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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-04-26 Rail Summary MinutesRAIL COMMITTEE SUMMARY MINUTES Page 1 of 8 Special Meeting April 26, 2023 The Rail Committee of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Community Meeting Room and by virtual teleconference at 2:30 P.M. Present In Person: Burt, Lauing, Veenker Present Remotely: Absent: Public Comments Jerry Brozell thanked the Committee for their hard work. Eric Nordman provided slides and requested the need to investigate pedestrian/bicycle crossings before rail work, as construction would make crossing the tracks difficult, which may result in folks driving. He suggested a possible crossing area and a ramp. Frank Ingle endorsed providing an underpass for pedestrians and bicyclists that would work with the rail plan. Adrian Brandt shared happenings from the Menlo Park Train Horn Quiet Zone Study Session on April 25. He noted that the Council opted for quad gates for two crossings but that the EIR would require quad gates at all crossings on the corridor. He asked that the funding be advanced. Verbal Update on Interagency Activities A. Caltrain Chief Transportation Official Philip Kamhi announced that City staff and Caltrain were coordinating on the San Francisquito Creek issues and the Caltrain corridor study. He noted that they had an upcoming presentation to PTC on quiet zones, which would go to the PABAC on May 2, the CSTSC on May 18, and then the Rail Committee. Palo Alto was planning to host the in-person and hybrid meetings for the May City/County staff and Caltrain group and the LPNG meetings. Chair Burt asked if there were updates on San Francisquito Creek Bridge embankment issues and if there were updates on the former arborist’s report on the El Palo Alto Tree. He asked if a hydrologist would be consulted. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 2 of 8 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/26/2023 Senior Engineer Ripon Bhatia acknowledged that they had followed up on the tree report but had not gotten a response. He noted that they intended to do extra video surveillance through the drones and then finalize the report. When received, he would share the report with the Rail Committee and Caltrain. Chief Transportation Official Philip Kamhi affirmed that the San Francisquito Creek Bridge embankment work would include a hydrologist. B. VTA Chief Transportation Official Kamhi did not have an update specific to VTA activities, but he noted that staff had spoken to VTA regarding the [inaudible] earmark, and they confirmed the earmark would be eligible for planning usage for eight grade separations in Santa Clarita County, and they would return to staff with more information. VTA was working on a TIP amendment with MTC and anticipated it would be entered into the TIP in August 2023. Chair Burt understood that Congresswoman Eshoo wanted the City to apply for grade separation federal dollars as quickly as possible. C. City Staff There were no additional reports. Action Items 1. Review Services Agreement between City of Palo Alto and Peninsula Corridor Joints Power Board (Caltrain) for the Connecting Palo Alto, Grade Separation Projects and recommend to the City Council for approval Caltrain Deputy Director of Capital Program Planning Nicole Soultanov invited Caltrain Deputy Chief of Design and Construction Robert Bernard and Caltrain Government and Community Affairs Officer Navdeep Dhaliwal to introduce themselves. Caltrain Deputy Chief of Design and Construction Robert Bernard introduced himself. He had been at Caltrain for about 2 years and had been doing public transportation and transit infrastructure for about 38 years. Caltrain Government and Community Affairs Officer Navdeep Dhaliwal had been with Caltrain for about a year. She previously worked at a PR firm doing community outreach and government affairs. At Caltrain, she was focused on capital projects along the corridor, including Palo Alto, as well as transient-oriented development projects in San Francisco and San Jose. Chief Transportation Official Philip Kamhi provided the history of drafting the agreement. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 3 of 8 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/26/2023 Deputy Director Soultanov displayed a few slides. They had compressed information that had been shared with the Rail Committee on December 13, 2022, which they hoped to bring new Committee members up to speed. She invited the audience to watch the video for more information about the service agreement framework. She invited the Committee to discuss the draft service agreement in this meeting’s packet after the presentation. She explained that service agreements enabled Caltrain staff to allocate time to third-party projects, such as grade separations. She detailed why Caltrain’s services were needed on projects. She spoke of funding and grade separation projects being local jurisdiction projects. She explained that service agreements were the framework for cost recovery. She emphasized that Caltrain executed service agreements across the entire corridor, which supported grade separation, bike/pedestrian crossing projects, etc., impacting the railroad right of way. In addition to service agreements, there was memorandum of understanding, cooperative agreements to support major projects. She listed examples of agreements executed in 2022, and noted more agreements were being discussed. She highlighted what the draft service agreement would support. She declared that Caltrain’s objective was to partner with City staff to help move the project forward. She furnished a slide with the next steps they hoped the Rail Committee’s recommendation would unlock. Chair Burt appreciated that the agreement had incorporated a number of the Committee’s requests. Senior Engineer Ripon Bhatia indicated that staff had worked with Caltrain in developing the agreement, but any recommendations for technical and operations reviews, such as fiber optics, etc., would require additional work for the City and an additional amendment to the consultant or a new RFP would be required. Council Member Lauing inquired when the agreement would initiate. He understood they were waiting for final technical standards as well as information on two versus four tracks to make decisions. Chief Transportation Official Kamhi noted it would need to go to City Council and the Caltrain Board as well. Assuming a unanimous approval, he thought it would follow on a consent calendar. He clarified that some technical issues would be within the settlement agreement and some were within the study he referenced earlier. Officer Dhaliwal explained that the four-track question would be addressed and the policy approach would go to the Board this fall with a recommendation as to where those segments would be. Chair Burt understood the Caltrain staff recommendation for the four-track determination would be ready in early fall. Council Member Veenker asked staff what the reference to fiber optics related to and if staff had any other concerns the Committee should consider. