrounding neighborhoods are already happening and are likely to continue and worsen no matter what choices are made. By not forming a coalition with surrounding cities, Palo Alto has lost much negotiating power. Our choices are now limited to bad and horrible. Closing a crossing will simply move backups to other neighborhoods. The number of cars, given increased offices and housing, is unlikely to decrease even if the % of single person commutes decreases. Electrifying Caltrain only increases capacity 10%, which is just as well as we have no additional parking for new commuters.
My recommendations: No more development should be approved unless it reduces the existing worker/resident imbalance. Require Stanford to provide enough housing including moderate income housing for all additional employees, including outsourced ones. They should also provide temporary housing for construction workers hired to work on Stanford land who do not have local housing, reducing the RV parking on our streets.
High density housing should be zoned for within 1/2 mile of every 280 exit accompanied by a commuter bus system, private and public, going to the most likely workplaces, Stanford Research Park, Google etc. it is the only significant way Facebook and Google etc have reduced single car commutes.
Bring back school busses to eliminate parental drop offs at our schools, most of which are not as walkable due to increased enrollment and magnet schools.
The rail corridor presents very complex challenges. It’s time for citizens to get involved, get informed, and get the off of social media, where misinformation and unproductive spiteful barbs seem to rule the day.
It would also be helpful if our local paper dedicated some issues to full-out, detailed coverage of our options to help educate the community about the challenges we are facing. This is an important problem that has NO easy solution.
Let’s work together to understand the multitude of problems and benefits related to the various options and work toward creating consensus around solutions that work best. There will be no perfect or easy solution. This is going to be very hard and it will REQUIRE the active, THOUGHTFUL and collaborative (not combative) engagement of citizens to get it right. Every city on the rail corridor is struggling with this in some way. We are not alone, but we are behind in our decision-making process.
Attend some of the community meetings. Meet other residents face-to-face to TALK about options. Work TOGETHER toward consensus. This is how democracy works.
@Gale, Caltrain schedule available on-line. Weekday mornings about 10 trains cross Meadow during the 7 o’clock hour and 10 more in the 8 o’clock hour. About half northbound, half southbound. Actual train times vary, often running 5 to 10 minutes late, else I could be more precise. For each train, the crossing gates are closed 45 to 50 seconds, during which parallel automobile traffic may flow on an Alma green light.
But even with no trains at all, cars on Meadow face 25 red stop-lights per hour for Alma traffic. Greens come only once about every two and a half minutes, depending on left-turn demand and whether someone has pushed the walk-light button.
“Now that sanity is starting to prevail, a lot of Rip Van Winkles are coming out of the woodwork showing they have not been paying attention.
Not understanding when and why shoofly tracks would be required
Not understanding who owns the right of way
Not understanding this project is not about HSR but electrification of Caltrain
Not understanding the frequency of Caltrain once electrified
Over the last few years, this information and much more has been widely and continuously publicized.
There is no reason for people to come forward at this late date with incorrect factual information.”
Exactly right. Isn’t it a great idea to let the public solve a very complicated problem with 101 gotchas at every turn?
“Thank you to those posters who take the time to set the Know-Nothings straight.
As problematic as city government is, it makes you wonder whether citizen involvement is a net positive. Citizens should try to inform themselves before throwing opinions based on fantasy.”
Absolutely.
I’m sure those people are getting tired of posting the same corrections to the same flawed ideas that have appeared here and have been shot down dozens of times over the past several years. It is appalling that citizens are so ignorant of a project in their own back yards that could cost multi millions or even a couple of billion dollars.
Two big ones to add to your list:
Not understanding that the right of way passes into another municipality to the south and crosses the county line and passes into yet another municipality to the north.
Not understanding that closing the crossings will make automobile traffic congestion WORSE, not better. The putative reason for grade separation is to improve the flow of automobile traffic, which everyone complains is getting worse and worse, by separating trains from cars. I am dumbfounded that CPA is even taking this idea seriously but apparently they are.
Add a couple of basic tenets:
The trains are not going away. They’ve been here for 150+ years. Even though the land is within the city limits, CPA does not own the tracks or the land, nor does the state of California nor CalTrans.
Trains always have the right of way by federal law. All proposed solutions (and non-solutions) must adhere to this tenet and allow the trains to move unimpeded.
