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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-09-19 Rail Summary MinutesRAIL COMMITTEE SUMMARY MINUTES Page 1 of 9 Special Meeting September 19, 2023 The Rail Committee of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Community Meeting Room and by virtual teleconference at 2:32 P.M. Present In Person: Burt (Chair), Veenker, Lauing Present Remotely: Absent: Call to Order Chair Pat Burt called the Rail Committee meeting to order and the Clerk called roll with all being present. Public Comment 1. Eric Nordman requested that Staff be asked to track the actual travel time and actual number of property acquisitions. 2. Kerry Yarkin spoke to emphasize the difference in cost of the Churchill Avenue closure with mitigations being $50M to $65M and the partial underpass estimated to be $160M to $200M. Verbal Update on Interagency Activities A. Caltrain Chief Transportation Official Philip Kamhi gave an update about the Caltrain electrification process, which is in the final phase of electrification. The new train set is being tested and the new revenue service is expected to begin in fall of 2024. There will be a tour on Saturday, September 23 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the San Francisco Caltrain Station. There will be a meeting of Caltrain Quarter Study on September 20 regarding four-tracking and technical standards. There will be an LPMG meeting on September 28 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. There will be a VTA ad-hoc meeting on September 29 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. He stated they were SUMMARY MINUTES Page 2 of 9 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 9/19/2023 currently working with VTA on the existing cooperative agreement to include the Caltrain services for the earlier view of the conceptual plan and the associated study. On the Quiet Zone Project, they are still working with the Procurement Department on acquiring the professional services for the consultant for the final design and permitting of the required improvement at the Palo Alto Avenue Quiet Zone. They are also preparing to issue and RFT for a Quiet Zone Study at the other locations in Palo Alto. They hope to have the consultant onboard before the end of the year. Public Works and the Office of Transportation continue to coordinate with Caltrain Staff on the San Francisquito Creek emergency repairs. The plans are at 100% and the estimated total project cost is $5.3M. The contractor has been hired to perform the restoration work which will begin in the next two to four weeks. B. VTA C. City Staff Chair Burt followed up with information about the Local Policy Maker Group meeting held earlier that morning with the topic being the train schedule when electrification hits. They have been waiting on this because ridership remains down. Pre-COVID, Caltrain was at peak-hour at five and a half trains an hour at University Avenue. There needs to be a reduction in service at peak-hour. They have to go back to the FTA to get approval because the funding they received from the Feds for electrification was based upon their previous projection on service levels. Caltrain is moving toward a different ridership model, which he outlined. He mentioned that Caltrain is moving more toward revenue from passes with steep discounts for their Go Passes for all affordable housing residents and wanted to look to how to get those passes to the residents. Action Items 1. Discuss New Grant Awards and Requirements from the Federal Railroad Administration and California State Transportation Agency for Grade Separation Projects and Direct Staff to Develop Funding Agreements (continued from August 23, 2023) Mr. Kamhi discussed the schedule of new grant awards. He presented slides outlining the timeline and additional studies believed to be helpful in evaluating the additional grade selection evaluation criteria. Council Member Veenker asked if there would be any way the first and third studies could be combined. Mr. Kamhi answered they would not be completely separate but were listed separate because they were separate evaluation criteria and could have slightly different impacts identified. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 3 of 9 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 9/19/2023 Council Member Veenker wanted to know if there was anywhere the potential aesthetics of the train fit in. Mr. Kamhi said visual impacts was the only thing identified and as alternatives were selected to move forward, emphasis could be put on creating certain alternatives. Council Member Veenker asked how the timing would interplay with going to Council. Mr. Kamhi answered they were hopeful to be closer to the four-month timeframe. Council Member Lauing felt the price was a good value. He wondered if they should go deeper on any of the studies. Mr. Kamhi said that a lot of work had already been done on the Traffic Study so this would augment it. He explained these things would be more in-depth in the next project phase. Council Member Lauing asked how deep they would have to go at each intersection and if it was a full EIR. Mr. Kamhi answered yes, in the next phase at each location. Chair Burt believed coming to a decision within six months was ambitious. He speculated if they could not arrive at a decision yet, they would have to look at what they would do on the