HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 1657City of Palo Alto (ID # 1657)
City Council Staff Report
Report Type: Study SessionMeeting Date: 7/11/2011
July 11, 2011 Page 1 of 6
(ID # 1657)
Council Priority: {ResProject:ClearLine}
Summary Title: Rail Corridor Study Plan
Title: Study Session for Update of the Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study
From:City Manager
Lead Department: Planning and Community Environment
Purpose and Recommendation
The purpose of this report is to inform the Council about the status of the Rail Corridor Study
effort and progress of the Rail Corridor Task Force. Staff recommends that the Council discuss
and provide input to staff, the task force, and the consultant regarding the effort.
Executive Summary
The City Council initiated a Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study on June 12, 2010 to evaluate land use,
transportation, and urban design elements of the corridor. The purpose of this agenda item is
to provide a progress report on the Study, including Planning and Transportation Commission
feedback from the June 8, 2011 hearing and to receive input from the City Council. The study,
proposed to be completed in three phases, is currently in Phase I, developing context and a
preliminary vision for the corridor.
A Rail Corridor Task Force, authorized by Council and consisting of 17 representatives from
various stakeholder groups, representing a variety of interests (residents, businesses, civic
organizations, etc.), has also been convened to provide input into the process. The Task Force is
to provide input to the study and solicit information from the broader community, as well as
helping design study processes to insure maximum community engagement throughout the
study. The first of two community workshops scheduled for this phase was held on May 19,
2011, at which about 20 members of the public identified issues and priorities for the rail
corridor.
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Background
The City Council initiated the Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study to evaluate land use, transportation
and urban design elements of the rail corridor, particularly in response to potential
improvements to fixed rail services along the Caltrain tracks. The study will analyze those
elements in light of Caltrain upgrades, such as electrification and/or grade separations, and/or
the potential options for the High Speed Rail project. Although the High Speed Rail project
provides important context, it was not intended to be the focus of this study. It is unknown at
this point what the future holds for either High Speed Rail or Caltrain. The intent of the study
effort is to generate a community vision that would provide land use and transportation
policies to guide development under a variety of scenarios, allowing Palo Alto to be proactive in
advance of changes to the rail system.
The boundaries of the corridor include, at a minimum, the area between Alma Street on the
east to El Camino Real on the west, from the Menlo Park city limits on the north to the
Mountain View city limits on the south. The study area also includes sufficient adjacent land to
encompass those areas most directly affected by potential land use, transportation and urban
design changes. The plan and implementation measures will ultimately be incorporated into
the City’s Comprehensive Plan, either as part of the document or by reference.
Council authorization was granted on July 26, 2010 for the formation of a Task Force to assist in
the preparation of the study and to provide a forum for public input. The 17-member Task
Force is made up of several different stakeholder groups, including residents and business
owners, and representatives of the school district, a non-profit housing venture, environmental
groups, and Stanford University, as well as a Caltrain rider.
BMS Design Group
The City Council authorized the selection of BMS Design Group on February 14, 2011 as the
consultant for the preparation of the Rail Corridor Study. BMS Design Group has had extensive
experience in rail corridor planning and transit oriented development across the Bay Area. The
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firm has also been recently hired by the City of Sunnyvale to prepare a station area plan for the
Lawrence Area Station Plan. The BMS team also includes two subconsultants: EPS as the
economic subconsultant and Fehr and Peers as the transportation subconsultant.
Scope of Work
The Rail Corridor Study is comprised of three phases and is expected to be completed in
approximately twelve to fourteen months, likely during the first quarter of 2012. Following the
completion of the document, it would be incorporated into the Comprehensive Plan
Amendment process as appropriate. The adopted Scope of Work is included as Attachment D.
The phases outlined in the scope consist of the following components:
1.Phase I: “Context and Vision” will establish the constraints, opportunities and a
preliminary vision for the Corridor.
2.Phase II: “Alternatives and Analysis” will focus on the development and analysis of
two or three alternatives and an urban design framework.
3.Phase III: “Plan Preparation” will involve the refinement of the alternatives and
feedback from the Task Force, Commission, Council and the public. The ultimate
goal is to develop a document that would be implemented and become part of the
Comprehensive Plan.
Multiple public meetings are proposed to maximize public outreach. Each phase includes three
to four Task Force meetings, two community meetings, two Commission hearings and two City
Council hearings. The consultant will also attend any Council Rail Committee or similar
committee meetings as needed.
Discussion
The format of the study session will include a presentation by BMS consultants of the primary
activities and findings to date of the project (Attachment G), comments from some of the Task
Force members, and then questions and comments from the Council. Staff and the consultants
and the Task Force ask the Council for guidance regarding: 1) Council input on the key issues or
opportunities identified to date (connectivity and land use), 2) key issues or opportunities that
have not been included in work to date, and 3) input on the scope and process as the study
moves forward.
Task Force
Since its formation, the Task Force has met eight times since February. The Task Force, which is
subject to the Brown Act, has met once to twice a month with staff and the consultant.
Meetings are scheduled for the first and third Thursdays of the month. The focus of the first
five meetings was to provide the Task Force members with background information, including
an introduction to the consultant, BMS Design Group, a review of the status of High Speed Rail
and Caltrain planning efforts, and overviews of the Comprehensive Plans and related area
plans, bicycle and pedestrian planning, and the Grand Boulevard Initiative. The sixth and seven
meetings provided an opportunity for the members to identify specific issues and ideas
regarding corridor connectivity and transportation/circulation.
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Community Workshop
The first of the two community workshops planned for the first phase was held on May 19,
2011 at the Lucie Stern Community Center. The purpose of this workshop was to provide an
introduction to the public and to identify the audience’s issues and priorities for the study area.
The turnout was light (about 10-12 public plus most of the Task Force), but the interaction was
still informative. Questions outlined to participants are included as Attachment F. The second
workshop was scheduled for July 7, 2011, to discuss the preliminary vision statement, but has
now been postponed until September. The Task Force and staff believe this will allow for a) the
development of preliminary alternatives that may elicit greater citizen engagement, b) better
attendance given the workshop will occur after the summer recess, and c) more opportunity for
public outreach in advance of the meeting.
Planning and Transportation Commission Study Session
The first Planning and Transportation Commission study session on the Rail Corridor Study was
held on June 8, 2011. Staff and the consultant, BMS Design Group, provided a detailed
introduction and an update on the Rail Corridor Study and Task Force. Following the
presentation, three members of the Task Force, Tom Vlasic, Irwin Dawid and Phil Burton, spoke
to the Commission about their thoughts on their efforts. The three members agreed that the
Task Force meetings had been very productive and felt that the members would have a lot to
contribute to the process. Beth Bunnenberg, the Historic Resources Board liaison to the Task
Force, spoke next. She requested that the Task Force and Study also identify and study the
potential impacts to the historic structures, such as El Palo Alto, within the study area. The last
speaker, a Palo Alto resident, expressed his concern about public outreach.
The Commission provided extensive input regarding the study. The following are the items
raised by the Commission:
·Increase public outreach to encourage participation, especially at the Community
Workshop
·Explore relationship of and coordinate the study with the Comprehensive Plan
Amendment process, including California Avenue Concept Plan.
·Consider connectivity within and connections to the corridor from the outside.
·Discuss more about density.
·Consider needs for services.
·Consider importance of Alma Street.
·Consider both increasing density and lower density development pattern.
·Alma Street needs more neighborhood supporting uses, such as retail.
·Would like more certainty about scenarios being studies, like whether Bus Rapid Transit
would be implemented.
·Consider use of conditional language to cover the various possible scenarios.
·Study how to increase cross connectivity and slow down traffic on Alma Street.
·Connectivity in south Palo Alto is very important.
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The Commission staff report and minutes of the June 8 meeting are enclosed as Attachments B
and C.
Next Steps
Upon direction from the Council, staff will proceed to work with the Task Force and consultant
to complete Phase I of the Study. A second Community Workshop is tentatively scheduled for
July 21st. The Task Force will continue its evaluation and identification of issues and
opportunities, the development of a preliminary vision, and further engagement with the
community. Subsequent sessions will be held with the Planning and Transportation Commission
and the City Council to discuss the vision prior to moving on to the development of alternatives
in Phase II.
Resource Impacts
The City Council authorized $200,000 for consultant services for this study.A total of $90,000
was included in the current fiscal year (2010-11) and the remaining $110,000 was to be
allocated in the 2011-12 budget. This funding appears adequate to accommodate the
consultant costs through the project, unless additional public meetings are required. Staff
resources have also been devoted to the effort so that one Senior Planner is spending
approximately 20% of her time on the effort. Some staff hours for the Planning Director and
support services have also been required. The study will include some basic economic analysis
regarding the potential fiscal implications of the various alternatives and the preferred plan.
Policy Implications
The study will rely on the City’s Comprehensive Plan and other land use transportation policies
to guide the effort for the corridor. The other work components of the Comprehensive Plan
Amendment, including the California Avenue/Fry’s Area Plan and the Bicycle and Pedestrian
Master Plan, will be considered in coordination with this study.
Environmental Review
The Study proposal and scope of work do not constitute a project requiring environmental
review under the California Environmental Quality Act. Staff anticipates that environmental
review for the Rail Corridor Study will be completed as part of the Comprehensive Plan.
ATTACHMENTS:
·Attachment A: Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study Area (PDF)
·Attachment B: June 8, 2011 Planning and Transportation Commission Staff Report (PDF)
·Attachment C: Planning and Transportation Commission June 8, 2011 Draft Excerpt
Minutes (PDF)
·Attachment D: Scope of Work (PDF)
·Attachment E: Project Schedule (PDF)
·Attachment F: Community Workshop 1 Open House Questions (PDF)
·Attachment G: Study Session Presentation Slides by BMS (PDF)
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Prepared By:Elena Lee, Senior Planner
Department Head:Curtis Williams, Director
City Manager Approval: James Keene, City Manager
To provide a broad range of public feedback and input, the City Council authorized the
fonnation of a Task Force for the Rail Corridor Study. The 17 -member Task Force is made up
of several different stakeholder groups including residents and business owners, representatives
of the school district, a non-profit housing venture, environmental groups and Stanford
University, as well as a Caltrain rider.
Scope of Work
The Rail Corridor Study is proposed to be completed. in three phases and over an approximately
twelve to fourteen month timeframe. It is anticipated that the project would be completed in the
first quarter of 2012. Following the completion of the docunlent, it would be incorporated into
the Comprehensive Plan Amendment process as appropriate. The adopted Scope of Work is
included as Attachment A.
The first and current phase is the "Context and Vision" component. The goal of this phase is to
establish the background and context for the rail corridor in order to begin developing a preferred
vision. Phase I would identify the constraints, Oppol1unities and vision for the study area. The
consultant will study the land use, transportation, design and economic parameters. This phase
includes the first step towards updating goals and policies and identifying the desired land use
and transportation changes. BMS would also consult with other agencies, such as the High
Speed Rail Authority and Caltrain, as needed.
Phase II of the Rail Corridor Study is the "Alternatives and Analysis" section. After obtaining
infonnation in Phase I, BMS will prepare urban design, land use and transportation concepts for
the study area. Phase II will center on the analysis of these different alternatives. The intent is to
narrow the focus to two or three alternatives and to develop an urban design framework. This
phase will also include preliminary evaluation of potential environmental impacts and economic
costslbenefits associated with the alternatives.
The final Phase III of the study is "Plan Preparation". BMS will continue to refine the
alternatives and obtain feedback from the Task Force, Commission, Council and the public. The
goal is to develop a document that would be implemented and become part of the
Comprehensi ve Plan.
The Scope of Work includes multiple public meetings. Each phase includes three to four Task
Force meetings, two Commission hearings and two City Council hearings. The consultant will
also attend any Council Rail Committee or similar committee meetings as needed. As discussed
above, there are also two community workshops planned for each phase.
The purpose of this study session on the Rail Corridor Study is to provide infonnation on the
progress during this first phase and obtain input and comments from the Commission. The
fonnat of the study session will consist of the following:
1. Staff introduction
2. Presentation by BMS Design Group, including the findings of the first community
workshop
3. Comments from the Task Force members.
4. Commission comments and questions.
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DISCUSSION
BMS Design Group
Following the Council's authorization to begin the process of hiring a consultant, BMS Design
Group (BMS) was awarded the contract to assist staff and the Task Force in the preparation of
the study. BMS is a Bay Area planning consulting group that provides professional services in
urban design, land use planning, landscape architecture and community outreach. The firm is
headed by two partners, Barbara Maloney and Michael Smiley, who each have over 30 years of
urban design and planning experience for both public and pri vate sector clients. BMS has
extensive experience across the Bay Area on a variety of rail and transit oriented development
projects and plans. Their list of relevant projects include the Diridon/ Arena Strategic
Development Plan in San Jose, the San Leandro BART Station Pedestrian Interface Plan, the San
Francisco Embarcadero Waterfront Transit and Streetscape Improvements, the San Francisco
Third Street Light Rail Urban Design Improvements, the San Mateo Hayward Park Station Area
Improvements and most recently, the Sunnyvale Lawrence Area Station Plan. BMS also has
two subconsultant groups working with them on this project. EPS is the econonlic consultant.
EPS was also hired by the City to provide economic analysis for the City's High Speed Rail
efforts. The proposal originally included Kimley Hom as the transportation subconsultant.
However, changes in personnel at Kimley Hom have resulted in Matthew Ridgway of Fehr and
Peers taking on the transportation consultant role.