The ROW is used for freight as well as for Caltrain.
“Would the city please provide us residents crossing data for each crossing?”
You might find that data if you scour the CPA web site.
“Close all the crossings: that will force people to use bicycles. Tremendous progress on 2 fronts at once!”
Another idea straight out of fantasyland.
A “wall” of eight-story buildings doesn’t make sense on the tracks. But what about selling housing development rights downtown and on Cal Ave to make money? We already have several eight-story apartment buildings in downtown – adding more wouldn’t change the character of downtown, and it would fix the housing problem while we are at it.
“None of the proposals include the cost of land acquisition.”
To the extent that a proposed solution will require additional land, you are correct.
At $2 million per residential parcel, and taking residential properties is a non-starter.
“It’s time for citizens to get involved, get informed, and get the off of social media, where misinformation and unproductive spiteful barbs seem to rule the day.”
Palo Alto is at least 10 years behind the curve. The city has done little besides stall and drag its feet while other communities have had grade separation for years. Prop. 1a approved HSR bonds and was passed in 2008. It is now 2018, so 10 years is about right. It wasn’t until last year that the city began to involve citizens, 9 years since Prop. 1a was passed. Now the HSR express is bearing down on the peninsula, headed for Palo Alto, and we don’t have the first clue how to separate the trains from the autos.
Caltrain electrification is not merely a gift to the peninsula. It is preparation for HSR which will share the Caltrain tracks under the “blended approach” and which will rquire an electrified right-of-way. With any luck the next governor will rein in HSR.
Many times I have seen people come here and post outright lies and engage in fear mongering to advance their agenda.
“Bring back school busses to eliminate parental drop offs at our schools, most of which are not as walkable due to increased enrollment and magnet schools.”
Great idea and extend it to companies as well as schools. Anything to reduce the number of cars on the road.
Cripes, when I went to Walter Hays, Jordan and Paly we either walked or rode bikes. Parental drop-offs were unheard of. No, we didn’t take horses and buggies to school 🙂
Close all the crossings. No cost. Build housing on the leftover road stubs. Makes money. Cut off businesses move out, jobs housing improves. What more could we want.
Pragmatist of University South wrote:
“A “wall” of eight-story buildings doesn’t make sense on the tracks. But what about selling housing development rights downtown and on Cal Ave to make money? We already have several eight-story apartment buildings in downtown – adding more wouldn’t change the character of downtown, and it would fix the housing problem while we are at it.”
———-
Why don’t you propose doing this in *your* neighborhood? I live in the heart of downtown and the character of downtown, as well as my quality of life, has been continually degraded by the constant development.
“Electrifying Caltrain only increases capacity 10%”
That is the initial increase in just the peak hour seated capacity, which is the statistic you would cherry pick if you wanted to low-ball the capacity increase enabled by electrification.
It does not include the large increase in standee capacity, nor does it include adding more than six cars per train (currently in the works) or more than six trains per hour (also being considered if HSR is further delayed).
As Caltrain grows its peak service from a bit less than 6 cars x 5 trains per hour per direction to 8 cars x 8 trains per hour per direction, its passenger carrying capacity will more than double. In 2016, Caltrain carried the equivalent of 2.7 maximally-flowing freeway lanes through Palo Alto (http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2017/08/freeway-lanes-of-caltrain.html), and it is perfectly reasonable to imagine it growing to the carrying capacity of an 8-lane freeway. All this before adding the first inch of passing tracks. THIS is why Caltrain is now being electrified, not some piddly 10% increase.
What exact grade separation scheme Palo Alto eventually decides on, and when, doesn’t much matter in the big picture, other than for local road traffic flowing around the vital high-capacity Palo Alto transportation link that is the peninsula rail corridor. Part of the reason for the analysis paralysis that the city is experiencing is the lack of a real deadline and the lack of immediate consequences. It will be perfectly okay to argue about it for another decade.
Before Caltrain introduced the “Baby Bullet” service back in 2004, Caltrain was serving 27,000 daily riders. By 2014, it was serving over 60,000 riders. Most trains during the commute hours in the morning are standing room only, particularly the express service (good luck getting a seat).
If electrification and the other improvements such as positive train control have the same impact (which in all likelihood it will), we’ll probably see 120,000 daily riders on Caltrain by 2030. That’s going to be achieved by more frequent, longer trains which are able to start and stop more quickly.