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 4 of 8 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/26/2023 Senior Engineer Bhatia explained there were third-party fiber optics that Caltrain may have agreements with along the railroad track, which were not considered in the City’s estimates or design, so in review of those technical issues, Caltrain would support the City in understanding the location of those facilities, so the City could look at designs to ensure accommodation. Chief Transportation Official Kamhi answered there were no staff concerns. He noted this was like getting an additional peer review on the work done. They wanted to ensure work would not need to be redone. Chair Burt queried if some of the technical issues may be part of the updated design and technical standards, if others may need to be reviewed as exceptions, and if things like reduced bridge decks would be part of this agreement review as opposed to awaiting a standard. He questioned if this agreement would consider things like construction impacts. He discussed shoofly tracks maybe being an alternative going forward. If the Palo Alto Avenue Creek Bridge needed replacement, he asked if it would be through an amendment to the agreement. Chief Transportation Official Kamhi stated the technical issues Palo Alto raised in the agreement included curve of the track, bridge deck thickness, and vertical clearance standards. If the Palo Alto Avenue Creek Bridge needed replacement, he was not sure it if it would be an amendment, a new contract, or an additional contract. Deputy Chief Bernard specified, related to shoofly tracks, that the full funding grant agreement for the electrification project showed a service commitment of 6 trains per hour. They were in conversations with the FTA related to the time horizon. He mentioned that they had gone to the Management Committee in March to recast the project scope of work for the San Francisquito Creek Bridge and the next phase being to evaluate whether it would be a replacement or a strengthening. They would provide information to support effective decision- making. Senior Engineer Bhatia remarked that overall constructability, design, and technical issues related to the initial preliminary designs of the conceptual phase would be brought forward and reviewed together to identify how it could be resolved in the next phase. Deputy Director Soultanov stated they would likely enter into a different service agreement to look at issues for the Palo Alto Avenue work. Nadia Nayak queried if there were alternatives, such as a jacked box, that could be done without needing the passing tracks. She was specifically referring to the underpass for South Palo Alto. Deputy Chief Bernard voiced that part of the analysis was the constructability review. They were looking at other locations to use jacked boxing to avoid the shoofly, and he indicated that details mattered, such as soil type, location, etc. He thought part of the analysis would be to look at different solutions. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 5 of 8 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/26/2023 Chair Burt questioned the status of the geotechnical study and how it aligned with this work. Senior Engineer Bhatia answered that they were doing a preliminary geotechnical study, which included a constructability review at a preliminary level, and that information would be shared with Caltrain as available. They had conducted the field exploration data that would be going to analysis, and they hoped to bring it to the Rail Committee and Caltrain in August or September. Chief Transportation Official Kamhi noted that they were not yet at 15% design, and 15% may constitute a different agreement with Caltrain. Chair Burt queried if this agreement would take the City to that point. Chief Transportation Official Kamhi answered that the agreement could potentially take it to that point. Nadia Nayak of CAARD asked if ACOM had considered the location of existing fiber cable and when there could be a conversation about usable space under the right of way, which had been addressed in a June 14, 2022 letter from Palo Alto to Caltrain. She was interested in an historic understanding of who typically owned the long-term maintenance cost and how it might change. She questioned who would pay for utility relocation. Chief Transportation Official Kamhi expressed that they would get more information related to existing fiber cable, and it may not change the plans. He explained there were no alternatives under consideration regarding usable space under the right of way. He believed that was a component of the quarter-wide strategy or [inaudible]. Deputy Chief Barnard discussed usable space under the right of way and indicated that the details of the use were important. Senior Engineer Bhatia indicated that they would work with Caltrain to determine who would be responsible for long-term maintenance. More information could be discovered through the reviews, which could be used as part of the decision-making process. Deputy Chief Bernard explained that in general the City would be the road authority and Caltrain the railroad authority, and when blended, it needed to be determined if it would be part of the road or the railroad authority. Public