Rail Corridor Task Force
A seventeen member Task Force was appointed by the City Council to provide input and serve
as a voice for the community. The Task Force group represents a broad array of interests that
would be directly impacted by land use anp transportation decisions along the corridor. The
members are intended to reflect a variety of personal interests, professional skills, as well as a
broad geographic distribution throughout the corridor and City. The n1errlbers were chosen to
serve as a conduit and a voice for not only their specific stakeholder groups, but also for other
interested members of the public. The Task Force will act as an additional and very important
channel for the public to get involved in the process, including those who cannot or prefer not to
participate directly. The Task Force members consist of the following groups:
1. Neighborhood Representatives
• Southgate (Tom Vlasic)
• Downtown North (Martin Sommer)
• Charleston Meadows (Ellen Hartog)
• Greenmeadow (Carolyn Dobervich)
• South of Midtown (Phil Burton)
• Palo Alto Neighborhood (PAN) group (Norman Beamer/Crescent Park)
2. Business Representatives
• Chamber of Commerce (Jim Rebosio/Sheraton)
• Silicon Valley Board of Realtors (Leannah Hunt)
• Propertylbusiness owner (John Tarlton/owner, developer and Feeta
Bishop/CAADA)
• ArchitectlDesigner (Tony Carrasco)
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3. Other Agencies and Interest Groups
• Stanford University (Charles Carter)
• Palo Alto Unified School District (Barb Mitchell)
• Environmental Organization (Tom Jordan and Irvin DawidJSierra Club)
• Social Service/Affordable Housing (Candice GonzalezlPalo Alto Housing Corp)
• Caltrain rider (Evan Goldin)
Staff has also requested various City boards and commissions to appoint a liaison to attend and
represent their respective groups, including the Planning and Transportation Commission, the
Architectural Review Board, Utilities Advisory Commission, the Histotic Resources Board and
the Bicycle Advisory Committee. The role of the liaisons is to attend these meetings on behalf
of and provide updates to their representative boards. Liaisons are not participating as task force
members. Additionally, staff has invited representatives from the adjacent cities of Mountain
View and Menlo Park and Caltrain to appoint liaisons to attend the meeting.
Task Force Meetings
The Task Force has met seven times since November 2010. Meetings, which are subject to the
Brown Act,are scheduled on the first and third Thursdays of the month at the Lucie Stern
Community Center. The Task Force has met once to twice a month, depending on the need. The
focus of the first three meetings (November 9, Decelnber 9 and January 20) was to provide the
Task Force with background information, including the status of the various rail projects and to
discuss organization and logistics. Staff presented information on the Brown Act and other City
endeavors. Rob Braulik and Richard Hackmann of the City Manager's office spoke on the High
Speed Rail project and on the City's participation in those efforts. Sara Armstrong of
Californians Advocating for Responsible Rail Development (CARRD) also spoke to the Task
Force about the group's efforts and the role of public participation in the High Speed Rail
project.
The February 17 meeting was the first Task Force meeting with BMS Design Group, the project
consultant. The Task Force was provided with an introduction to BMS and a review of the
scope, schedule and outreach process at the fourth meeting. The Task Force also discussed the
goals and issues of the study area. The fifth meeting was held on March 17. Staff presented
other City efforts relevant to the Rail Corridor Study, including the Comprehensive Plan
Anlendnlent, the California Avenue Concept Plan, the Grand Boulevard Initiative and the Bike
and Pedestrian Plan Update. A process and schedule update was also outlined.
The sixth and seventh meetings included small working,groups to identify specific issues and
ideas. The sixth meeting, held on April 7, focused on corridor connectivity. BMS offered a
presentation on existing, potential and additional connections across the rail lines and impacts on
neighborhoods. High Speed Rail and Caltrain alternatives were reviewed. The Task Force was
divided up into several snlall groups to discuss concepts for destinations and possible
connections, including bike lanes. A Caltrain representative attended the meeting and gave an
update on the Caltrain budget and operations status. The seventh and latest meeting, held on
May 5t\ focused on transportation and circulation analysis. The consultant spoke about land use
and urban design and transportation and circulation issues in Palo Alto. The Task Force was
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then divided up into small groups to discuss and identify land use and transportation/circulation
issues and priorities. The next Task Force meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 16.
First Community Workshop
The project will include six Community Workshops, two in each of the three phases of the
project. The first Community Workshop was held on May 19,2011 at the Lucie Stem
Community Room. Approximately 25 people attended (most of whom were Task Force
members). The meeting began with a project overview, including the schedule and process.
BMS reviewed land use, transportation and circulation issues, previously discussed with the Task
Force. The remainder of the nleeting was held in an open house format. Fourteen stations were
set up along the perimeter of the room to solicit the attendees' issues and priorities related to the
corridor area. The questions focused on the individual's vision of the future of the corridor,
preferred uses in specific areas, view of the role of the corridor and priorities regarding
transportation improvements. The list of questions is provided as Attachment D. The public was
also able to provide other comnlents that did not necessarily fit into any of the preset categories.
The second Community Workshop is tentatively scheduled to be held on July 7,2011. The
purpose of this workshop is to discuss the public's initial visions for the project area building
upon the information obtained from the first workshop. BMS will present the findings from the
workshop at the June 8th Commission hearing.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS:
The study will rely on the City's Comprehensive Plan and other land use transpor.tation policies
to guide the effort for the corridor. Current Comprehensive Plan and area plan efforts, including
the Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan update, will be considered in conjunction with the Rail Corridor
Study. '
ENVIRONNIENTAL REVIEW:
A study session is not considered a project under the Califonlia Environmental Quality Act.
Environmental review for the.Rail Corridor Plan will be completed, likely, as part of the
Comprehensive Plan Environmental Impact Report.
PUBLIC OLTTREACH:
To solicit public feedback, a website and email address has been established for the project.
Notices for all meetings are posted on the City's website in the Know zone
(http://www.cityofpaloalto.orglknowzone/agendas/rail corridor task force.asp) and the City
Hall Notice Board. Additional background information is also provided on the webpage. Staff
has been maintaining an email distribution list of interested individuals and has used the list to
send out meeting notices and updates. An email address, railcorridorstudy@cityofpaloalto.org,
has been established for public outreach purposes. A separate detailed website,
www.paloaltorailcorridor.org, has been made available to provide as much information as
possible for the publio, similar to the one developed for the Comprehensive Plan Amendment.
The Task Force meetings are also recorded and available for viewing at the Community Media
Center website. Members of the public have attended and participated in the Task Force
meetings.
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ATTACHMENTS:
A. Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study Scope of Work
B. Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study Project Timeline.
C. Palo Alto Rail Conidor Study Boundary Map
D. Community Meeting #1 Questions for Open House Segment
COURTESY COPIES:
BMS Design Group
Rail Corridor Study Task Force
Prepared by: Elena Lee, Senior Planner
DepartmentlDivision Head Approval: ---C~Aj::01\d.kl-=',",------=------,\""",,bJ--->IIoo<.~ ~~~"~~:;..a.~ ___ _
Curtis Williams, Director
City of Palo Alto Page 6of6
Planning and Transportation Commission 1
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Verbatim Minutes
June 8, 2011
DRAFT EXCERPT
Rail Corridor Study Session: Study session to receive P&TC’s input to staff and consultants
on the preparation of the Rail Corridor Study.
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With that we will go to our second order of business which is the Rail Corridor Study Session. It
is a study session to receive PTC input to staff and consult on the preparation of the rail corridor
study. Before I introduce Elena Lee to introduce the item I am going to briefly give an idea as to
what the order of the presentation is going to be. You are going to make a staff presentation
followed by BMS making their presentation. After that I am going to ask for members of the
Rail Corridor Task Force if they wish to make their comments before the public hearing and then
the public will be able to speak to the item and then we will return to the commission. So, with
that, if there are any members of the public or members of the Rail Commission that wish to
speak to this item please fill out a card and submit it to one of the staff members and I’d
appreciate it if you would put on the corner of the card that you are a member of the Rail
Corridor Task Force so I can distinguish which cards are from the public and which are from the
task force members. Thank you, Elena.
Elena Lee, Senior Planner: Thank you Chair Lippert members of the commission. We are here
tonight to provide an introduction and an update to the Rail Corridor Study Project. The Rail
Corridor Study was initiated by City Council last year to develop a land use urban design and
transportation division along the Rail Corridor. To facilitate the project, an urban design
consultant, BMS Design Group, has been hired to help prepare the study. The consultant will
make a presentation following the stats report. BMS has had extensive experience with transit
oriented development as well as transit planning in various Bay Area cities including San
Francisco, San Jose, San Mateo and San Leandro, and most recently the city of Sunnyvale.
Public process is an important component of this Rail Corridor 3 phase project. The Rail
Corridor Work Study program is proposed to be completed in three phases to be completed in the
first quarter of 2012. The study is currently in Phase 1, the vision and context phase. This
project will include multiple hearings before the commission, the City Council as well as
community workshops. A task force was also formed to provide feedback to the staff in
development of the study. The task force is made up of various stakeholder groups including
residents, business owners, property owners, non-profit groups, as well as a transit writer. The
task force was intended to be a voice for the community at large. Task force meetings are open
to the public and held once or twice a month depending on need. Each phase will also include
multiple public hearings and two community workshops per phase. The first community
workshop was held on May 19th requesting feedback from the public about what they thought the
priorities were in context of the area. The next workshop is tentatively scheduled for July 7th. A
website, paloaltorailcorridor.org, and a task force page on the city’s website have been set up to
provide information to the public. As for places for the commissioner and the public, staff has
provided copies of the map and work products of the work groups held at the 6th and 7th task
force meeting as well as a community workshop. Also emailed earlier today and put at places
was an email from Commissioner Keller with his questions about what he thought should be the
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focus of some of these alternatives. That information will also be forwarded to the task force
members. Again, all of this information will be available online as well as the maps you see on
the board. BMS will now make a presentation and discuss the outcome of both the workshop
and task force meetings in detail and so BMS for this project consists of Barbara Maloney and
Michael Smiley, principals of BMS Design Group.
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Barbara Maloney: Thank you Elena and thank you Commission for inviting us to talk to you
today. What we would like to do today is quickly go through an overview of the project how we
see it. We are going to talk a bit about our thoughts about how we are approaching this with the
task force and the community because it is a unique project and its complexity and many serious
issues warrants a particularly careful and thoughtful approach. We will also talk about what we
have heard from the task force and the community thus far, we’ll share that with you. And then
we have some questions we would like to entertain, any discussion and questions you have and
we specifically have a few questions that we would love to get some feedback on.
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As Elena mentioned, we are leading the project, BMS Design Group, in San Francisco. My
partner and I have had this business for 15 years now and we specialize in transportation related
projects including TOD projects, streetscape, public environment projects, as well as a number of
other kinds of work. Joining us on the team is Fehr and Peers for transportation planning out of
San Francisco and EPS who are real estate economists out of Berkeley.
When we began the project we looked at the various background information that we could get
our hands on and we were particularly interested and paid note of the council’s direction to staff
upon authorizing and initiating this project and that has been something that has been guiding us
as we go forward on this. It is noted on here, and I won’t read all of it, but what we took away
from this is this is a plan for the corridor. It is not just about high speed rail. In fact it is not first
and foremost about high speed rail, it is about a rail corridor and what the future for land use,
transportation, and urban design for that corridor should be and of course we know there are a
number of possible futures for that corridor but we want to look first at the corridor itself and
really focus on what it could be and on what the vision for that place should be. As was
reiterated in the staff’s direction to us of what they wanted to see, they wanted a vision for land
use, transportation and urban design for the corridor. The outcome of this process will be to
develop a rail corridor plan, a plan for that corridor which will be incorporated into the
comprehensive plan for the city so we’ve made part of that policy document. As Elena
mentioned, this is a three phase project and we are actually getting fairly close to the end of the
first phase so it’s an opportune time to be speaking to you about this. There are essentially three
primary components to this phase of this work. The first was the analysis which has been in
large part an opportunity for us to get up to speed and understand the background documents,
what other projects are going on in the area that we need to be aware of and that should inform
what we’re thinking, obviously learning more about high speed rail in Palo Alto and the policy
and political issues relating to that, but also generally what other issues are that relate to the
corridor – traffic problems, land use issues and all the things the community and task force has
been able to advise us about.
What we are embarking on now, and we have two meetings scheduled to discuss this, is
encouraging the task force in the community to work with us to articulate a first vision for the
corridor. That’s not a specific plan, not specific solutions to individual issues or problems but it
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is a first articulation of what the vision, what the future of the corridor could be within the next 5,
10 or 25 years. So that is what we are hoping to get some additional guidance from you about.
Phase 2, once we complete that, and that will start in July, will actually develop alternative plans
for the corridor and we’ll evaluate those and then the final phase of the project will be to develop
the actual plan document itself.
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We’ve had 7 task force meetings. For some reason there are only 6 listed on this. There were 3
task force meetings that occurred before we were actually involved in the project. They started
in November and the third was in January and it was getting the task force up to speed on what
their role was, what the project was and also the status of the high speed rail project. When we
became involved in February, and there had been four meetings subsequent to that, we explained
our approach to the project. We asked the city staff and they gave us a briefing of other projects
going on that were relevant such as the California Avenue Study and studies of El Camino and
so on. The third meeting we had we had a first working session with the task force about
connectivity and we’ll talk to you a little more about what we got out of that and then we had the
7th meeting relating to some initial land use and transportation discussions. That last meeting
was in May. We’ve also had one community meeting as Elena mentioned and that was on May
19th. We’ve got some exhibits on that and we’ll tell you what we heard at that. We have two
meetings coming up as I mentioned. There is a final task force meeting for this phase that’s
going to be held on June 16th and a second community meeting that will be held on July 7th and
those as I said are going to be about vision. So with that I will hand it over to my partner
Michael Smiley. He is going to talk about how we’ve been handling the project and our
approach to it.
