BY STEPHANIE LAM
Daily Post Correspondent
Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent Don Austin today (Feb. 5) sent a letter to the City Council asking to close off where Churchill Avenue intersects with the railroad tracks after a student died after being hit by a Caltrain.
In the letter, Austin said he would support an immediate closure of the crossing, even temporarily, while permanent solutions are evaluated and implemented.
“We’re running out of options,” Austin said in a statement to the Daily Post. “Suicides are complex, we’re not going to solve that right now. What we can do is take away the lethal means.”
The Caltrain crossing at Churchill Avenue and Alma Street is adjacent to Palo Alto High School, and has been the site of multiple student suicides over the past few years. On Tuesday, Summer Devi Mehta, 17, died on the tracks.
The sound of Caltrain horns, crossing arms, bells and constant train rumblings have become “unavoidable reminders and triggers” for students who attend nearby schools and pass through the area daily, Austin wrote.
Caltrain and Palo Alto have been working on installing new technologies at Churchill crossings to improve safety, including using AI to help detect and alert officials about lingering cars and pedestrians on the tracks. Other potential updates include a partial underpass to reduce car and pedestrian traffic and grade separation, which would require temporarily closing the crossing.
In the past, Austin said he opposed the crossing’s closing because of the high volume of traffic that runs through the Churchill and Alma Street intersection. The operational concerns, however, are “secondary” to the continued loss of life, Austin said.
Austin asked Palo Alto City Council on Aug. 25 to speed up efforts to separate the tracks from the road to prevent student suicides.
“Reducing access at rail crossings is the city’s responsibility, and it is indispensable to a comprehensive community prevention strategy,” Austin said. “We ask the council to move decisively from alternative selection to construction.”
If you or someone you know is having a mental health crisis, help is available. Call or text the 24/7 suicide and crisis lifeline at 988.
Whether Palo Altans will agree with him, his heart is in the right place. He’s thinking of the kids.
You must be new here. This is just part of a bunch of last ditch efforts to try to save his job. He couldn’t care less about anyone but himself and whatever power he can wield – collateral damage? Don doesn’t care! Does not care one bit about the kids!
What a moron
Sure, blame the suicides on the train tracks. Not on the school system.
Along with the new housing being planned behind Town and Country this will push more traffic onto Embarcadero. The Embarcadero underpass is only one narrow lane westbound. Great idea!
Trains are there to transport people, not to kill people. Close the crossing immediately, and then take the challenge to redesign the tracks. Thank you for caring about the kids Mr. Austin 🙂
I support this effort 100%!
What has Dr. Austin done within his school district to help student mental health? Shouldn’t he do what he has control over, at least at the same time as he tells the City to make changes? This looks like deflection to me. Which feels like dirty politics, when children’s lives have been lost and children’s lives are at risk. I hope the Board votes to move in another direction as a response to the latest missteps this week – Dr. Austin has had his time, and I think it’s time to go in a new direction. If you agree, please tell the School Board.
Some communities on the Peninsula were able to elevate the train for full grade separation. Apparently, the most affluent communities are the ones that 1) resist grade separation and 2) have record-breaking youth suicides at train crossings.
Please put up the billions of $$ it will cost for grade separations since you feel so strongly about it.
Sadly,the student killed himself. The train was an unwilling participant.
I commend Dr. Austin’s call for a temporary closure. Apparently the technology fixes chosen recently as the best realizable safety option at the Churchill crossing were not installed yet when this occurred. Grade separation will not happen for years, if ever. Calling for at least a temporary closure until those measures are in place is the responsible position for the Superintendent of PAUSD to take.
Hardly an act of responsibility.
Little Donald is only reacting because a principal who already does his bidding (most do, he controls their actual careers), was named twice in Summer’s publicly instagrammed suicide note.
Speaking from an abundance of experience with this leadership, who leans dark under The aspirational 29th Superintendent of Public Instruction in California.
Consider yourself lucky for not being familiar with this former PE teacher quarterbuck’s playbook.
Best thing we can do, spread the word.
Brighten our skies forever Summer, we lost a lifetime of the best in this world with you.
Grade separation now! Please underground Caltrain from Menlo Park to Castro – we will find the money
I’m up to minds here.
1. Yes, suicides are heartrending. Especially for the families and the friends.
2. But I’m not sure if closing off a crossing addresses the issue, or fairly balances community preferences.
• do we know that student suicides primarily happen on train tracks?
• are we highly confident that removing the crossing would prevent suicides
• closing a crossing might save a life, but also inconveniences 10,000s of drivers for every student train suicide
• if we feel strongly about potentially preventable deaths, we would reduce the speed limit to 55 miles on freeways. But that would never fly for the same reason that it prevents a small number of accidents and deaths, but inconveniences 10,000x drivers
Closing a grade crossing does nothing for the mental health of some unbalanced students. Time to let go of the delusion that anyone can change their sex.