grants. Mr. Kamhi confirmed his speculation. He clarified the EIR was potentially statutorily exempt on grade separation projects but there would be environmental studies that need to be completed. Caio Arellano, Assistant City Attorney, CEQA does contain statutory exemptions for grade separation projects specifically that are very useful in keeping things moving but when it comes to the actual selection of a specific alternative, agencies often undertake their own environmental review. Chair Burt asked how they will be able to update traffic reports when the pre-COVID conditions no longer exist and future is difficult to predict. Mr. Kamhi answered the new tool is called Replica and there are more tools available for traffic data currently and more data will be available. They would discuss updating the traffic reports with their consultant. Chair Burt detailed some specific design issues that remain to be resolved to make some of the alternatives work well on the bicycle and pedestrian issues. He did not assume they would be able to resolve those in this set of consulting studies. He felt they may be in a place that they need to select their local preferred alternatives without having resolved some issues that a lot of the community had concern with. He asked for insights on the solution to that dilemma. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 4 of 9 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 9/19/2023 Mr. Kamhi felt that would require a complete redesign of the alternatives to accommodate those things. This contract was not to redo any designs. It is an evaluation of designs that currently exist. Design issues are something that could be put into the scope of evaluation as they develop into the next phase. Chair Burt anticipated there could be a difficult decision as a Council because they had Community pushback on a given design that is solvable but there would be no opportunity to have solved it before making the decision. Mr. Kamhi noted they had recently redefined the underpass alternatives as per Council and Rail Committee direction with input through the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee and others. He noted the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee advocated for the viaduct as an alternative. He pointed out that was the least popular alternative in the Community when they did surveys. He emphasized there is not any alternative or decision that will make everyone happy and tough decisions will have to be made for the project to move forward. Chair Burt asked how reexamining the viaduct fit into the timeline for decisions. Mr. Kamhi answered Caltrain would evaluate that alternative. The Rail Committee can ask Council to reconsider it. He added that Caltrain has been involved in all the meetings, planning and scheduling regarding these grants and are aware of their schedule and needs. Chair Burt asked if there is adequate internal capacity for taking the grants and ramping up and does Caltrain have adequate capacity to meet the timelines that are being required. Mr. Kamhi said Caltrain is really collaborative with the same goals on this. They are still working with them and the grantor on the schedule. He believed it would be a challenge internally and they would need assistance which could come in the form of a consultant, contract help or additional Staff help. Chair Burt questioned if the deadlines are hard and fast or appealable. Mr. Kamhi said the deadlines are not yet set but not appealable. The one hard deadline is for the second grant from CalSTA for June 2027. The first grant must be completed before moving to the second grant. Council Member Veenker asked if the CalSTA grant is just for Churchill. Mr. Kamhi confirmed the CalSTA grant is just for Churchill but they are in discussion with them to see if they were amenable to modifying it. They applied with Charleston and East Meadow as priority and Churchill as third priority and were awarded for only Churchill final design. He believed that to be because a locally preferred alternative had been selected for Churchill and not for Charleston and East Meadow. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 5 of 9 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 9/19/2023 Action Item 1 Public Comment 1. Steve Rosenblum (zoom), Palo Alto resident, concurred with Chair Burt’s concern about regretting making decisions with unresolved issues. He cautioned about taking the grant from CalSTA. He felt the decision on Churchill needed to be reopened to the possibility of a viaduct. He thought the study about bicycle and ped access should be broadened to safety. 2. Winter Dellenbach (zoom) stated that intermittently, the sound wall only comes halfway up to a rail car. She had been told that because of the weight of freight trains, the viaduct had to have a solid berm and wanted to know if that was still the case. She said that a sound guy told her that with sounds walls put up with a viaduct the noise would bounce significantly. 3. Bruce Arthur (zoom) expressed reluctance in spending more money studying the undercrossing at Meadow and Charleston as he did not believe it was not a good option. 