Michael Smiley: Thank you very much. What I’d like to do is talk just a little bit about how
we’ve sort of viewed the project really from the beginning. To a certain extent there has been, as
Barbara and Elena mentioned, there has been a considerable amount of input that we are
receiving that helps us get up to speed from the task force and the community. There are also
certain factors, sort of a planning approach and I’d like to talk to you about some of the thoughts
we’ve had about the planning approach to this. We were asked to share this with you because
this really goes back to one of the first discussions we had with the task force about how to think
about this corridor and again reminding everyone if it is not entirely clear, the corridor includes
all the land across the entire city from Menlo Park to Mountain View and from El Camino to
Alma so it is much more than just the rail tracks. It does affect things like El Camino, the cross
town streets that cross across these areas as well. So when we think about this we need to start
thinking about this as much as any other kind of urban design plan we would do for a district, as
just about a plan that happens to have high speed rail or happens to have Caltrain and some of
the other things in it. So, here you see a reference to 8 key considerations as we think about
planning and urban design for the corridor. In some ways they overlap and in other ways they
are different.
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There are different ways of thinking about and planning for an area that is really quite large and
really quite complex as an urban place. One of the first things that we feel is very important is to
get our arms around what is the role of this corridor, this very large area in the city, and we will
go through that in a minute. Also, the whole question defining the difference between
conservation and development areas. We know that there are some areas that we want to
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conserve and protect. We know there are other areas that could be opportunity areas in various
ways and we need to get to that working with the community. Then there is a whole other way
of thinking about this and that is as you break an area this large down breaking it down into
various districts. We have residential districts, commercial districts. Another way of thinking
about it is you also have transit districts. Now transit districts can be both a residential district
and a commercial district and if you think of the California Avenue area for instance that is both
a residential district, a commercial district and a transit district, so thinking about it as districts or
sub districts, it is just another way of putting a different set of goggles on in the way we look at
it. Then there is the whole question of transit oriented development. Now with the assumption
that there is no high speed rail station here then transit related components of a station for high
speed rail isn’t an issue but we still have three stations that affect Palo Alto that are places that
we need to think of as transit oriented development areas and of course you have within your
zoning a very clear pedestrian transit oriented development type district where you’ve already
started to address that. Then we break down into what are the elements of the plan specifically.
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Caltrain and high speed rail are very definitely a component of this. They are kind of the
elephant in the living room but the way we need to think about it is they are a piece of the plan,
not the plan itself. And then of course assessing how we deal with the various impacts of which
there are many different types and finally implementing the vision meaning how do we
implement all of this. I would like to touch on some of these things in a little more detail.
The role of the corridor in the city, one of the things I find very fascinating about this is that
when you map out the existing land uses in this area which is what this map shows, yellow and
as you know, the yellows and browns tend to be residential at lower to high densities and reds
and purples tend to be commercial type uses and blue are more civic and educational. One of the
things that really strikes about this area is compared to other parts of the city it has amazing
amounts of diversity. Its got the kind of diversity, particularly right in this corridor bound by
Alma on this side and El Camino on this side, an incredibly diverse area and it raises questions
about how we think about this and the kinds of services, the kinds of things that happen in this
very diverse area. It presents a lot of opportunity to do things that would be a little different
from the way you would think about an area that really has a common kind of use and purpose,
the single family areas and even the vast areas where we have a university and that sort of thing.
That kind of diversity is what we really need to think about as we go forward. Are there things
that can make it more diverse, more interesting, and satisfy a lot of things that make for a very
interesting and diverse core of the city? Your comprehensive plan reinforces that in the way it
speaks to that diversity as well and it’s not surprising that the comprehensive plan and the
existing uses tend to mirror each other and strengthen each other.
The question of course after we get finished with all this study is are there things that can be
done to make this an even more interesting place and consequently the comprehensive plan
would be reformulated or amended to reflect the kinds of things we would like to see there. The
assumption is that no place in any city I’ve ever worked, particularly in an area this large, is
perfect the way it is. We know there are things that we can always do to improve it and that is
really what we need to be thinking about.
Now one of the first things that we did and one of the things to think about as we plan an area
like this is defining conservation areas. This happens to be a very early sketch so its not as
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accurate as some of the mapping we’ve been doing more recently but it was an effort to identify
in a very conceptual way a few factors, yellow being residential areas under the assumption that
residential areas are places we want to conserve and protect. What that does is when you think
of it from a yin and yang point of view that then the areas that are non-residential and perhaps
they aren’t things such as a hospital or a high school might be opportunity areas where we can
start to think about opportunities for land use change or improvements that could better serve the
district and those tend to be certainly the white areas and also could be the red areas where we
are identifying some of the major pedestrian destinations, the major attractors that exist along
this corridor. So it is really simplified down, the ideas of what this corridor is to conservation
and non-conservation areas if you’d like to put it that way. By the way we did add a couple of
these. This was done way back at the beginning. In fact, we prepared this for the interview
when we interviewed for this project and began to talk about it. We also showed opportunities to
cross the existing Caltrain tracks. As you know, there aren’t many.
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Let’s talk about districts. I mentioned there are a variety of ways to think about districts and I
won’t repeat that but I think that this is something that we really do need to, as we go forward,
think about how the districts are arranged. Do they have boundaries, gateways, edgers, buffers?
There are of course single use districts and mixed use districts and one way to think of this is to
say, well, California Avenue for instance that area is a mixed use district and the residential area
next to it is not. Another way to think about it is to raise ourselves up about 500 feet and say the
whole area is a mixed use district. It is a mix of residential of various densities, it’s a mix of
various commercial services to serve that residential , its got parks, its got educational facilities,
its got one of the best museums in the entire Bay Area that is just across the street, its got great
transportation opportunities, so the entire corridor really is this bottom line here. And how do
you create a really diverse mixed use district while you’re also making sure you’re protecting the
neighborhoods that are within and adjacent to that district and make them an effective part of it?
We also have these transit districts I mentioned to you and of course I know we have the three
stations, Downtown University, California Avenue and San Antonio on the Caltrain line but we
also have the germ of an idea right now, the planning for bus rapid transit that will come down El
Camino Real and there are potential station locations that have been preliminarily identified. So
that will provide another transportation opportunity and we can start to think of those as transit
districts as well. And so when you think of that then the notion of transit oriented development
and the notion of what you do in service as transportation serves those neighborhoods and vice
versa as those neighborhoods support transit it starts to expand the opportunities within this
overall corridor and how we think about planning it.
Now what is transit oriented development since you are of course a commission that deals with
planning in the city I’m sure you’ve heard this many times but I’d like to just touch on it because
really there is a lot of discussion about what is transit oriented development, what are the
components and so on. We like to think of it as four key components. First of all and most
fundamentally you need an accessible urban framework and that is the pattern of streets and
blocks that allow all modes of travel to actually get to transit and if you don’t have that then both
the neighborhoods and so on can’t use transit effectively and the transit system itself is not well
supported. Second you need supportive land uses and there are a few land uses that definitely
support transit and there are other land uses that do not. Generally speaking, and I’ll use a local
example, and not that I’m trying to push them out, but generally speaking, a store like Fry’s does
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not support transit. You don’t ride transit to pick up the kinds of things that they sell there or a
Costco or big box retail or those kinds of things. Also, industrial does not support transit
because the population densities within those kinds of uses are very low. The types of uses that
do support transit are residential and of course the higher the density the better. We don’t want
to be Manhattan but you can look to a place like New York and you can see with those kinds of
densities why they have no cars on the street except taxis of course and this very busy transit
system. So residential densities uses and office uses as well generate a significant amount of
transit ridership. So those are two particular uses that depending upon the types of densities that
are acceptable to the community then we want to fit them in and we can actually support our
transit system and that of course is going to help keep Cal Tran alive during time. That gets us to
the third point of supportive densities. And finally we need an attractive public environment.
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The thing that I like to talk about the most is actually the transit vehicles themselves are quite
nice. The transit agencies spent a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of money getting good
buses, good trains, nice seats, and once you’re in the vehicle it is a nice ride. The problem with
transit is the trip from home to the vehicle and that’s where we urban designers come in and
planners and those we commission. If you think about this is if I feel unsafe getting there, if its
an uncomfortable environment while I’m waiting, its rainy, I don’t know when the bus or train is
coming, I don’t have real time information, then I might be inclined to say I’m driving because it
is too much of a hassle to get to that train even though it may not be that far away. That’s why
we need to be thinking about the public environment that becomes an integral part of transit
oriented development and of that transit system. I think that’s very important in this corridor
area because there are a lot of places in this corridor that have supporting uses, supporting
densities, but it is not easy to get to the train station. Ultimately to get to the BART station and
the other stations that are along El Camino Real.
Elements of the plan, another way of thinking about what we want to do here, is ultimately we
need a plan that spells out some of the key components and that of course involves having a
vision of what we want in the first place and that is sort of the stage we are trying to get through
now and once we do that developing this framework with streets and blocks, establishing a
circulation system with land use and density patterns, open space, and then city design, all the
various pieces that infill back into the plan and infill back into the vision and the framework.
I’d like to just mention about that framework and take us now to Palo Alto. One of the things we
all know is of course one of the biggest problems with cross town circulation is the current rail
tracks and to a certain extent, high speed rail maybe can make it better but it may not change it
depending on the alternative that they select. One of the things that we can see is that when you
look at this pattern, the existing urban pattern, the residential areas on the North East side, North
is not north and west is not West in Palo Alto I know, but let’s use the drawing as North. So
north is up on the drawing. The neighborhoods north of the tracks and into downtown have this
very walkable and accessible urban framework. That framework falls apart along El Camino
Real and sort of the south side around the campus area and some of the large institution uses and
so on that we have. That framework of course we have this long wide band where this entire
framework ends. Of course Alma is part of the problem and the tracks are the other part of the
problem, so a lot of what we need to think about as we go forward in this project and in this
process is how we can improve on this urban framework that exists through here. And even
within the corridor area we are looking at, what can we do to make that work and function better
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so it provides, a) better circulation and so on and, b) functions better for this amazingly diverse
neighborhood that already exists.
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One of the things we’ve done is we’ve looked at the types and places where there might be
circulation framework opportunities for just crossing that one corridor and this diagram is a little
hard to read but essentially what you’ll see from these dots here is we’ve mapped where the
existing vehicular crossings are, the yellow ones, and we’ve marked where the existing
pedestrian and bike crossings are, non-vehicular, and so those are down through Homer at
California Avenue and then we said, well, where are the potential vehicular crossings? This is
today. Forget about high speed train. This is today. Where else could we cross when we wanted
to? The interesting thing about it is there aren’t many places that we can cross that don’t have
anything to do with the train because for instance, right along this area, along Charleston, all
these residential areas back up against the existing tracks. So unless we want to remove
somebody’s house, we can’t cross anywhere. That removes this entire area as potential crossing
locations for pedestrian or bicycle. Same is true down here. So by deductive means we are able
to find that there are actually land use patterns and a variety of other reasons why we can’t make
the crossings anyway. High speed train will have nothing to do with that and to a certain extent
Caltrain will have nothing to do with that unless of course we can get everything down below
grade and then maybe we can have more crossings. Then of course we have cost considerations
but it doesn’t mean it is an impossible thing to do. Now the places we can do that are the white
circles. You can see right near downtown there are several places where we could make that
crossing, into the hospital area, crossings into where the park is, into the high school. We
wouldn’t want vehicular crossings into the high school but we could have a bike connection
there. That’s the kind of land use on the other side of the tracks that could accept a crossing but
single family residential cant. So its pretty interesting because you find regardless of what is
going on with the trains themselves, we have land use constraints that limit what we can do and
how we cross that corridor.
Finally I do think we need to talk about the train itself. I don’t want to just completely not
mention that. I think that one of the things our approach has been on this, the first start has been,
what do we know about the train. We know a lot of details about what they’re thinking but what
we know for sure is they are looking at three alternatives. One of those is a sort of below grade,
or at least a cut, and the other two are combinations of surface, below grade, and aerial viaduct.
So we know they are looking at three alternatives and at this point we know what those
alternatives are and presumably you have seen those as well. We don’t know if the high speed
train is even coming for sure. We don’t know whether it will even look like any of those three
alternatives so our sense has been, and this is partly what I’m trying to get at in this whole
conversation and as Barbara started, is that we feel that what’s most important, and we believe
this is what the council directive is all about, is we need to plan this area anyway. And we need
to plan it of which the high speed train, in any configuration it may take, yes, as a consideration
we need to think about it but we aren’t even sure it is going to arrive. So let’s plan and get a
vision for this area to start to address a lot of the things I was already talking about, how we can
make a better and greater neighborhood in this area. That includes identifying the visions which
we are trying to do now and preparing alternatives and preparing this corridor plan. Then, as we
are going through this we can circle back around and say this is what we want. What among the
various high speed rail alternatives, or among what high speed train is doing, how can we use
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that to help us implement our goal? If it never comes, we can still continue to implement our
goal for this area because we have one. We have a goal and it is embodied in your
comprehensive plan. With that I am going to turn it back over to Barbara and she can talk a little
bit about it further.
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Barbara Maloney: To wrap up our presentation part of the study session here I just want to
briefly talk to you about what we have heard from the task force and the community relating to
many of these things we have been talking about. We have a number of ways we have been
reaching out. There is a project website and we have had task force meetings. As I mentioned
there have been seven of those, the eighth is coming up next week. They are doing a good job
representing neighborhoods, businesses and other stakeholders in the area who have an interest
in this and we are encouraging them to reach out to their constituents to not only get to the
community meetings but talk to them about what is going on and reflect their concerns in our
meetings. We have been actually getting pretty good attendance from the public at those task
force meetings as well. As far as the community meetings, the City has done a good job of
noticing those meetings. There is the web page and we are having two community meetings in
each phase of the project. This is the website which is up and running. It has been up and
running for a few weeks now so we are providing information as we go along and posting
material to that. Two of the task force meetings that we had that were the most interesting for us
and for the task force in terms of beginning to start getting our teeth into what the various issues
are and starting to get our teeth into the project. The first one we had which was the third
meeting that we had with the task force, we called a connectivity discussion and it sprang from
the drawing that Michael just showed you which showed the whole corridor, showed where the
crossings of the tracks and the rail area is for vehicular crossings, pedestrian crossings and so on
and we basically provided that drawing to the task force members, broke everybody up into
small groups and asked them to consider these questions. How can we make better connections?
