BY STEPHANIE LAM
Daily Post Correspondent
Palo Alto community members are urging City Council to close the intersection where Churchill Avenue intersects with the railroad tracks after a Caltrain hit and killed 17-year-old Summer Devi Mehta last Tuesday.
In a letter to the City Council Nick Mehta, Summer’s father, said he supports closing the intersection, believing Churchill provided an “easy means for her to impulsively act at a low moment.”
The letter was read by a friend of Nick Mehta’s during tonight’s council meeting.
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.
“It is too late for my daughter but it is not too late for others,” Nick Mehta wrote.
In response, Mayor Vicki Veenker said tonight that an The Rail Safety/Youth Mental Health ad hoc committee has been created to look into ramping up safety measures at the intersection, and the logistics of shutting it down, an action that Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent Don Austin urged the council to do in a Thursday letter.
The committee consists of council members Julie Lythcott-Haims, Pat Burt and Greer Stone.
Lythcott-Haims said the committee has already met with Caltrain and other city transportation safety officials to explore their options, which included talks about installing more high-tech cameras that can detect unusual movements on the tracks and paying security guards to monitor the intersection. The committee will meet again this week, Lythcott-Haims said.
But several residents said they also want council to shut the Churchill crossing immediately, and not wait for the committee’s insights and recommendation.
A resident who identified herself as Bre. T said her daughter was Summer’s friend and is “begging” the council to close the intersection.
“Failing to close is a complacency I just can’t tolerate as a mom anymore,” she said.
Prior to the ad hoc meeting, Caltrain and Palo Alto were 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.
So sorry.
The train is just a vehicle; the issue is the mental health of those involved. Let’s let go of the delusion that anyone can change their sex.
Closing the Churchill crossing will increase bike accident risks for bike riding students. A different solution must be found.
Students still have to get to school. Many, many students ride bikes from Community Center on Churchill Street to Paly. Students from Midtown safely use Bryant Street which has blocks that are closed to vehicles.
Closing the Churchill crossing means that these students will split between riding closer to or directly on Embarcadero St – a street with high traffic both in the mornings and afternoons. Midtown students will use the California Avenue bike and pedestrian tunnel. The tunnel is narrow and steep. Upon exit, they will likely head right towards Peers Park and then down very narrow Castilleja Avenue towards Paly.
Ask around your friends and neighbors, almost everyone has stories of bike and pedestrian accidents in Palo Alto. Some are quite significant injuries. I see speeders on city streets *every* day. I am thankful that Bryant Street is safe and quiet. I am thankful that children from Community Center can safely ride through Old Palo Alto to Paly.
Pushing student bike riders closer to Embarcadero on one side or into a narrow, steep bike tunnel and then narrow city streets on the other side will increase bike accidents.
The sad fact is…if someone is determined to end their life they will find a way. Closing one crossing will not change this fact.
Exactly. Closing won’t solve nothing. Parents aren’t connected or supportive to their kids and want to blame a train track for being open. Sad. Wake up parents
Correct. Residents need the Churchill crossing as does Paly and PAUSD.
Sorry for what happened but that is not down to the train or the crossing.
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I grew up three doors from that crossing, on Mariposa. I was taught not to play on the tracks as soon as I could walk, as those were the days when kids were allowed to play outside unsupervised. My uncles used to offer me a dollar to ‘go play on the tracks.” The neighborhood kids taught me how to put nickles on the tracks to have the train flatten them, and how to short across the tracks to make the crossing guards come down. It is not hard to not get hit. That intersection is not unsafe, I know that for a fact, having sixty years of experience with it, this is a matter of user error.
In those days the only suicides on the tracks were ALL vets who came down from the V.A. to Peers Park, and it happened a lot in the ’70s. It is not, and never was the trains fault. Somewhere around eighty percent of all fatalities involving firearms are suicides. It is not about how, it’s about why. The solution that works is not to be found in trying to regulate the method; where there is a will, there is always a way. The solution to prevention is understanding the Why of it. Once the decision is made, it’s too late. Figure out why this is happening. Once that is understood, actually make the changes required to prevent the choice. What stress, pressures, or other factors are causing this phenomenon? PALY was hell in the ’80s too, trust me. But this was not a thing in Palo Alto. The train was here, that is not the new element in the equation, so what is??
There are only eight places in town to cross the tracks, and all crosstown traffic must bottleneck through them already. One can cross at Alma, University, Embarcadero, Churchill, Page Mill, Meadow, Charleston(which will be next on the hit list if this idea goes through), and San Antonio. Which of these is not already a nightmare to get through? Which one don’t you already avoid whenever possible? Where will traffic go? Which part of town would have to take the load? This town is already a nightmare to drive in.
This incredibly stupid and short sighted idea only serves the politicians need to be seen to be doing “SOMETHING,” quickly; no matter how useless, ineffective, or even counter-productive. It’s a very California approach I’ll grant you. Instead, how about trying the hard, expensive, slow, uncomfortable choices that actually work over time; just not in time to brag about at election time.
It is easy to walk in front of a Caltrain train at dozens of points on the Peninsula. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen by accident more often.
Research has shown that reducing access to lethal means saves lives. “Someone will find a way” isn’t true. Suicides can happen impulsively at a vulnerable moments. We wouldn’t give a vulnerable student a hand gun and say “well, they would have found one anyway. We shouldn’t have hundreds walking across tracks 5 yards from the school.
The plan forward at chruchil is clear. There is going to be a partial underpass. There is going to be a safe pedestrian tunnel at kellog one block north.
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The only question is should they close the intersection before or after they start building that tunnel.
Palo Alto is run by cowards. They don’t have the will to create a better future. They spend millions on consultants to come up with plans, only to send those plans to committees, which leads to more consultants. Is this a moment where we can agree the past doesn’t need to be the future? Can we leave the world slightly better than how we found it? Let’s stop talking about the 70s and blaming the victim in this tragic moment. Close the intersection and start building NOW. It’s time to stand up for a better tomorrow.
Sorry,the train isn’t at fault for a student’s unfortunately poor mental health. Don’t handicap thousands of residents by closing the crossing. That would not make the world a better place. Letting go of the delusion that males can become females would improve the world.
Aren’t these comments akin to ‘guns don’t kill people?’ Are you people for real?