As someone who both crosses the tracks (by bike and by car), and who rides Caltrain daily, it seems incongruous to me that the “do nothing” options are still on the table. Traffic gets so snarled up on Meadow at 8am that it can often take 3 cycles of the lights to get onto Alma with traffic backed up almost to El Camino Way. If the gates are down more frequently, that’s going to spill back onto El Camino Real. Clearly that’s not going to work.
It might be wise to divide the grade-separation project into two phases.
Phase I would grade separate Charleston and Meadow. This solution would run from San Antonio north almost to Matadero creek. It could be a trench, a tunnel, a viaduct, underpasses, overpasses or hybrid grade separations.
Phase II would encompass Churchill and Palo Alto Ave. Both of these crossings are problem cases due to limited space. Churchill is in close proximity to many residences. Both are north of crossings which are already grade separated. Palo Alto Avenue is in close proximity to the creek, the county line, the city limit and El Palo Alto, as well as the Palo Alto station. It would be unnecessarily costly to re-engineer and reconstruct the Oregon, Embarcadero and University crossings.
My thinking is that approaching grade separation one phase at a time would expedite designing, funding and construction, at least for Phase I.
@Patrick, I’m occasionally caught in that exact 8am traffic snarl on Meadow, heading home after pulling an all-nighter at work and having an early breakfast at Hobee’s. Often wondered where all those drivers are going and why not north or south on El Camino to Oregon or San Antonio before crossing town. I assume regularly scheduled drivers have tried everything and settled on the optimal route. Maybe there are hundreds more jobs in the residential areas of south Palo Alto than I realize.
At any rate, there’d be a snarl even in the absence of trains. Some data from a few months ago: eastbound Meadow got a green light at 7:46:33, 7:48:53, 7:51:09, 7:53:43, 7:56:08. No trains throughout that sequence. I don’t have the durations of the greens, but they are pretty short as you know, the full cycle accommodates all the thru and left-turn traffic movements including pedestrian walk-lights.
When a train comes, if I recall correctly, signal preemption gives eastbound Meadow a green immediately before the gates come down, letting only one or two cars (per lane) cross Alma during that cycle. But then the next green comes more quickly after the train has passed. I can’t help thinking that more creative signal timing would minimize the effect of additional trains, since Alma will have the green half the time anyway.
Just talking about traffic throughput here. The safety aspect of full grade separation is a different discussion. I’d assume unfortunately that the accidental accident rate would scale linearly with number of trains, though not with the length of each train. I won’t speculate about the accident-on-purpose rate.
A bike crossing at Seale is a great idea. Seale goes into Peers Park. The kids could get to school this way and it would be very safe. More people could easily access Peers Park, which has a parking problem. Then we could close or limit Churchill crossings per some of the suggestions above. Churchill crossings are already limited in the morning to allow kids on bikes to cross safely to Paly.
Raise a 20 feet wall on either side of the tracks and cover it up ( create an over the ground tunnel ) ..
“Raise a 20 feet wall on either side of the tracks and cover it up ( create an over the ground tunnel )”
How does this facilitate automotive cross traffic?
@musical I can’t speak for others, but I’m usually biking my kids to school. When it rains, I usually drive them, but it often takes longer and that’s when things get really snarled up. My guess for others is they’re trying to get to Fairmeadow or JLS.
In terms of green lights, some days it does seem to go quickly, and others it takes forever. Today it took me close to 20 minutes to drive from Barron Park to Mid-town at around 3:30pm due to two trains crossing before the green light activated.
@Patrick, thank you for the reply. I attended Wilbur in the 60s.
Closing crossings will force traffic to the remaining crossings. Talking about kicking the traffic can into your neighbors’ front yards!
I don’t live near any of these crossings. If they were to close Churchill – then the traffic would be forced to Embarcadero and the feeders to Embarcadero or down the road to Oregon Expressway and those access points. I’m sure the Churchill area residents would love that. But the impact on their neighbors would be horrible. Like it or not, we need to share the load here.
People don’t want to hear this because “it’s ugly”. But building a berm would be the best way to solve the problem.
“People don’t want to hear this because “it’s ugly”. But building a berm would be the best way to solve the problem.”