4. Kerry Yarkin stated after getting the grant from CalSTA, $20M was all the City would pay to get the Churchill closure plus mitigations compared to the partial underpass costing $130M. Chair Burt referenced a presentation on all the basic design alternatives he viewed at the last LPMG meeting. The viaduct on pillars was established by Caltrain as able to handle both passenger and freight cars. He noted that Caltrain made a distinction between the hybrid versus the viaduct. The construction method of a berm versus pillars was not linked to whether it is partially elevated as in a hybrid or fully elevated as in what they call the viaduct. No action taken. Study Session 2. Study Session: Discuss the Noise and Vibration Comparative Analysis Report from July 2020 Prepared for the Evaluation of Grade Separation Alternatives Paul Burge, Noise Control Principal Engineer, AECOM, gave a PowerPoint presentation discussing the noise and vibration analysis report. He started with the existing conditions. He discussed the Meadow-Charleston area trench alternative, the Churchill Ave viaduct configuration, a depiction of the hybrid at Meadow-Charleston, the underpass at Churchill and the underpass at Meadow-Charleston. The next slides were the noise analysis modeling assumptions, the summary of relative contribution expected, the metrics used, predicted noise relative by alternative, predicted noise reduction relative to existing conditions by alternative, SUMMARY MINUTES Page 6 of 9 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 9/19/2023 key takeaways from the noise report and potential change in ground-borne vibration by alternative. The next slides discussed a vibration analysis and the takeaways from the vibration analysis. The last slide was about potential construction noise and vibration issues by alternative. Mr. Kamhi added the original study was done when they were still considering the tunnels and they continue to work on the quiet zones to reduce or eliminate the horn noise. Study Session Public Comment 1. Eric Nordman commented that the peak noise was equally important as the average noise. The main train noise would be from the wheels and according to the study, parapet sound walls can reduce this by 12 dB. Parapets are not included in the underpass option but could be. He found it interesting that despite a common perception, the underpass was the worst of the three viable options. 2. Steve Rosenblum (Zoom) thought Table 5-1 should be concentrated on for the noise issues. It showed the viaduct noise level was the same as the hybrid. The closure had the least noise reduction of all the options. He originally felt the tunnel did not make sense until Mr. Burge explained it. He thought it was interesting that the viaduct had the lowest construction noise and shortest construction time. He believed the public concern about noise during operation and construction of the viaduct was unfounded. He hoped Council Members would take this report to heart and look at the details, particularly on Table 5-1. 3. Winter Dellenbach clarified that when she talked to the expert, he took into account the sound walls as mitigating the sound but also bouncing the sound. He talked about bouncing the noise significantly further into the neighborhoods than the first and second row houses. She questioned how much further would the sound bounce and why that was not being considered. Council Member Veenker asked if there are particular levels above which are unacceptable and if any of these reach that. Mr. Burge answered that people’s response to noise varies a lot. He felt the most jarring portion of the current experience had to do with the horns, especially within a quarter mile of the grade crossings. He believed eliminating the need to sound the horns would be the first, second and third most important things. Council Member Veenker wanted to know relative one to another what the different peak noises are. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 7 of 9 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 9/19/2023 Mr. Burge clarified on the tables that showed the Ldn as opposed to the peak hour. That is the average noise over the hour that has the most train activity. Council Member Veenker clarified she was interested in what the noise level is during the interval when the train is passing as opposed to the many intervals when the train is not passing. Mr. Burge stated there were a dozen or more metrics they could have used. Ldn is the limit that FTA and FRA actually use for their impact criterion. He explained some other criteria that was used to measure noise levels. Council Member Veenker asked if there were any reasons any of this would change as it was done three years ago. Mr. Burge answered if there were any major changes in the design or operations information used in their assumptions, including the traffic on Alma, might change the results of the study somewhat. Mr. Kamhi stated things that would have been changed would be consistent across all the different alternatives mentioned. Council Member Veenker felt there would be steady, constant traffic on Alma that factors significantly into the noise level but that is not what they are changing by these decisions. Mr. Kamhi confirmed that the roadway noise will be there and they were not making plans to change that. Some of the alternatives does actually reduce some of the roadway noise. Council Member Lauing felt this study was helpful in weighting the decision on the preferred alternative. Chair Burt thought is was useful to learn the biggest noise reduction would be getting rid of the horns. He felt the construction noise could be a massive impact. The