BY ELAINE GOODMAN
Daily Post Correspondent
As the city of Palo Alto starts drawing up designs for railroad bridges at three Caltrain crossings in town, council members admit they don’t know how many of those bridges will ever get built.
The three crossings in question are at Churchill Avenue, Charleston Road and Meadow Drive.
The idea is to separate the tracks from the road at those crossings so cars won’t get backed up waiting for a train to cross. The separations are also expected to prevent deaths on the tracks.
The city has been debating whether to build an underpass for cars to travel beneath the tracks at Charleston and Meadow, or to use a hybrid approach in which the road is lowered some and the tracks are raised some.
For Churchill Avenue, officials have settled on a so-called “partial underpass,” in which Alma Street would be split into upper and lower levels near the crossing. Churchill Avenue traffic approaching the crossing from the west would reach a T-intersection at lower Alma and would turn right or left. For bicyclists and pedestrians, a tunnel would go under the tracks from a ramp on Alma.
During a council meeting this month, Councilman Pat Burt questioned whether the city should put any more effort into the Churchill Avenue crossing at this time.
“We’re going to likely mothball Churchill, because we’re far from having the funding to do Charleston, Meadow and Churchill,” Burt said. “I can tell you, envisioning where that (funding) might come from is difficult to come up with at this point in time.”
And for the remaining two crossings, Burt wondered, “Are we really looking at Meadow and Charleston, or Meadow or Charleston?”
Council voted 6-0 on Dec. 15 to start drawings for the three crossings, proceeding to about 15% design completion. Councilman Keith Reckdahl recused himself because he lives near one of the crossings.
Tentative plans for three crossings
The 15% drawings will be for an underpass at the Charleston Road crossing; a hybrid bridge at Meadow Drive; and the partial underpass at Churchill Avenue.
For Charleston, an option will be considered where a ramp goes down from Alma Street to Charleston Road. Council members weren’t interested in a Charleston underpass alternative that includes a roundabout.
For Meadow, the tracks could be raised using either pillars or an earthen berm.
Even though Palo Alto might be shelving the Churchill Avenue underpass, the city plans to proceed with the 15% design work. That’s because it has received a federal grant to carry forward projects at the three crossings to a 35% engineering stage.
“By not doing it, we are not meeting those expectations,” said Ripon Bhatia, city senior engineer. “And they will be withholding the funding and we will not be considered a good candidate for future projects.”
Still not final
Council members noted that their choice for the 15% design work isn’t necessarily their final say on the train bridges, also known as grade separations.
“It’s not determining necessarily, or probably, which alternative we go forward with,” Burt said. “It’s which ones we want to advance to 15% and what additional information will we get by advancing it to 15%.”
Councilman George Lu said the city can “always go back and do more work” if it wants to pursue other options.
“If it doesn’t work out at 15%, we can always do another 15%,” he said.
Reaching the 15% design stage will provide enough project details to start on environmental work.
Vice Mayor Vicki Veenker called for evaluating construction of a Charleston Road underpass while leaving the crossing at Meadow Drive alone. She said the Charleston underpass might ease traffic enough so that a train bridge at Meadow isn’t needed. The city plans to study that option more.
Some say: skip it
In letters to council, several residents urged the city to drop the train bridge projects altogether.
A south Palo Alto resident said funds could be better spent on safety measures at the three crossings. Train ridership dropped during the pandemic and is unlikely to rebound, the resident said. The Charleston corridor is “wide open” most of the day, the letter writer said, and a train bridge there would mainly benefit non-resident commuters.
“Since you likely won’t make a singular decision next week, rather vote to kick the can further down the road, the only obvious outcome is to kill the project now,” another resident wrote ahead of the Dec. 15 council meeting.
With construction costs skyrocketing, Burt has been talking about shelving the Churchill Avenue train bridge project for more than a year. He said previously that safety on the tracks could be significantly improved through other means. Burt is a member of council’s rail committee, along with Mayor Ed Lauing and Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haimes.
In addition to a $6 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration, the city is receiving $14 million through Santa Clara County Measure B for the preliminary engineering and environmental phase, which includes 15% and 35% designs.
Timetable
The city expects 15% designs for the three crossings to be finished in mid-2026. The 35% design and environmental work is expected to be complete by the end of 2027.