Given the myriad intractable problems surrounding this project, Palo Altans may have to swallow their aesthetic pride. If that means berms are the best way to go, then build berms. You can always cover them with clinging vines.
@Gale Johnson
The crossing data can be found here:
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/62379
and here
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/57947
There’s probably better data in a more comprehensive report, but that’s all I could find with a few minutes of searching.
I agree with you, the situation is already bad, and it’s only going to get worse if we don’t build the grade separations. Words like “unclearable queue” are being used!
I’m glad we’re downselecting the options, even if my favorite choice (city wide trench) isn’t in the running. Something needs to get done, and I’m glad our elected officials are doing their best to get it done.
We have an “unclearable queue” waiting for affordable housing.
Posted by Flying Trains, a resident of Old Palo Alto
>>> “People don’t want to hear this because “it’s ugly”. But building a berm would be the best way to solve the problem.”
>> Given the myriad intractable problems surrounding this project, Palo Altans may have to swallow their aesthetic pride. If that means berms are the best way to go, then build berms. You can always cover them with clinging vines.
Ugly, yes. But, we can get used to ugly. The JCC at Charleston and San Antonio, the new College Terrace bank building, etc., will fade into the landscape, just as we got used to the ugly brutalist buildings that are finally starting to get demolished after 50 years. Ugly is an annoyance, but, the issues are far larger than aesthetics alone.
The requirements that are difficult to meet are safety, security, and noise.
Safety with continued freight train traffic– every now and then, well-used freight cars send parts of the undercarriage flying, such as happened a while back near the Charleston crossing. Passenger and nearby resident safety in case of some kind of derailment. When something goes wrong, far better that the right-of-way is below grade rather than elevated.
Security of bicyclists and pedestrians in underpassage areas that are have limited visibility and are therefore tempting to criminals. A modest urban boundary for cars can be a major boundary for pedestrians and bicycles if visibility and security are a problem. Whatever solution is chosen absolutely must be pedestrian and bicycle friendly.
Noise– we have seen a lot of complaints regarding noise due to aircraft, yet, elevating the tracks will create a significant enhancement of noise propagation from the tracks.
It should also be recognized that eventually more tracke will be required on the right-of-way, so, whatever is done should be done in a way that it won’t require another expensive, disruptive reconstruction later.
It is disappointing that there is resistance to addressing all this at the regional level, and, it is very difficult and expensive for one city to try to address it in isolation.
“nearby resident safety in case of some kind of derailment”
When was the last derailment in the 150+ years the ROW has been in existence? I don’t think there has been one. With brand-new, modern rolling stock, a derailment seems even less likely than in your scenario.
As I recall, the flying train pieces awhile back near the Charleston crossing were from the top of an engine, not freight car undercarriage. Might be something else I missed however.
Posted by musical, a resident of Palo Verde
>> As I recall, the flying train pieces awhile back near the Charleston crossing were from the top of an engine, not freight car undercarriage. Might be something else I missed however.
Could be. If so, my mistake. I’ve heard about brake-related parts coming off from old train guys, and, I may have jumped to the conclusion.
Another thread on grade separation?
Boring. Same discussion over and over again. Same people with agendas pushing opinions as facts. Again. And the same HSR supporters from out of town flying in to push their shiny choo-choo train and making sure Palo Alto gets screwed even though there is a 0.0003% chance this thing ever gets built after Jerry “White Elephant” Brown finally leaves Sacramento.
We’re being railroaded by the City. You can tell that the decision has been made by the staff and they’re just going through the motions.
@musical, the only incidents of “flying pieces” have been as the result of smashing into motorists who illegally stop their cars on the train tracks … the latest and growing epidemic is of drivers attempting to follow their GPS systems at night mistakenly turning off crossings and onto the tracks and getting their cars stuck there. It just happened again this last Sunday night. Train #440 was forced to smash into an evacuated vehicle at the Charleston crossing at 10:57 p.m. … the media didn’t say, but since there’s no traffic to speak of at that hour on a Sunday night, I’ll bet the driver mistakenly turned onto the tracks (instead of Alma) and got their car stuck on the tall steel rails.
Lower the crossing street under the tracks with lots of vertical clearance. Dig Alma down to meet it. No turn ramps–they gobble real estate. Put traffic lights at the intersection and stop vehicles at least 100 feet back from the crossing street edge so long vehicles can negotiate their turns. Make speeches, cut ribbons, drive.