Where should they be? Can we do pedestrian connections, bike connections, and if the trench
were covered if the train were in a trench configuration, it is our understanding from the
engineers that there is probably going to be an opportunity in that scenario for there to be
coverings for that trench as much as 800 feet long as long as there is 1400 feet left between
coverings because they need that for emergency purposes to get access to the trains themselves
should there be a problem. There are these opportunities for 800 feet covers. I’m not clear who
pays for those or how those would be implemented but if there were those, where might
locations for those be and how might those be used. So that was the topic of our first working
session for the task force and they enthusiastically jumped into this dialogue. We’ve got on the
left side there the long drawings on the middle of the wall there on the left and they represent
two of the tables that were working on that, about 6 or 8 people per table. They came up with a
lot of interesting things. You can see it either on the wall or the slide, the blue strips represent
locations where people were suggesting there might be cover over the trench and if they were
covered that would be a good location because they could envision uses that might work there
like park space or a crossing of some kind or another that might be both vehicular and ped and
bike and so on. Places where there could just be plazas, places where there could be an enhanced
train station whether that’s for Caltrain or not. The red dots were also very important they found
in that they defined destinations and those are places people want to get to from one side or
another so those were places as we move forward I think will be very helpful to us as we go
along. So we’ve got some really very helpful information out of that and these are two of the
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other drawings. Some folks got really excited about the coverings down around University
Avenue and others were focused on some other areas in the project. Some of the yellow lines
you see on there were suggestions about where some bike facilities should be improved for bike
access along the corridor. We did find a lot of enthusiasm and support for bicycle access through
the corridor and for Palo Alto as a whole. So some of the things we heard, just to summarize
some of them, a lot about connectivity, reinforcement as Michael was saying, protecting those
residential neighborhoods, particularly the single family neighborhoods and a lot of thought
about the different kinds of crossing improvements. We also were asking them to identify
particular intersections, vehicular intersections where there are pedestrian problems, conflicts,
safety concerns, that kind of thing and those will be useful for us also as we move forward.
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The second working meeting we had with the task force was relating to some land use and
transportation questions. I won’t go through this whole list of questions but we had some that
had to do about what the future of the corridor might be, this corridor area. Is it an area that
might have higher intensity and be more downtown like perhaps in some ways, more TOD
oriented? Was it a place where more moderate intensity changes are more appropriate or is it an
area where there shouldn’t be any change? Little or no change? Also, if intensification is
feasible, where would that be? We also asked accompanying transportation question. What
should El Camino do? What should the land along El Camino, how can that be supportive? If
there are traffic problems where are they and how can the street network be improved? We used
as a basis for this, Michael showed this earlier, this is essentially a drawing that we’ve done from
your zoning that indicates sites that are currently zoned for housing or mixed use in proximity to
transit and services. And so, using that as a base to suggest areas where there might be
opportunities, you can see the groups were beginning to look at things like the red blocks that
people were putting on the maps indicate areas where there could be an intensification of retail
uses, service uses. They were certainly clustered in most cases down at the southern end of El
Camino in the study area, particularly south of Cal Ave. Some of the bike and pedestrian
improvements were the yellow ones, it’s kind of hard to read the scale. You can see also there
were ideas about new public spaces that are shown. The retail is shown in the red, the yellow, I
don’t know what all the colors are going forward but you can see again on this one there was a
lot of interest in the University Avenue area and how development could be reinforced. There
were opportunities both with the cover ideas as well as on sites that adjoin University Avenue for
intensification of uses which might be commercial uses or residential uses, any number of things.
The yellow squares are higher density residential uses. And then we had our first community
meeting and I just wanted to summarize a few of the findings on this, you’ll see on the easels on
the left the selection, it’s not all of the questions we asked and the answers we receiving from the
community. But we did a voting exercise that we could kind of begin to get a sense of people’s
preferences on some different questions. We thought it was pretty interesting in the first
question, what do you think the most important role of the study area is? There was a lot of
support for residential uses in the corridor. There was support also of course for services, work,
and cultural events but there was also almost equally strong support for residential and for all of
the above so there seemed to be good confirmation of the idea, as Michael was saying, that this is
a mixed use corridor and it should continue to remain and be reinforced as a mixed use corridor.
The biggest problems? Poor connections to the rest of the city is clearly an issue but lack of
services was seen as an important one as well. How important is increasing the use of alternate
travel modes in the city and in the study area? Very, very important. Are there areas where land
uses should be changed or intensified to improve the area? Clearly the three top vote getters in
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that regard are probably pretty obvious. University Avenue, Park Blvd., El Camino, Fry’s,
California Avenue area but there were questions and concerns about how that would work in the
southern part of El Camino down in the vicinity of Charleston and questions have come up about
that in the task force meeting and in the community meeting. Then finally, what new uses would
be desirable in each of those areas? University Avenue, mixed use and retail and office.
California Avenue, mixed use and retail. Park Blvd., El Camino, Fry’s, mixed use, residential
and the other uses and El Camino near Charleston, retail certainly, mixed use and to some degree
residential. So we feel as though we’ve gotten quite good direction from both the task force and
the community from this and based on that overview we’d love to answer your questions and
have any kind of a dialogue that you would like to have.
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Curtis Williams, Planning Director: Thank you Commissioners. I just wanted to apologize that
the presentation was late this afternoon. We got it up for your viewing but we didn’t have time
to make copies before the meeting so Elena has just delivered those to you. We will have that up
on the website tomorrow as well so you or others can take a look at that. Thank you.
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Chair Lippert: Thank you and thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you very much
for members of the Rail Corridor Task Force members showing up this evening, I really
appreciate it. I’m going to make an opportunity for members of the Rail Task Force if they wish
to speak individually simply fill out a speaker card and I’ll just take them in the order that we
receive them then I’ll have members of the public speak so with that we’ll begin with Tom
Vlasik. Tom you have three minutes and you can add any additional comments and information
you have and that will be followed by Irvin Dawid.
Mr. Tom Vlasik: Thank you Commissioners. I am the Southgate representative to the task force
and I appreciate very much being able to represent my neighborhood but also the greater
community and the appointment to the task force by the Council. The task force efforts started
out somewhat slow but I think they’ve dramatically improved as we focused on the opportunities
and constraints under the guidance of the consultants and I very much appreciate the framework
that they put forth tonight and the opportunity they’ve had to share that with the task force and
starting at the community meetings. It is a rough process to start and to take the diversity we
have on the task force and put it into a form where the people are up to speed on the simple
planning tools let alone the diverse issues we are coming to grips with. We are still in this early
vision process but I very much appreciate the efforts that have been made over the last several
meetings to guide us in a way so we could come together and put this vision into some form. I
also appreciate that we are not stressing high speed rail, that it is not the driving force and I think
that fundamentally, at least from my perspective, we appreciate the need to address the housing
element requirements that may be able to be solved with some of the growth focused on this area
but also there is a great deal of feeling on the part of the task force members that whatever we
come up with, recognizing that we have to come to grips with a lot of factors. We do not want to
come up with a plan that dramatically changes the character of the community. I see it as a
community plan, not an urban design plan. In our community, Palo Alto is a significant place for
us to live and do all of the things we find important so I think the committee is frustrated a bit
because of the daunting task of putting these elements together but you do have a good group of
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people who really are seriously bringing diverse opinions together and I really appreciate the
work of the consultants and look forward to your input too.
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Chair Lippert: Thank you very much. Next we’ll have Irvin Dawid followed by Phil Burton. 3
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Mr. Irvin Dawid: Yes thank you Mr. Lippert and members of the Planning and Transportation
Commission. My name is Irvin Dawid. I’m one of two appointees from the Sierra Club. We are
the so-called environmental contingent. Just for the record the Sierra Club had, there were
several of us that applied, there is no “Sierra Club” position here, just coming from the
environmental community. My colleague Tom Jordan, sometimes I think he was appointed to
counteract my own more smart growth type of attitudes. Unfortunately the biggest thing I have
to say is some of the negative and that is that I was not there for our first community workshop.
I was in San Luis Obispo for a Sierra Club California meeting. I very much regretted that but I
never regret the opportunity to go to San Luis Obispo. I would urge everybody to do that. It is
the most bike friendly community that I know of that I go to. As Tom indicated, the role of the
consultants were really helpful and we were slow in getting started. Once the consultants came
on, and they really changed everything. It was like putting a car or bicycle into a more fast
moving gear and we started breaking out into work groups and as a whole we started becoming
more productive. The biggest hurdle that, and Tom also mentioned this, was to overcome you
could call it the high speed rail perspective. We had members of the public come and they
would use the public common just to talk about high speed rail. It is very clear the name of this
task force is rail corridor, not high speed rail corridor. In fact, even rail corridor is a bit of a
misnomer. As the consultants indicated, there are actually three corridors we are actually
discussing although one of them gets very little attention and that is the tracks themselves and
Alma Street. Speaking of that last corridor I would just say we’ve also had liaisons come
regularly and they have played a crucial role. Lee is one of them, Judith Wasserman from ARB
is another one, Paul Goldstein from the Bicycle Advisory Committee is another one and he made
a comment that I should have made. He pointed out that on Alma Street right by the Homer
Tunnel that he constantly sees people walking on the dirt path that is as narrow as a podium
because they are walking to get to the train station so the liaisons have played a crucial role and I
think we’re coming together now. Thank you.
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Chair Lippert: Phil Burton, and if we have any other members from the rail corridor task force
that wish to speak, this is the time for them to do so.
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Phil Burton: Good evening. My name is Phil Burton and I represent the midtown south. I am
going to try to be very brief. First item to report on is that yesterday evening I had a meeting
with the steering committee of the midtown resident’s association. They were very interested to
learn more about the process, the results so far in terms of what the process is doing. I think the
most immediate outcome is that they want to become more aware of events like community
outreach and I will do my part to make sure they have that information so there can be greater
community participation. The second thing I want to mention is that I was not at the first
community meeting because of a family medical emergency. I was actually back in New York
City. I had a chance to ride the New York City subway system and yes, it is amazing how many
people they move in a very limited amount of space but it is a very different urban environment,
nothing we can ever achieve her or would necessarily want to. Thank you.
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Chair Lippert: Thank you very much. With that we’ll have Beth Bunnenberg followed by Bill
Cutler. Beth, like myself, is a liaison or representative to the task force.
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Beth Bunnenberg: Thank you, Beth Bunnenberg, 2351 Ramona Street. As has been stated, I am
a liaison to the task force. I would like to at this point request some notice be given to the
historic structures along the rail corridor. Thus far the study has not seemed to address the very
special structures. Some of the samples are the Palo Alto tree with its roots that wrap around the
old railroad bridge there at San Francisquito Creek, the 1941 Streamline Motor and University
Avenue train station. Numerous business buildings along Alma Street that are on our city’s
historic inventory, the Southgate possible national register district, and the green meadow
national register district so I hope that as time progresses we will get some chance to put those
in. Thank you.
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Chair Lippert: Thank you very much. With that we’ll have the first member of the public
speaking, that’s Bill Cutler, and if there are any other members of the public that wish to speak to
this item, now is the time to hand in a card.
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Mr. Bill Cutler: My name is Bill Cutler. I live at 4114 Park Blvd. First I have a comment and a
question on process. What the consultants have shown us looks to me like a very effective and
responsive process but I have one concern and that is the degree to which it can demonstrate that
the entire community of stakeholders are really being engaged and the stakeholders important
interests are being folded in. There is a tool called stakeholder audit which enumerates who the
stakeholders are either by individual, group or by type and then identifies what the interests are
for each of these stakeholder groups and the idea would be to demonstrate by some measure that
the process is really reaching all of the stakeholders. Personally, I think it is not effective to just
put up notices, bang a notice up on the telephone pole saying you all come, people like me who
like to shoot off their mouths will show up. The other people who are a lot more quiet will not
show up until late into the study when they get irate at the fact that their interests have been
ignored and I would like to see some kind of process that would get these people out and into the
process. The other comment I wanted to make was I realize in watching the presentation tonight
that there is an opportunity for study and development in the El Camino Way area. There are a
number of restaurants and there have been a couple of restaurants that were my favorites that
have left and I think there is an opportunity for the neighborhood village along the El Camino
Way alignment that would have restaurants the are interesting and shops that would be
interesting to the people who lived in the neighborhood. With the density of residential that is
adjacent to that both within the corridor study area and across El Camino on the west side, I’m
wondering if that area might have the potential of being developed and have enough clientele to
support something there that would be really interesting. So I wanted to call that to your
attention and perhaps have that given some focus in the study.
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Chair Lippert: Thank you very much. Are there any other members of the public that wish to
speak to this item? Ok with that I’m going to close the public hearing and we will return to the
commission. Commissioners, if you turn to the last page of the presentation there is PTC
discussion items. This is actually an excerpt or it’s actually an abbreviated version of some
questions that were asked at your community meeting number one. So with that what I’d like to
do is return to the Commission. I’ll give each Commissioner five minutes, we’ll go down and
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look for lights here. And if you could focus your comments or questions on the discussion items
I think it would be very helpful in terms of giving the consultants some feedback as well as any
other items that are appropriate. Do I have lights? I guess we’re done, no, I guess what we’ll do
is I’ll just begin down the line. Do you mind leading off Commissioner Martinez?
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Commissioner Martinez: Ok. First to the planning director, my sources in Sacramento tell me
that there is a bill in the Senate to transfer the responsibility for high speed rail to Cal Trans. I
know it’s kind of speculative but how does that affect the process that we are going through right
now, if any?