underpass was evaluated with conventional construction methods and not jack box. He felt they would want to recalibrate the construction periods and noise impacts once they got affirmation from Caltrain that jack box is an acceptable method where it was feasible. He pointed out freight would continue to have heavy cars. It is only about 3% of the trains but they are noisy and have horns. There would not be the same engine noise reduction as there would from electrified trains. He wanted to ask about the question on noise impacts beyond the second row and questioned if they might want to add this as an addendum to the noise study. Mr. Burge stated by raising the noise source up by 20 feet, some of the noise would go over the top of the front-row homes and to the second and third row homes which would not have been there before because the first row would have blocked them. That is in a case where there is no sort of a parapet barrier. If properly designed, the parapet barrier could mitigate the effect of SUMMARY MINUTES Page 8 of 9 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 9/19/2023 the noise source being up higher in the air with the fact that the noise was being effectively captured by the parapet barrier. Chair Burt noticed they had down 50 cars for the freight. He was not sure they had freight trains with that number of cars but they could double check with Caltrain. Mr. Burge stated that was the assumption they were told to work with. Council Member Veenker was concerned with the utility of the study for the Commission. She felt not having single event data was a real hindrance. She noted the public commenter who mentioned the importance of Table 5-1, which she agreed with because it was the sources of the noise by alternative. The problem was there was no numeric or quantitative breakdown. It would be helpful to know the degree or percentage that was attributable to each source of the noise per alternative. She also felt the ridership issue could effect the single event data. Mr. Burge commented that Table 5-1, was meant to be qualitative. They were trying to demonstrate that some of those options affect some of the noise sources and not others and wanted a table not loaded with numbers. The tables that follow do give quantitative aspects. Mr. Kamhi asked if the single event feeds into this information he has for the Ldn. Mr. Burge answered all the calculated data was for the peak hour and the Ldn. Mr. Kamhi asked if the single events could be shared and, if so, would that be helpful. Mr. Burge said that discounts the duration of an event and that matters in terms of people’s annoyance to something. Presenting the maximum instantaneous level does not tell a significant part of the story. He thought too much different metrics tend to make things more confusing. If they were asked to go back and present a peak sound level for each event, it could be done. Council Member Veenker asked if they just measure all sound and do not have data for what proportions are from wheels versus engine versus horn versus traffic. Mr. Burge answered the tables were not based on measurements but were predicted. They consider different inputs for contribution for wheel rail noise and contribution from engine noise. Council Member Veenker asked if there was a place that has the different contribution of the different sources to the model that produces the numbers, charts and document. Mr. Burge stated that would be in the report. He said he would get back to her with those details. Chair Burt added in effort to adapt to changing uses for the train system, Caltrain is having fewer trains at the peak hour but having more service all the way up into the night. They had SUMMARY MINUTES Page 9 of 9 Sp. Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 9/19/2023 not factored that in because they currently do not have nighttime passenger trains. That is a downside to the longer service and they may want to look at that. Once they get rid of the horns, that is less impact. He concurred with Council Member Veenker on wanting to break down the different aspects of the single event levels. He asked if they could ask for additional data. Mr. Kamhi said he would see if that data already exists. The report on the existing conditions has the separation for wheel, diesel and horn noise. Mr. Burge stated page 35 on the report existing conditions has the SEL and the L-MAX for the different components. Chair Burt concluded that the biggest bottom line is the horns and under all alternatives, noise goes down. He suggested letting Staff think about how and where to communicate that. Council Member Lauing suggested reporting at the next Council meeting. Chair Burt agreed having slides to show the public and rest of Council. Ed Shikada, City Manager, suggested agendizing the topic. Council Member Veenker agreed that the reporting out should be at the higher level of the qualitative chart for now but she felt it was essential for this committee to keep drilling down on the numbers. Chair Burt asked if the noise analysis they have assumed where the parapets on the design alternatives would be used. Mr. Burge confirmed that was assumed in the report. No action taken. Future Meetings and Agendas Tuesday, October 17, 2023 at 2:30 P.M. The hope is to have a Caltrain report on some of the Council Members’ questions on the four track. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 4:48 P.M.