Comments Jim Fox opined that raising the tracks above ground level would prevent suicide and traffic problems and would not require institution of eminent domain of many houses. He did not believe the sound of an elevated railway would be a problem and asked that it be reconsidered. Adrian Brandt spoke of communities that were planning connecting elevated grade separations and using space underneath, which he believed was beneficial. He urged revising a viaduct SUMMARY MINUTES Page 6 of 8 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/26/2023 alternative versus shoofly tracks. He explained why he thought grades should be part of the agreement. Chair Burt spoke of the impacts related to bridge deck thickness and asked if the length would be reduced by about 100 foot on each side for each foot of bridge thickness reduced. Senior Engineer Bhatia explained bridge thicknesses and grade reductions. Council Member Veenker spoke of the viaduct and inquired if aesthetics and privacy would be factors in the consideration. Chair Burt answered that a viaduct had been rejected and was not an alternative and would require a revisit by the Council. There could be a discussion in the next item. MOTION: Chair Burt moved, seconded by Council Member Lauing to recommend the City Council approval of the services agreement between the City of Palo Alto and the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (PCJPB/Caltrain) in the amount of $106,676.40 for the Connecting Palo Alto Grade Separation Project for the conceptual design phase. The Service Agreement is for Caltrain to provide early coordination, technical review, input and expertise to inform the capital project development process for the selection of Preferred Alternative(s) MOTION PASSED: 3-0 2. Finalize the Updated Grade Separation Evaluation Criteria and Recommend to the City Council for Approval Chief Transportation Official Philip Kamhi noted that this item had been discussed at the last Rail Committee meeting, and staff had incorporated issues addressed at that meeting to be actionable at this meeting. Chair Burt noted that Packet Page 37 would be the focus. Public Comment Alan Wachtel summarized written comments he had submitted on the criteria related to pedestrian and bicycle traffic. It was not clear to him what the proposal was for Criterion B and questioned why only automobile traffic was addressed and not pedestrian and bicycle traffic. He suggested language be included in Criterion C related to maintaining route continuity and direct access to local destinations. City Clerk Lesley Milton asked Alan Wachtel to resend his email correspondence. Adrian Brandt agreed with Alan Wachtel’s comments. He urged the Committee to consider any biases that might be built-in and asked that objectives be put in measurable terms. He claimed there was a lot of subjectivity in the criteria. He supported a viaduct. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 7 of 8 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/26/2023 Council Member Lauing supported having quantitative measures at the project level, but voiced it was too early in the process to do that. Regarding visual impacts, he inquired if there were enough privacy considerations. Council Member Veenker thought privacy and impact concerns should be considered. She did not see privacy addressed. She did not know that visual changes should be minimized but that there should be neutral or positive changes, and she proposed Criterion I be reworded. Council Member Lauing agreed. Chair Burt agreed with the concept of minimizing detrimental visual changes. He thought visual enhancements would be great. City Manager Ed Shikada noted that enhancing visual changes was subjective and that it would be a difficult bar to clear. Council Member Lauing replied that an example could be landscaping along the tracks. Council Member Veenker agreed that visual impacts could arguably be positive and that it was subjective. Chair Burt suggested discussing consideration of visual impacts, not enhancement or minimization of such. He addressed quantification versus subjective standards and it being useful to quantify data but that it should not determine a value. He thought it would be valuable to weight the criteria. He proposed there be a preamble stating the criteria that would be evaluated, that what could be quantified would be, and that weighting would be done in a subjective way. He was not sure of the baseline for Criterion B due to impacts from COVID and housing development and suggested changing “maintain” to “consider.” Chief Transportation Official Kamhi agreed that some of the issues were inherently subjective. Nadia Nayak of CAARD suggested language of “maintain” or “improve” corridor travel times, and she discussed automobile traffic inducement needing to be addressed. She suggested adding language to Criterion G related to reviewing sustainability, sea level rise. Discussion ensued related to traffic inducement in specific areas and weighting tools. MOTION: Council Member Burt moved, seconded by Council Member Veenker to recommend to the Council approval of the evaluation criteria for the Rail Committee with the following recommended edits: • Have a preamble to state these will be used with subjective weighting by the reviewer in the context of a given location • Under B, add the word “automobile” after “reduce” SUMMARY MINUTES Page 8 of 8 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 4/26/2023 • Replace “maintain” with “consider” before “corridor travel times” • Under G, add the word “impacts” after “sea level rise” • Under I, replace the word “minimize” with “consider” and add “and privacy” after “visual” MOTION PASSED: 3-0 Next Steps and Future Agendas Chair Burt asked the City Clerk to share the link for the VTA Grade Separation Ad Hoc Committee meeting scheduled for April 28 at 10:00 A.M. He noted that there may be a poll for the best start time for the next meeting. Nadia Nayak of CAARD recommended having a conversation related to alternatives upon staff bringing back the geotechnical information, as that information could impact the possible alternatives. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 3:49 P.M.