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Curtis Williams, Planning Director: Well, it does not affect the process we are going through
now but it may have implications for high speed rail and providing a different sort of oversight
for the high speed rail function in that its currently the authority as is an independent group that
has come under a lot of criticism for the way they’ve handled things so establishing them within
Cal Trans… I can probably make some untowards comments about the length of time it takes
anything to get through Cal Trans, it might be further delayed, but we don’t really know how that
would in and of itself would probably just be some initial delay at a minimum just to change the
bureaucracy kind of and move it in Cal Trans but how the substance of the alternatives they are
looking at and how those kinds of things would change or if they would, we don’t really know.
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Commissioner Martinez: Only that our liaison in high speed rail would change to perhaps
different state representatives. I wanted to thank Beth about her comment about the historic
structures. I wanted to add one more and that’s Caltrain itself. Putting it underground or putting
it above, its kind of part of Palo Alto’s history so I want to make sure we preserve that. Question
to our consultants, I wanted to thank you. I’ve really enjoyed listening to you and it’s the second
time I’ve gotten to do that. Can you provide a little bit more substance in why the corridor study
includes El Camino Real? Why has it been expanded that way?
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Barbara Maloney: We were presented as part of our scope of work that the study area extended
the full length of the study and then from Alma to El Camino and I think that’s because as one of
the task force members said, there are three corridors in this area and its clear that El Camino
plays a critically important role in transportation and circulation and land use throughout this
area. The study was slightly ill defined when we got there and what we’ve said is we should
actually look at properties outward of both El Camino and Alma so we get the envelope around
each of those rights of way as well as for the study area. Curtis do you want to expand on that?
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Curtis Williams, Planning Director: No I think that is generally well put and if you look at the
train stations and particularly University and California Avenue train stations certainly the
walkable area to those train stations extends to El Camino and both of those locations we do
anticipate bus rapid transit on El Camino at some point in the future and so all these connections
in terms of the transit and walkability issues I don’t think we can look at the corridor without
being inclusive in that way and also we do show on the east side the line actually going east of
Alma for several blocks just to acknowledge that there are impacts certainly on the residents,
whatever the alternatives are for this corridor, the Cal Tran corridor. There are some impacts
there that will accrue to those residents on that side of Alma that we need to also be aware of as
we go through the study.
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Commissioner Martinez: Thank you. One last question though. I understand that the sphere of
influence does extend both across Alma and to El Camino but is it the intention or the direction
of the study to propose developments in areas towards El Camino other than the transit where we
are proposing infrastructural changes or looking at that kind of work that impacts the corridor
study itself?
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Curtis Williams, Planning Director: My guess is, and it is still to be defined by the task force and
by the consultants and their joint work but my guess is that we’re not going to real specifically
define land uses out to El Camino. Probably the closer you are to Caltrain the more specific
we’ll be. There may be some opportunity sites or a few locations in this corridor though where it
makes sense to focus and say this is an area that probably has potential for some redevelopment
that might range from A to C but we are not going to get down to the point of saying that it
should be a park or it should be a commercial retail space and FAR should be increased to such
and such a point. We are not getting to the level of specificity even in the California Avenue
area plan for instance. So again, I think that needs to be determined to some extent but just in
terms of general land use patterns in these areas of opportunity that may exist within the corridor,
I think that’s what we hope can be defined in this process and consistent in conjunction with the
other plans that are going on.
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Chair Lippert: Commissioner Garber. 21
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Commissioner Garber: For the consultant, when you speak of mixed as a land use what do you
mean?
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Barbara Maloney: We typically mean either one of two things – that can be mixed in a building,
retail under residential or retail under office or under office or residential so it could be mixed
use within building configuration but it could also be side by side mixed use where we would
have areas that would have retail projects and housing projects and even office projects in close
proximity. Thank you.
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Michael Smiley: There was an interesting comment that came from the task force that I thought
was very good actually. I can’t remember which meeting it was but one of the task force
members spoke to me and asked me that same question and the answer, typically as professionals
we’ll say, well yes its mixing uses, in a building or next to each other but actually it goes back to
what I said in the beginning and that is mixed use also in the context of this kind of planning
includes parks, open space, cultural facilities and a broad array of things that are about the mix of
this district and so mixed use, if we’re talking about a specific site, might be a building that has
retail on the ground floor and then residential but if we’re talking about a district and I thought
Mr. Cutler got a kind of interesting idea. That there is El Camino Real is a place that might have
a more interesting array of things going on as a district. I’m not necessarily endorsing it but I’m
saying we can also think of this as a place that has everything from churches to retail. It’s a real
community mix of things going on.
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Commissioner Garber: Understand, thank you. For staff, how does this particular study fold into
the Fry’s area study? How will they relate to each other?
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Curtis Williams, Planning Director: Well we are trying to inform both processes of what is
happening in the other so we did have a meeting in the task force where we presented a number
of different ongoing planning activities including Cal Avenue Fry’s area, plan to show what’s
happening in that effort, also the bicycle master plan and other comprehensive planned activities
so that they got a bigger picture of the activities going on so as we move forward we’ll do that
and the same thing on the Cal Avenue side we’ll consider what that means and we’ll have to
bring those two things closer together and I think right now we’ve delayed the Cal Avenue plan
coming back to you in some respects because we want to see how this effort proceeds and if
there is a closer alignment or an alignment of the two studies.
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Commissioner Garber: Thank you. A couple of general comments and if we have a chance to go
through maybe I’ll add some more at another time. It seems to me for the consultants it might be
interesting/helpful to understand how this particular corridor operates as a feeder for the city.
We know the statistics about how many people come in and off of the train itself but I’m
interested in seeing that in context against for instance how 101 and 280 support the city and I
think understanding how those numbers inform the use of the city will help us put into
perspective some of the uses that are going to have to occur and occur today along that corridor.
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I am reassured by the thoughtfulness that your study is undertaking here. In particular I like
some of the thought experiments you are going through to look at what would happen if you
were simply in particular to remove the train. And to recognize in fact that there is still the
residual issues that are separating the city. I know from a variety of other communities, in order
to stitch communities back together you have to put roadways back through areas where that
fabric is not allowed or has been taken away. This is a topic that we’ve spoken about
specifically in regards to the Fry’s area plan and the Cal Ventura area plan. What’s important
there, at least in one commissioner’s view, is adding streets back in to take that area and stitch it
back into our community. Looking at opportunities to cross that rail corridor as it existed I think
there is a long way to trying to find ways to stitch the community back and forth but that raises a
significant other issue and that is there are benefits to the existing condition. Someone can get
from north to south in Palo Alto very quickly by diverting their path and going down Alma and
then diverting back to wherever it is that they are going. If you were to fundamentally change a
lot of those intersections along there you are fundamentally changing the likelihood of Alma
operating that way. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, I’m just saying that the actual experiential
differences can have impacts and beginning to try to find a way to quantify to understand what
those things are will help us to make a decision as to what sort of vision we should be embracing
or at least if we do embrace one we know what the consequences are.
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Commissioner Fineberg: I’d like to start with the back page of the PTC discussion items, the
second bullet point that we were to consider was, and this is per your working groups I guess,
was can it be a location for higher density, greater height and where. I’m a bit perplexed that this
is a question that either the PTC or the task force or members of the public are being asked to
answer because I have not heard a discussion publicly in this community about whether we are
looking for sites that have higher density, greater height and where they should be. There are
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some people that think there should be and some that think they shouldn’t be and we have not
made any policy decisions so to start the conversation with can it be a location before there is an
articulation of whether there should be locations, I find a little bit of the assumptions driving the
outcomes, rather than there being a full and fair conversation of what’s the vision of where we
want to end up and then how you get there. Consistent with that, I am concerned that I’m seeing
a little bit of discrepancy between the consultants have described there being meetings of
community members that were well attended yet at our staff report on page 5 it says the first
community workshop had about 25 members or people attending, most of which are members of
the task force, 17. To me, there were less than 10 members of the public that have been at the
one workshop and unless I am mistaken and I was not able to attend that I don’t consider less
than 10 people a good show, a good amount of input from the members of the public. We’ve
had one today, Mr. Cutler, and I have to acknowledge his comment. If there is a tool,
stakeholder audit, that he mentioned that we can use to track the feedback we are getting and
who the feedback is coming from, I think that would go to greatly inform us about where the
inputs are coming from and how we are reaching our conclusions. The process we have right
now is maybe not encompassing full public input with many representations of different ideas
and different approaches. Also, Mr. Williams, you said that we are delaying the work on Cal
Ave. so that the process can happen simultaneously with this. In a perfect world, I think it’s
fantastic that we not plan one piece and ignore another piece. So there is a side of you that says
good but there is another side of me that says our old comp plan reached the end of its life in
2010. We were supposed to update it. Right now the work program was 2010 and any delays
we have along the way, any expansion of scope, leave us with more time where we are not
getting guidance from a comprehensive plan that isn’t based on traffic data from the mid 1980s,
that isn’t based on things that are so old, that isn’t based on conversations happened one or two
decades ago. We need to do whatever it is to get a new comprehensive plan before the next one
is due in 2020. We keep not operating with a vision of what we want to be that we’ve defined. I
applaud the work of the rail corridor task force, thank you to everyone who is on it. Spending of
your time and giving of yourselves, please keep doing that. We have to make sure that it moves
along with but doesn’t delay getting a new comp plan update and then staff obviously is going to
have to figure out how to stage that. I want to acknowledge Commissioner Keller’s comments,
make sure they get entered into the record with whatever public format they’re supposed to and
just to characterize them. He’s just breaking down the scenarios of the five different things that
could possibly happen, focusing on the train, whether there are no changes to Caltrain, under
grounding, above grounding, and that’s kind of not too much of the focus of today’s
conversations. I want to echo Beth Bunnenberg’s comments from the HRB about this process
must recognize historic resources. My guess is that might come along when there is more detail
review, things like identifying sensitive receptors along the corridor and many other things but
that is a big one that needs to be considered early on in a significant manner and if I could have
one more please, or second round.
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Chair Lippert: We’ll do a second round if you have those and if not you can do it now and that
will be it. Commissioner Tanaka.
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Commissioner Tanaka: I wanted to thank the task force as well as the staff and consultants. It
looks like a lot of work has happened and a lot of discussion has happened. I definitely want to
commend the various task force members that have gone out to the community, midtown and
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other resident associations to reach out and I actually view although maybe the attendance of the
general public wasn’t as high, I think by having a large task force, 17 members, and having each
task force member reaching out to their own channels and own neighborhoods, we do get a good
voice of Palo Alto so thank you for reaching out and doing that. I think you guys are bringing up
the right questions and right issues. This is a good discussion for us to have. In regards to the
three questions that were posed to us, I think in terms of the role of the corridor for the city, I
think the survey was right. It’s pretty much all of the above. To say its only one or a couple
would be very hard to argue and so I think that to me is maybe obvious to most but the one thing
I do have to say about this, and its probably how the task force got to this level, but while it is
probably going to be a mixed use of a bunch of these different uses, some uses there are better to
be adjacent to high traffic areas than others so for instance, having a retail shop or a restaurant
near a busy street is far better than having a single family house for instance. While I understand
the consultants point of view in terms of having residential next to retail on street level, perhaps
what works a lot better is having residential above versus side by side, especially on busy streets
so those are some things that could be considered although I don’t know if that’s within the
scope of the task force. In general, I think it is smart planning of these various uses and their
compatibility to the various locations they are in. In regard to the second question, can it be a
location for a higher density?
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I agree with my colleague, that we need to have more discussion and I think this is part of that
discussion we are having and if we want to have higher density where should it be and if we
want to have higher density. That’s also a very good question as well. Some of this, ABAGS is
trying to push upon Palo Alto and it is of course for our city to have the discussion ourselves to
figure out if that makes sense but in terms of this question itself, University Avenue I think is
pretty well developed. It is doing quite well as far as I can tell. Its pretty well developed, it has
had a lot of planning already. The California Avenue, Fry’s area we actually have a plan
underway as we have this discussion here. I think there’s actually quite a bit of opportunity for
improvement and to actually optimize the area better than it is perhaps done today so thinking
about that in context to how the rail corridor is going to be changing over the next few decades
or so is important. In terms of the El Camino South area we all know there has been a lot of new
housing in South Palo Alto and this can facilitate growth in services for those new residential
units. Now realize new residential units aren’t necessarily near El Camino South but certainly
having some services closer would make sense so I’m not sure it needs more housing along El
Camino South or even along El Camino but certainly having more services would make a lot of
sense to me. Finally, on the last question, what does the corridor need to create a better urban
place and I think the first thing the task force seems to be doing extremely right is we are kind of
moving from a very reactive model where things are coming down and we need to react to them
to be more proactive and that’s the formation of the task force and the thinking of the task force
today to kind of get ahead of things versus reacting to when projects are proposed or when things
are handed down from various agencies whether it be Caltrain or high speed rail or whoever. It’s
actually really good that this kind of thinking is happening and I really think the task force is
doing something that probably should have been done a while back but its essential that it is
being done and I think as the task force continues to meet and tries to tackle these hard problems,
one thing to think about is there are a lot of problems posed, a lot of goals trying to be achieved
but perhaps one thing to think about is while it is 17 people, all these programs are very large,
just getting the connectivity, the crossings, fixing those existing issues, whether we have high
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speed rail or the electrification of Caltrain, just think about a few big problems rather than 10 big
problems, just a few and thinking about how those problems can be solved in various scenarios
be it high speed rail or Caltrain electrified or whatever the scenario might be but practically
thinking about how we solve these problems. One big part of this besides just finding the right
location and right configuration is also thinking about how do you fund it? How does it get
funded? There has been some discussion about having some covers, if the train is going to be
put underground in a trench. There is going to be some opportunity to perhaps monetize some of
that land that is created above and perhaps that can be a funding source but I think that is
something that has to be part of the thinking of the task forces, thinking about a few big
problems and then possible solutions according to what scenario might actually happen as well
as how you fund it and if the task force does that I think it is going to be greatly indebted so
thank you for all your work.