Ok, off on that tangent… https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2012/10/10/possible-train-part-catapults-into-palo-alto-car is the October 2012 story about the piece that went flying over the houses near Charleston. Don’t remember whether its identity was ever confirmed.
Some ideas can’t be implemented for legitimate technical reasons, such as building a trench or tunnel all the way to S.F. creek.
So many posts in these threads complain about one aspect or another which do not fall into the category of “legitimate technical reasons”. Some people post outright lies to back their agendas.
There is no shortage of complaints and lies but there is a definite lack of constructive suggestions.
All grade sep solutions will have their detractors but eventually Palo Altans will have to make a decision. They may have to suck it up and put up with an unpopular solution because it is the most practical among the options.
“Lower the crossing street under the tracks with lots of vertical clearance. Dig Alma down to meet it. No turn ramps–they gobble real estate. Put traffic lights at the intersection and stop vehicles at least 100 feet back from the crossing street edge so long vehicles can negotiate their turns.”
What will this do to driveway access for residences on the cross streets near the tracks?
Posted by musical, a resident of Palo Verde
>> Ok, off on that tangent… Web Link is the October 2012 story about the piece that went flying over the houses near Charleston. Don’t remember whether its identity was ever confirmed.
Thanks, musical. The Force is strong with you. Here is the confirmation:
https://paloaltoonline.com/news/2012/10/11/mysterious-object-that-hit-car-confirmed-as-train-part
Longer ago that I recalled. Time waits for no geek. On topic: stuff does come off of freight trains from time to time, according to train old-timers. I would rather not have freight trains overhead.
Okay,so if you want to separate trains, be prepared to pay$500,00,000 PER MILE to put in lower ROW for trains. I guess no one looked or asked RTD Light Rail for their solutions to the problems. Does anyone ever take the time to look at the BART solution to these crossing problems. ( no, I will not go into truths about BART, rubbing your nose in it helps train puppies, not human beings ). It is not cost effective to lower trains below grade level. It is far better and cost effective to raise and electrify Caltrain locomotives. If you want to look at failures, look no farther than the VTA. RTD Rail moves x10 the amount of people every day. Every time I see them there are people standing up to use them AND the bike lockers are full at each residential station.
You know, lowering the tracks will cost everyone TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Raising the tracks and electrifying prime movers solve two problems: quieter trains and no more Diesel stink and pollution. One can even put advertising on the trains to help offset the cost of running them IF YOU DO NOT INSIST BURYING THEM!
@ANON Off topic: Is that like things “ falling off trucks “? ;-)…
“What will this do to driveway access for residences on the cross streets near the tracks?”
Not much, if the city adds at-surface driveway access lanes on either side of the digouts. Might need to encroach into the public property making up the frontmost 2-3 feet of front yards. The owners would lose the thrill of backing out into the commute traffic stream, but they’d probably get used to it over time.
“Not much, if the city adds at-surface driveway access lanes on either side of the digouts. Might need to encroach into the public property making up the frontmost 2-3 feet of front yards.”
You proposed the same basic idea a few weeks ago and were asked to explore it further but you flaked out. As it turns out, streets such as Churchill are far too narrow for your “driveway access lanes” so it is a non-starter.
How is “frontmost 2-3 feet of front yards” public property? You meant to say “private property”.
“You proposed the same basic idea a few weeks ago and were asked to explore it further but you flaked out.”
How do you know that I flaked out, or rather, why do you think you know that? If you have been watching my every move, why not prove it by telling everybody what kind of bike do I ride? Meantime, what have you done to promote what you seem to think is a good idea? It’s out there in public, free for the advocating. Get off that keister. Chop chop.
“As it turns out, streets such as Churchill are far too narrow for your “driveway access lanes” so it is a non-starter.”
Churchill’s too narrow to let the concept work at Meadow and Charleston? What have the conditions at Churchill got to do with startability at Meadow and Charleston? If it won’t work at Churchill don’t try it at Churchill.
“How is “frontmost 2-3 feet of front yards” public property? You meant to say “private property”.”
If you are a front yard owner you own less front yard than you think you own. Amble over to city hall and find out.
Would taking the streets/pedestrian crossing underground or above the tracks be any more complex or expensive?