Pat Burt, seeking fourth term on council, provides leadership on transportation

BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer

Palo Alto Councilman Pat Burt wants to shelve plans to separate the Caltrain tracks from the road where they cross at Churchill Avenue.

Instead, Burt wants to focus on more immediate safety measures, like a detection system, wayside horns, new traffic signals and bright red paint where cars shouldn’t stop.

Costs for separating the train tracks from roads, called “grade separations,” have skyrocketed.

Cost estimates for a grade separation at Broadway in Burlingame went from $315 million to $600 million.

That’s left Burt, who is also on the Caltrain and VTA boards, advocating for a different approach.

“There’s a very good possibility we’re going to put off Churchill indefinitely,” Burt said in an interview.

Burt, Palo Alto’s longest tenured official, is seeking his fourth term on council in November. Burt, 72, said he wants to see through nine affordable housing projects that are under construction or in the pipeline, and he wants to deliver on a climate plan that seeks to get rid of natural gas appliances in Palo Alto.

“Budget and policy decisions made in the coming months and years will affect our city’s future for decades to come,” Burt said.

Burt, a three-time mayor, was first elected in 2008. He said he ran in 2020 to restore cuts to the police department and firefighters made during Covid, and to ensure that elected officials, not city employees, lead on key decisions.

Years spent on issue council and various committees have spent years talking about grade separations – anticipating more trains, traffic and gate downtime.

But Caltrain ridership has plummeted since the pandemic at the same time construction costs doubled.

Caltrain officials, including Executive Director Michelle Bouchard, are thinking along the same lines, Burt said.

“Safety and security can be improved very significantly without a grade separation,” said Burt, who is running for re-election. If re-elected, it will be Burt’s fourth term on council he was on council from 2009-2016 and returned in 2020.

Caltrain officials are looking into a system of sensors and cameras that would alert dispatchers when someone is on the tracks, called Rail Sentry.

They’re also talking to Google, Apple and Waze about directing drivers past the tracks. Thirty people have turned onto the tracks at Churchill Avenue in the past five years, Chief Safety Officer Michael Meader told the city’s Rail Committee on Tuesday.

The city is expanding the nearby sidewalks, replacing the traffic signals and installing a painted bike lane from El Camino Real to Alma Street.

“Together, we think we’re going to make this way safer without a grade crossing,” Burt said.

Burt said he wants to focus on grade separations at Meadow Drive and Charleston Road because south Palo Alto doesn’t have any grade separations.

Engineers are trying to design an underpass that would take as little private property as possible.

Engineers are also working on a design for separating Churchill Avenue, and Burt doesn’t necessarily want them to stop.

State and federal design guidelines get locked in when the design is 30% complete, he said.

Burt said San Francisco was able to pay for an underground Caltrain connection to downtown because Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi lives there, and she helped get federal money.

Palo Alto is relying on money from Measure B, a half-cent sales tax approved by Santa Clara County voters in 2016, bringing in $700 million for grade separations in Palo Alto, Mountain View and Sunnyvale.