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Chair Lippert: First of all, Commissioner Keller could not be with us this evening but he
submitted some comments and I’ve asked Director Williams and Elena Lee to share those with
the task force along with our comments this evening so you’ll be receiving those.
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With regard to my comments, first of all I want to commend the working group. I think I’ve
done that a couple of times but not in this forum here. You’ve done a tremendous job, the
amount of work you’ve done in a very brief period of time has really been great and I know that
it took a while to get off of the high speed rail and get focused on the land use and it really shows
in the work that you’ve done so far and I think the conclusions that you come to in Phase 1 will
be very gratifying not only for yourself but for this community. With regard to some feedback
on the specific material that you’ve brought forward this evening, first of all, I think Alma Street
is a very important street in Palo Alto. It is really a spine to the city and what I mean by that is it
is a place where everybody in the city goes but it is not a destination by itself. I think
Commissioner Garber outlined it pretty well which is that it is really the way people get around
the city. It is our own private expressway.
I live over in downtown north over toward Middlefield Road but I would never go down
Middlefield road to get to midtown. I scoot over to Alma Street and I go down Alma Street and
cut through on Colorado to midtown and that’s how I get there. I use it several times a day and
so with the plan that you have with regard to looking at land use along there, right now I would
never look at that as being a mixed use corridor. I would never look at that as being by itself
along Alma Street, being destinations that people are looking to get to for community services
but I think perhaps with what Commissioner Garber alluded to which is with some of these
crossings and some of the reinforcement of the connections from East to West is going to begin
to make that street slow down and maybe operate a lot like Middlefield Road or maybe El
Camino Real. And then, as a natural progression, maybe there could be some mixed use uses on
there. Maybe there could be some sort of retail or office space with residential above it. One
thing that I’m very reluctant to do is to sort of jump forward and say, oh, this is the way I see
Alma Street and what I see this group doing is actually going through the process of beginning to
think about these parts and pieces and how they operate and a lot of the ideas I had many many
years ago are beginning to take form, but as I look at other elements the group is being asked to
look at, for instance the crossings how we knit together the fabric of the streets in this
community, Alma takes on a whole different complexion and so I can see higher density
development along there but with it being a corridor or being a spine, I don’t see that yet. Maybe
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in 25 years from now, if we get some of those connections across Alma Street, we could go for
higher density development and I do see an opportunity for higher density development actually
while we think of height as being a barrier or wall could actually be a buffer to the single family
residences and what I’m thinking of is again, it depends on the configuration of the high speed
rail or what form electrification of Caltrain takes. If it is a trench there then naturally we can sort
of knit together that city as almost a seamless piece of fabric. If we end up having an elevated
railway along there and grade separation, how do you buffer the R1 communities on both sides?
How do you begin to make it so that they’re not having to be subject to the sound of the train
coming by every 8 minutes? And so buildings can actually begin to work and heights can begin
to work as those kinds of buffers along the street. One last thing I wanted to say is that there are
very few cities in the street where I drive down and I really observe the quality and the
surroundings and Alma Street is one of them, another is Middlefield Road. El Camino Real I
don’t look at it in terms of a visual asset to this community but there are certain aspects to Alma
Street which visually have a very appealing visual quality to it and then I realize that I’m just
looking at weeds running along the railroad tracks so I think there is an opportunity here to
actually enhance and improve the visual quality of Alma Street. So with that, we’ll go to one
more round of comments, begin with Commissioner Martinez and we’ll do three minutes apiece.
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Commissioner Martinez: Ok. I want to take a bit of a contrary position here. I was at a
community meeting in a little rural community last night in which we had a site for a town center
and the community said, no, we need to look at a larger area. We need to look at the areas on
both sides. And I said no, no, no lets just focus on what we have. And I want to say that to our
group tonight as well. The real issue is the Caltrain corridor. We can be in a state of denial and
say no, the corridor is really much larger but what is looming is the high speed rail, whether it is
coming or not. If it comes we need to sort of be ready to address it. If it doesn’t come, maybe
our project just goes away and nothing happens. The rest of it might be speculative about what
could happen on El Camino or what happens on California Avenue but what we can do on the
Cal Trans corridor itself can be a great benefit for what happens in our future regardless of the
rail situation. I’d like to ask our consultants and our task force, when you get to Phase 2 where
you’re looking at the alternatives to look at two very distinct alternatives. Grant those that want
to see higher density development around this corridor but also take care and look at a civic low
density open space intensive alternative because the corridor itself is one of our historic
resources, the open space, you build five story buildings on it and it becomes something else. I
would like us to have the option to look at this as being a civic connector to support what
Commissioner Garber has said. One last point to support what Commissioner Fineberg said
about community outreach, I totally agree that whether it is twelve or ten community members
present, if it is less than 100 or more it is not a significant sampling regardless of how hard we
try to outreach. Those percentages, 35%, believe this is 20% thought this was a better option,
don’t mean very much when you have ten people that you are sampling so I would like to ask
staff to really look at how we can do outreach in a more effective manner. Hold it here at the
council chambers, do more communications to our neighborhood associations, put a big article in
the paper, whatever we have to do to get that significant number up.
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Chair Lippert: What about ten or twelve people with 25 opinions each? Commissioner Garber. 44
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Commissioner Garber: So struggling a little bit with the concept of the corridor. Perhaps this
shares something with some of the words Commissioner Martinez has just spoken about. The
pattern of development in the city in terms of how we remember the experiences of the city is an
east west direction. It is University Ave., it is California Ave., it is San Antonio. It could be
some of these other connections that you’re beginning to explore. But it’s in lines that are
perpendicular to the corridor itself. So it is very difficult for me to say well, the corridor should
have this character or the corridor that we’ve defined here should all be high or should be a place
where we work or it should be whatever because I don’t think of it that way. I think of that line
as simply a line that constrains my ability to stitch the city together east west and that is why I
come back to the exercise which is, if that line were not there and the city were to have been
allowed to grow without that, what would have changed? And I am using that as a thought
exercise to understand the gap between what we have now and where we would like to be. For
example, if you did not have the rail, and let’s put aside the reality that if we didn’t have the rail
we wouldn’t have Palo Alto as we know it today because we wouldn’t have people coming here
but just pretend it wasn’t there on University Avenue. Where would Stanford be relative to
University Avenue? There is a gulf right at the moment where the city ends at Alma Street and
then there is this no man’s land of railroad track on El Camino, Bridge and Gateway and then
you go through the forest and then you’re at Stanford. But if those things were not there,
Stanford would be a much different experience than the city. It would be more like presumably
some of the other great urban campuses throughout the country that are much more interrelated
with their communities. So, is that something that, if we were to look at using the rail corridor,
that area in a different way, would be beneficial for us? Is that something we want to be able to
change in order for that sort of an experience to occur? Is the city better not having this divide in
some of the places? I’m just trying to get my hands around the benefits, one way or the other,
what the values are and using some of these exercises as ways to expose the values that we think
are precious. I think I’m going to have to leave it like that for the moment with my three
minutes.
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Chair Lippert: Commissioner Fineberg followed by Tanaka. 29
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Commissioner Fineberg: I want to talk about the first question, what is the role of the corridor in
the city. I think corridor might be the best word in there. As our consultants talked about, the
corridor, they intersperse the wording also mixed use district and I kind of struggle thinking of
Alma as a district because as a resident, to me, its many many neighborhoods with a really fast
road running down the middle of it and everything is relative. When I used to live further east
near the bay it took me a long time to get to Alma so I almost never used Alma. Now I live in
Green Meadow . It is really easy to get to Alma and compared to going up Lewis or Greer
because I avoid Middlefield, Alma is really fast but it is still not a true highway. And we have an
issue in the city, especially in the southern part of the city that many residents talk about getting
in their cars because it is a suburban model of the street layouts and there isn’t walkable
neighborhood serving retail. There aren’t little villages except for at Charleston Center and our
residents south get in their cars and drive to Mountain View to do all their shopping and all their
sales tax dollars leave Palo Alto. If we break the function of a thoroughfare that works as a
thoroughfare, we’ll simply have more of that. It might sound like a regressive way of planning
but the reality is, if we just increase density along a corridor and leave the suburban
neighborhoods without any urban core, it is just going to break things. So, if the balance
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somehow provides things that are daily needs, grocery stores, retail, I can see that it might
enhance things rather than just break things, but if there can be some attention to that, focusing
on Alma as a mixed use district though I think is a bit of a misnomer because it is really made up
of many districts. If you start in the south and look on the east, it is the first little bit of it, which
most people don’t even think of is Palo Alto. Mayfield Mall which is an abandoned shopping
center, soon to be converted to medium density housing, continue north for quite a while, at least
maybe a mile, it’s R1.
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Then there is a little bit of Alma Plaza retail and will eventually be medium density housing and
a little bit of retail. Keep going north and it is mixed multifamily and single family until you get
to downtown and that to me is a pretty consistent face of you driving north and the right side of
the road is all houses. Left side is industrial but you can’t see it through the bushes. If I could
finish up on just the last thing then, I think also in the start of your presentation, you talked about
some assumptions that were made in how we go forward with planning and you said that we
have three stations. We don’t. San Antonio has a very high probability of being closed. How
one plans for these unknowns is the million dollar question. We need to be careful how we
measure the likelihood of having the bus rapid transit stations. I would encourage you to take a
look at how VTA defines the probability of that when they evaluate specific projects and they
define it as there being funding sources identified and/or approved and/or how near term funds
will be received. The idea that there is a vision and a concept that maybe in twenty years there
might be something, I don’t think we should change our comprehensive plan on a vision when
the reality is VTA is cutting funding and eliminating bus routes now? So, I think before we
recommend changing comp plan and then following up with ZOUs there needs to be a degree of
certainty or the correct conditional language to have those assumptions be accepted as having
any likelihood of happening and the last thing is, given the uncertainty with what’s happening
with Caltrains and the high speed rail, I think there has to be conditional wording in many of the
things that if this happens, then this happens. If this doesn’t happen, then this shouldn’t because
if, for instance, we end up with no high speed rail, then why build houses where there is no
station. If we do get high speed rail, then something else makes sense. That will be it. Thank
you.
Chair Lippert: Commissioner Tanaka. 32
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Commissioner Tanaka: I pretty much said all I needed to say last time but I’ll just wrap it up
with one last thought and that is, as I’ve said before, I think this is a chance to help decide our
fate. I think it is great we are being proactive. We should use the change that is going to happen
as well as some of the potential big changes that are going to happen with potentially high speed
rail and other things to fix problems that the city has had for a long time, all the connectivity
problems, the grade separation problems. Try to proactively get ahead of the problems and see if
there is a way to try and alleviate these problems given the change that is bound to happen.
Thank you for all your work and we look forward to seeing more of it. Thank you.
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Chair Lippert: I’m just going to follow up on a couple of comments that I made previously about
being the spine to Palo Alto. If you are a pedestrian, the likelihood of you walking down Alma
Street is practically nil. I see very few people walking on Alma Street. If you are a bicyclist you
are never going to take Alma Street. It is the most dangerous street in the city we have now. If
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you are a bus rider, you’re not going to take Alma Street. There aren’t any buses that go down
Alma Street. You’re going to take El Camino Real down from the transit center down to
California Avenue and beyond. My greatest concern is that if we don’t get some sort of cross
connectivity and to sort of slow down the way Alma Street functions right now, there is just no
way that any of those other aspects of how we get down Alma Street are going to come about
and then perhaps by being able to have the cross connectivity, re-knitting the city fabric back
together again and then being able to have actual places worth going to along Alma Street, you
will begin to see pedestrians, you will begin to see bicyclists and maybe we’ll even get some bus
service along there. With that, I’ve got a minute and thirty seconds left and I’ve promised
Commissioner Garber that he can have the remainder of my time.
Commissioner Garber: Most of my comments have really been about analysis. Let me talk real
briefly. At the intersection of University Ave. and the rail line, the opportunity there is for civic
identity. It’s really the only place in Palo Alto that has this lotus of university, of city, this large
transit center, etc., etc. and really there is no place that celebrates that. The underlying
infrastructure works against that sort of a read and if there is anyplace that needs to be able to
bridge all those different competing ideas, that’s the place that that needs to happen and its one
of the only places where Palo Alto really has that opportunity there. Cal Ave. is in tremendous
need of revisioning. And that’s not just the responsibility of the rail corridor study. But the
greatest opportunity to have an impact with simple changes and simple re-imagining are greatest
there. In both, one could easily imagine a cultural center or civic center, sort of expression
occurring on University Avenue, having that occur on California Avenue would be
transformative for that part of the city. It would also create all sorts of other issues but there is
tremendous opportunity at Cal Ave. We have talked about the area study that is going on just to
the south and the opportunity to put office along Park and how that can feed what California
Avenue is doing, having mixed use along that street as well as feeding into how you use the
Fry’s site relative to both residential, be it high density, be it no density, however it happens.
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Tremendous opportunity there and how the rail corridor operates to support that, I think can be
key. Once you get further south, gosh as you’ve acknowledged and recognized in your
framework diagram, extraordinarily difficult to create the stitching of the two pieces together. It
would be great if you could find a way to bring Loma Verde through and create another sort of
midway corridor that’s halfway between Oregon Expressway, California and San Antonio, but I
think I will live at least a lifetime or so before I can actually imagine that actually happening.
Are there opportunities for pedestrian crossways to occur or bicycle crossways? Probably more
readily. But the constraints become significantly more difficult. Great opportunities to be able
to find ways if the corridor is to continue and the rail is to continue to exist, for it to be not on the
surface between University and California Ave., maybe what you do is at least one of the studies,
what you’re really doing there is sort of emphasizing what you can do, what the positives are,
and you exploit that as best you can. That’s it for me.
Chair Lippert: Well again, thank you very much for your presentation and I hope you get some
constructive feedback.
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SCOPE OF SERVICES
1. SCOPE OF SERVICES
PHASE 1: CONTEXT AND VISION (4 months)
Task 1.1 Project Initiation
The BMS Design Group team will meet with staff to finalize the work program, schedule and project budget. The
work program will be used throughout the process to monitor progress; work products will be clearly defined. At
this time the team will submit requests for data of varying types.
At this time schedules and procedures for project communications will be identified. A preliminary schedule of High
Speed Rail Committee, Planning and Transportation Commission and City Council meetings will be set.
Task 1.2 Review Background Materials
City Staff will provide GIS and Autocad data and mapping, reports, analyses and other data for relevant studies, city
documents, and other materials including in progress plans.
The BMS team will utilize the city’s data to prepare base maps suitable for analysis and plan preparation. The team
will undertake a thorough review of site conditions, relevant documents and plans including documents relevant to
corridor transportation and, in particular, documents produced by the HSR Authority related to alignment options
and station information. Utilizing materials provided by the city, including policy and regulatory plans and
ordinances, planned or proposed project information, site and aerial photos, and work by other consultants, the BMS
team will assemble and review materials in preparation for subsequent tasks. The team will create a preliminary list
of issues to be discussed with the Task Force and community.
The BMS team and city staff will conduct a site tour of the project area.
Task 1.3 Task Force Meeting 1
The preliminary Task Force meeting will serve to introduce the project work program and schedule. BMS Design
Group will facilitate a discussion of goals for the project and issues that the Task Force considers essential to the
outcome of the project.
Task 1.4 Stakeholder Interviews
The BMS team will conduct a limited number of individual or small group stakeholder interviews. These will
provide key stakeholders with an opportunity to discuss issues of particular concern directly with the team. These
meetings, if needed, will be conducted on the same days as other standing meetings such as Task Force.
Task 1.5 Community Meeting 1 | Issues Charrette
The BMS team will conduct the first project community meeting. The agenda for the meeting will include a review
of the work program and schedule, as well as an update by city staff on any related HSR or city planning
information. The BMS team will facilitate a discussion and prioritization of issues of concern to the community.
These will become elements in the ultimate evaluation of project concepts and alternatives.
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Task 1.6 Urban Design and Land Use Analysis – Issues and Opportunities
Prepare Urban Design and Land Use Analysis
The BMS team will collect a range of information regarding the existing nature of the study area and its short and
long term opportunities. Information to be compiled and considered will include:
• Existing land use patterns
• Existing facilities, including public and community uses such as schools, parks, community facilities, etc.
• Neighborhood/district context – neighboring uses and districts, areas of influence
• Community scale and character
• Architectural and landscape character
• Distinguishing features such as landmarks, entries and edges
• Relationship of facilities and uses to major and minor rights of way and circulation framework
• Opportunity sites
• Parcel configurations
• Parcel ownership
• Proximity to transit facilities
Provide Market-Based Inputs to Issues and Concepts
Making use of existing data and studies as much as possible, EPS will conduct a high-level market review to assess
potential development opportunities in the study area. Utilizing area demographic and employment trends,
development patterns, competitive supply, and project performance, EPS will characterize the market support for
various types of development along the Corridor. The results of EPS’s market review will be incorporated as the
land use alternatives are developed. EPS will work with the rest of the consultant team to shape the land use
alternatives by attending the task force meeting described in Task 1.7 to provide perspective on the implications of
each alternative in terms of its capitalization on market opportunities, its projected buildout timeframe, and the
comparative value being created for property owners.
Preliminary Identification of Implementation Constraints
The BMS Team will work with City staff, rail agency representatives, and other important stakeholders to
understand the potential parameters of each party’s participation in the implementation of the Corridor plan. Issues
to discuss will include the entities’ legal and administrative obligations and constraints, the amount of and
competition for financial resources, etc. For example, do changes to existing regulations or programs require
popular elections? What funding sources are available and how much have been pledged to other projects or
programs? Do the by-laws of various entities’ formation prevent or require certain actions? This review will help to
ensure that the parties involved and the community-at-large understand the “ground rules” for evaluating the
viability of alternative planning concepts.
Task 1.7 Task Force Meeting 2
The second Task Force meeting will focus on reviewing and discussing the urban design and land use analysis. The
meeting will be facilitated by BMS to ensure that the Task Force can review and comment on all the various element
of analysis that are presented. The focus will be on confirming the team’s analysis and identifying key issues and
opportunities.
Task 1.8 Transportation and Circulation Framework Analysis – Issues and
Opportunities
BMS and subconsultants will summarize and describe key transportation parameters associated with the HSR
alignment options and station location including potential impacts, obstructions to connectivity, multi-modal access,
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infrastructure requirements, and costs. BMS and subconsultants will also summarize transportation-related issues as
identified in the analysis, and as discussed by staff, city leaders, the Task Force and community. Working with the
BMS team, the transportation subconsultants will discuss land use, urban design and transportation opportunities
associated with the study area and future infrastructure improvements.
BMS and the subconsultants will provide a comparative assessment of existing and future constraints to the
integration of HSR into the Rail Corridor and the constraints created by implementation of the HSR. They will also
summarize the transportation-related opportunities for expediting the integration of HSR as well as the potential for
transit-oriented development.
Task 1.9 Task Force Meeting 3
The third Task Force meeting will focus on reviewing and discussing the transportation and circulation analysis.
The meeting will be facilitated by BMS to ensure that the Task Force can review and comment on all the various
element of analysis that are presented. The focus will be on confirming the team’s analysis and identifying key
issues and opportunities.
Task 1.10 Community Meeting 2 | Vision Charrette
The second community meeting will be a longer meeting to allow a full discussion of the issues and opportunities
associated with urban design, land use, transportation and circulation elements. As part of the meeting, the BMS
team will facilitate a small group brainstorming of initial visions for the project area, incorporating the opportunities
identified by the analysis as well as others that community members will bring to the discussion.
Task 1.11 Task Force Meeting 4
This Task Force meeting will review the work to date, including the results of the community meeting. Discussion
will focus on confirming issues, opportunities and visions for the area.
Task 1.12 Summary of Context and Preliminary Vision for Corridor
The BMS team will prepare a brief summary of the work to date compiling materials prepared for and developed at
the various meetings. The materials in this summary will be presented so as to lead directly into and form the basis
for the analysis and tasks of Phase 2, especially the definition of alternatives.
Meetings (maximum):
Task Force: 4
• Goals and Issues
• Urban Design and Land Use
• Transportation and Circulation Analysis
• Summary of Context and Vision
High Speed Rail Committee - 1
Planning and Transportation Commission Progress Reports and Hearings – 2
City Council Progress Reports and Hearings – 1
Community: 2
• Issues Charrette
• Vision Charrette
Deliverables:
Summary of Context and Vision
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• Goals, Policies and Vision Statements
• Issues and Opportunities
PHASE TWO: ALTERNATIVES AND ANALYSIS (5 months)
Task 2.1 Urban Design, Land Use, and Transportation Concepts
The BMS team will prepare urban design, land use and transportation concepts for the study corridor. These
concepts will be integrated and coordinated with the transportation concepts, building upon one or several alternative
urban design framework of streets and pathways, and parcels. The concepts will identify the creation of
neighborhoods or districts within the corridor as well as the manner in which areas of the corridor may be better
integrated into and connected with adjoining neighborhoods and districts. The concepts will explore the most
relevant and feasible land uses and densities and opportunities for transit-oriented development. The concepts will
be configured to illustrate a range of options that will lead to configuring alternatives combining urban design, land
use and circulation elements.
Task 2.2 Task Force Meetings 5 and 6
This Task Force meeting will be organized to allow a thorough review of the urban design, land use and
transportation and circulation concepts. From the range of concepts presented, the Task Force and consultant team
will identify preferred concepts that will be integrated into the plan alternatives.
Task 2.3 Community Meeting 3 | Concept Review Workshop
The community meeting will be conducted as small group work sessions, with facilitated discussion of the urban
design, land use, circulation and transportation concepts. The discussions will be summarized with priorities among
the range of concepts identified by the community. Voting for preferences and priorities may be one technique used
to discern public preferences.
Task 2.4 Preliminary Urban Design, Land Use and Transportation Alternatives
Based on the feedback from the Task Force meeting and the community meeting, the team will prepare up to three
plan alternatives. These will be configured to reflect three realistic alternatives that resolve issues and match
community priorities and concerns. A variety of graphic materials and media will be used to depict the alternatives
including plans, sketches, sections, photosimulations, and 3D models.
Task 2.5 Task Force Meeting 7
The Task Force meeting will be the opportunity for members to review and propose modifications to the preliminary
alternatives. Issues, further analysis, and additional concepts will also be discussed.
Task 2.6 Refine Alternatives and Preliminary Evaluation
Based on the Task Force meeting, the BMS team will refine the alternatives. At this time, working with city staff
and select stakeholders, the BMS team will identify potential environmental impacts associated with the alternatives.
These will focus on impacts to historic resources, visual and noise impacts. An overview of possible traffic impacts
will be discussed but detailed analysis will not be conducted at this time.
Task 2.7 Task Force Meeting 8
At this Task Force meeting, the BMS team will present the refined alternatives and provide information relevant to
evaluating the alternatives, such as cost, phasing, feasibility of development options, and regulatory or policy
hurdles. The team will facilitate a discussion with the Task Force to gain their insights into further evaluation of the
plans.
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Task 2.8 Community Meeting 4 | Alternatives Review Workshop
The final community meeting of this phase will include a review of the alternatives, as modified by input from the
Task Force as well as by the High Speed Rail Committee, Planning and Transportation Commission, and City
Council. The facilitated discussions will focus on evaluation of the alternatives and any proposed modifications.
Task 2.9 Summary of Alternatives and Evaluation
A brief summary of the work of Phase 2, focusing on the alternatives, will be prepared. It will include discussion of
the alternatives as well as their evaluation, including comments and input from the Task Force, community, and city
policy-makers.
Meetings (maximum):
Task Force: 4
• Review Concepts
• Review Preliminary Alternatives
• Review Alternatives and Evaluations
High Speed Rail Committee - 1
Planning and Transportation Commission Progress Reports and Hearings – 2
City Council Progress Reports and Hearings – 1
Community: 2
• Concept Review Workshop
• Alternatives Review Workshop
Deliverables:
Summary of Concepts, Alternatives and Evaluations
PHASE THREE: PLAN PREPARATION (3 months)
Task 3.1 Task Force Meeting 9 - Charrette: Identify Preliminary Preferred Plan(s)
Based on input from Phase 2, the BMS team will conduct a charrette with city staff and the Task Force. The purpose
of the charrette will be to work intensively through the various alternatives identified and to determine those
elements that most align with the issues and concerns of the community and that will provide the most beneficial
framework for the future of this area of Palo Alto. If needed, options may remain on some components to provide
flexibility or to illustrate certain policy decisions that will need to be made.
Task 3.2 Refine Preferred Plan(s)
The BMS team will refine the plans identified in the Task Force charrette, clarifying and outstanding issues and
providing a range of illustrations such as 3D modeling, photosimulations and other hand- and computer-generated
drawings that will illustrate the plan concepts.
Task 3.3 Community Meeting 5 | Preferred Plan(s) Workshop
The BMS team will facilitate a community meeting with the intent of reviewing, clarifying if needed, and confirming
the preferred plans for the corridor as well as any remaining options for elements or particular issues. The meeting
will be conducted with a combination of presentation, small group discussions and attendee input via voting,
comments or other means.
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Task 3.4 Identify Preliminary Implementation Issues and Strategies
The BMS Team will identify the variety of regulatory changes, physical improvements, and programmatic
approaches required to implement the preferred plan. Where investments in new public infrastructure are required,
the BMS Team will work with city staff to estimate the costs of those improvements. Then, EPS will help to frame a
financing strategy for those improvements by exploring the availability of existing funding sources as well as the
potential capacity for new development to contribute to infrastructure costs through various means. In addition to
state, federal, and rail agency funding, EPS will consider locally implemented funding sources such as Community
Facilities Districts, development impact fees, tax increment, the City’s CIP, public private partnerships, transferable
development rights, etc. While not resulting in specific cost burdens and financing mechanisms assigned to specific
properties, this analysis will indicate whether the study area appears capable of carrying the burden for the new
infrastructure, or if alternative funding sources are likely to be required. Also, it will be important to create a
conceptual implementation schedule that aligns the phasing of improvements with the availability of funding from
various sources. The implementation strategy will also account for the responsibilities allocated to various parties
and stakeholders, including the City of Palo Alto and local property owners and developers in addition to the rail
agencies and other levels of government.
The team will also identify potential environmental issues associated with plan implementation.
Task 3.5 Task Force Meeting 10
The Task Force will meet to review implementation issues and strategies identified by the BMS Design Group team.
Task 3.6 Draft Rail Corridor Plan
Based on input from all preceding tasks and from the summaries prepared at the conclusions of phases 1 and 2, the
BMS team will prepare a draft corridor plan. It is expected that this plan will be a compilation of materials already
prepared with additional commentary and illustrations as needed. The plan will be configured to correlate with other
city policy documents to allow ready inclusion by staff. The draft plan will be provided to city staff for a
preliminary review. Following receipt of any major comments, the team will provide a revised plan for distribution
to the Task Force.
Task 3.7 Task Force Meeting 11
The team will meet with the Task Force to receive comments on the draft plan. Following review by the Task Force
and staff, the team will finalize the plan for presentation and distribution to city decision-makers.
Task 3.8 Community Meeting 6 | Open House
A community meeting will be held to review the Rail Corridor Plan. This community meeting will be held in an
open house format, allowing the community to review and comment all elements of the plan.
Task 3.9 Final Rail Corridor Plan
Following presentations to the High Speed Rail Committee, the Planning and Transportation Commission, and City
Council, the BMS Design Group team will finalize the Rail Corridor Plan.
Meetings (maximum):
Task Force: 3
• Preferred Plan Charrette
• Implementation Issues and Strategies
• Draft Plan Review
Professional Services
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6
High Speed Rail Committee - 1
Planning and Transportation Commission Progress Reports and Hearings – 2
City Council Progress Reports and Hearings – 1
Community: 2
• Preferred Plan Workshop
• Draft Plan Open House
Deliverables:
Draft and Final Rail Corridor Plan
Professional Services
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EXHIBIT B
SCHEDULE OF PERFORMANCE
The CONSULTANT shall complete all project tasks and services within the timeframes and
schedule agreed upon between CITY and CONSULTANT. The BMS Design Group team will meet
with staff to finalize the work program, schedule and project budget. The work program will be used throughout the
process to monitor progress; work products will be clearly defined. At this time the team will submit requests for
data of varying types.
At this time schedules and procedures for project communications will be identified. A preliminary schedule of High
Speed Rail Committee, Planning and Transportation Commission and City Council meetings will be set.
Estimated Time Periods:
Phase 1 - 4 months
Phase II- 5 months
Phase III- 3 months
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EXHIBIT “C”
COMPENSATION
The CITY agrees to compensate the CONSULTANT for professional services
performed in accordance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, and completed to
the reasonable satisfaction of the CITY, as described in Exhibit A, Scope of Services, a not-
to-exceed price for professional services of Two Hundred Thousand Dollars ($200,000.00).
Compensation will be paid for services provided as outlined below and as detailed in Exhibit
C-2, Project Budget and Schedule Summary, based on the Hourly Rates provided in Exhibit
C-1, Schedule of Rates.
PHASE ONE - CONTEXT AND VISION
Task Description Cost
1.1 Project Initiation
$ 800
1.2 Review Background Materials $ 7,598
1.3 Task Force Meeting 1
$ 1,300
1.4 Stakeholder Interviews $ 0.00
1.5 Community Meeting 1 | Issues Charrette $ 3,200
1.6 Urban Design and Land Use Analysis | Issues and Opportunities $ 18,420
1.7 Task Force Meeting 2 $ 1.300
1.8 Transportation and Circulation Framework Analysis | Issues and Opps $ 7,444
1.9 Task Force Meeting 3 $ 2,300
1.10 Community Meeting 2 | Vision Charrette $ 3,200
1.11 Task Force Meeting 4 $ 2,300
1.12 Summary of Context and Preliminary Vision for Corridor $ 2,600
TOTAL Phase 1 $53,110
PHASE TWO - ALTERNATIVES AND ANALYSIS
Task Description Cost
2.1 Urban Design, Land Use and Transportatin Concepts $ 24,080
2.2 Task Force Meetings 5 & 6 $ 3,600
2.3 Community Meeting 3 | Concept Review Workshop $ 5,170
2.4 Preliminary Urban Design, Land Use and Transportation Alternatives $ 14,544
2.5 Task Force Meeting 7 $ 2,300
2.6 Refine Alternatives and Preliminary Evaluation $ 10,090
2.7 Task Force Meeting 8
2.8 Community Meeting 4 | Alternatives Review Workshop $ 5,468
2.9 Summary of Alternatives and Evaluation $ 2,600
TOTAL Phase 2 $75,764
PHASE THREE – PLAN PREARATION
3.1 Task Force Charrette | Identify Preliminary Preferred Plan(s) $ 3,200
3.2 Refine Preferred Plan(s) $ 12,000
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9
3.3 Community Meeting 5 | Preferred Plan(s) Workshop $ 3,200
3.4 Identify Preliminary Implementation Issues and Strategies $ 18,060
3.5 Task Force Meeting 10 $ 3,450
3.6 Draft Rail Corridor Plan $ 15,856
3.7 Task Force Meeting 11 $ 2,300
3.8 Community Meeting 6 | Open House $ 5,168
3.9 Final Rail Corridor Plan $ 3,820
TOTAL Phase 3 $69,106
Contingency $2,020.00
TOTAL PROJECT NOT TO EXCEED $200,000.00.
CONSULTANT agrees to complete all Basic Services, including reimbursable expenses,
within this amount. Any work performed or expenses incurred for which payment would
result in a total exceeding the maximum amount of compensation set forth herein shall be at
no cost to the CITY.
REIMBURSABLE EXPENSES
Reimbursables shall include, but are not limited to, the cost of copying plans,
outreach materials, postage, signage or other items not included herein. Travel, computer and
phone charges shall be considered as included in the CONSULTANT overhead costs. Any
needed office spaces or related supplies shall be provided by CONSULTANT and shall be
considered to be included in the Scope of Services above.
ADDITIONAL SERVICES
The CONSULTANT shall provide additional services only by advanced, written
authorization from the CITY. The CONSULTANT, at the CITY’s project manager’s request,
shall submit a detailed written proposal including a description of the scope of services,
schedule, level of effort, and CONSULTANT’s proposed maximum compensation, including
reimbursable expense, for such services based on the rates set forth in Exhibit C-1. The
additional services scope, schedule and maximum compensation shall be negotiated and
agreed to in writing by the CITY’s and CONSULTANT prior to commencement of the
services. Payment for additional services is subject to all requirements and restrictions in this
Agreement
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EXHIBIT “C-1”
SCHEDULE OF RATES
FIRM POSITION TITLE HOURLY RATE
BMS Partner $200.00
BMS Sr. Planner $125.00
BMS Staff $90.00
KIMLEY-HORN Principal $250.00
KIMLEY-HORN Engineer $166.00
KIMLEY-HORN Analyst $114.00
KIMLEY-HORN Support Staff $94.00
EPS Principal $245.00
EPS Sr. Associate $165.00
EPS Associate $110.00
Professional Services
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Exhibit C-2
Project Budget and Schedule Summary
(Excel Spreadsheet Inserted Here)
$2,020
s by Firm:$134,980
Professional Services
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EXHIBIT “D”
INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS
CONTRACTORS TO THE CITY OF PALO ALTO (CITY), AT THEIR SOLE EXPENSE, SHALL FOR THE TERM OF THE CONTRACT
OBTAIN AND MAINTAIN INSURANCE IN THE AMOUNTS FOR THE COVERAGE SPECIFIED BELOW, AFFORDED BY COMPANIES
WITH AM BEST’S KEY RATING OF A-:VII, OR HIGHER, LICENSED OR AUTHORIZED TO TRANSACT INSURANCE BUSINESS IN
THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.
AWARD IS CONTINGENT ON COMPLIANCE WITH CITY’S INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS, AS SPECIFIED, BELOW:
MINIMUM LIMITS
REQUIRED TYPE OF COVERAGE REQUIREMENT EACH
OCCURRENCE AGGREGATE
YES
YES
WORKER’S COMPENSATION
EMPLOYER’S LIABILITY
STATUTORY
STATUTORY
YES
GENERAL LIABILITY, INCLUDING
PERSONAL INJURY, BROAD FORM
PROPERTY DAMAGE BLANKET
CONTRACTUAL, AND FIRE LEGAL
LIABILITY
BODILY INJURY
PROPERTY DAMAGE
BODILY INJURY & PROPERTY DAMAGE
COMBINED.
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
YES AUTOMOBILE LIABILITY, INCLUDING
ALL OWNED, HIRED, NON-OWNED
BODILY INJURY
- EACH PERSON
- EACH OCCURRENCE
PROPERTY DAMAGE
BODILY INJURY AND PROPERTY
DAMAGE, COMBINED
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
NO
PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY, INCLUDING,
ERRORS AND OMISSIONS,
MALPRACTICE (WHEN APPLICABLE),
AND NEGLIGENT PERFORMANCE
ALL DAMAGES $1,000,000
YES THE CITY OF PALO ALTO IS TO BE NAMED AS AN ADDITIONAL INSURED: CONTRACTOR, AT ITS SOLE COST AND EXPENSE,
SHALL OBTAIN AND MAINTAIN, IN FULL FORCE AND EFFECT THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE TERM OF ANY RESULTANT
AGREEMENT, THE INSURANCE COVERAGE HEREIN DESCRIBED, INSURING NOT ONLY CONTRACTOR AND ITS SUBCONSULTANTS,
IF ANY, BUT ALSO, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION, EMPLOYER’S LIABILITY AND PROFESSIONAL
INSURANCE, NAMING AS ADDITIONAL INSUREDS CITY, ITS COUNCIL MEMBERS, OFFICERS, AGENTS, AND EMPLOYEES.
I. INSURANCE COVERAGE MUST INCLUDE:
A. A PROVISION FOR A WRITTEN THIRTY DAY ADVANCE NOTICE TO CITY OF CHANGE IN
COVERAGE OR OF COVERAGE CANCELLATION; AND
B. A CONTRACTUAL LIABILITY ENDORSEMENT PROVIDING INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR
CONTRACTOR’S AGREEMENT TO INDEMNIFY CITY.
C. DEDUCTIBLE AMOUNTS IN EXCESS OF $5,000 REQUIRE CITY’S PRIOR APPROVAL.
II. CONTACTOR MUST SUBMIT CERTIFICATES(S) OF INSURANCE EVIDENCING REQUIRED COVERAGE.
III. ENDORSEMENT PROVISIONS, WITH RESPECT TO THE INSURANCE AFFORDED TO “ADDITIONAL
INSUREDS”
A. PRIMARY COVERAGE
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WITH RESPECT TO CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF THE OPERATIONS OF THE NAMED INSURED, INSURANCE AS
AFFORDED BY THIS POLICY IS PRIMARY AND IS NOT ADDITIONAL TO OR CONTRIBUTING WITH ANY OTHER
INSURANCE CARRIED BY OR FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE ADDITIONAL INSUREDS.
B. CROSS LIABILITY
THE NAMING OF MORE THAN ONE PERSON, FIRM, OR CORPORATION AS INSUREDS UNDER THE POLICY SHALL
NOT, FOR THAT REASON ALONE, EXTINGUISH ANY RIGHTS OF THE INSURED AGAINST ANOTHER, BUT THIS
ENDORSEMENT, AND THE NAMING OF MULTIPLE INSUREDS, SHALL NOT INCREASE THE TOTAL LIABILITY OF
THE COMPANY UNDER THIS POLICY.
C. NOTICE OF CANCELLATION
1. IF THE POLICY IS CANCELED BEFORE ITS EXPIRATION DATE FOR ANY REASON OTHER
THAN THE NON-PAYMENT OF PREMIUM, THE ISSUING COMPANY SHALL PROVIDE CITY
AT LEAST A THIRTY (30) DAY WRITTEN NOTICE BEFORE THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF
CANCELLATION.
2. IF THE POLICY IS CANCELED BEFORE ITS EXPIRATION DATE FOR THE NON-PAYMENT
OF PREMIUM, THE ISSUING COMPANY SHALL PROVIDE CITY AT LEAST A TEN (10) DAY
WRITTEN NOTICE BEFORE THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF CANCELLATION.
NOTICES SHALL BE MAILED TO:
PURCHASING AND CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION
CITY OF PALO ALTO
P.O. BOX 10250
PALO ALTO, CA 94303
Professional Services
Rev June 2, 2010
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Professional Services
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Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study
SCHEDULE Updated 05.23.2011
Meeting Dates
TASK ONE - CONTEXT AND VISION
1.1 Project Initiation
1.2 Review Background Materials
1.3 Task Force Meeting (1) 4 : Consultant and Project Introduction 02.17.2011
1.4 Stakeholder Interviews moved to task 2
1.6 Urban Design and Land Use Analysis | Issues and Opportunities
1.7 Task Force Meeting (2) 5 : Comp Plan & Other related Plans 03.17.2011
1.8 Transportation & Circ. Framework Analysis | Issues and Opps
1.9 Task Force Meeting (3) 6: Connectivity and HSR & Caltrain Overview 04.07.2011
1.11 Task Force Meeting (4) 7: Circulation, Access, Land Use and Issues 05.05.2011
1.5 Community Workshop 1 | Connectivity & Issues 05.19.2011
Planning and Transportation Commission 06.08.2011
*EX Task Force Meeting (5) 8: Vision 06.16.2011
City Council 06.27.2011
1.10 Community Workshop 2 | Vision 07.07.2011
1.12 Summary of Context and Preliminary Vision for Corridor
* EX- Additional task force meeting exchanged for High Speed Rail Committee meeting
TASK TWO - ALTERNATIVES AND ANALYSIS
2.1 Urban Design, Land Use and Transportatin Concepts
2.2 Task Force Meeting (6) 9
1.4 Stakeholder Interviews
2.3 Community Meeting 3 | Concept Review Workshop
2.4 Preliminary Urban Design, Land Use and Transportation Alternatives
2.5 Task Force Meeting (7) 10
2.6 Refine Alternatives and Preliminary Evaluation
2.7 Task Force Meeting (8) 11
2.8 Community Meeting 4 | Alternatives Review Workshop
2.9 Summary of Alternatives and Evaluation
TASK THREE - PLAN PREPARATION
3.1 Task Force Workshop (9) 12 | Identify Preliminary Preferred Plan(s)
3.2 Refine Preferred Plan(s)
3.3 Community Meeting 5 | Preferred Plan(s) Workshop
3.4 Identify Preliminary Implementation Issues and Strategies
3.5 Task Force Meeting (10) 13
3.6 Draft Rail Corridor Plan
3.7 Task Force Meeting (11) 14
3.8 Community Meeting 6 | Open House
3.9 Final Rail Corridor Plan
MEETINGS TO INCLUDE IN PHASE ONE SCHEDULE MEETINGS TO INCLUDE IN PHASE TWO SCHEDULE MEETINGS TO INCLUDE IN PHASE THREE SCHEDULE
2 Planning and Transportation Commission 2 Planning and Transportation Commission 2 Planning and Transportation Commission
1 High Speed Rail Committee 1 High Speed Rail Committee 1 High Speed Rail Committee
1City Council 1City Council 1City Council
2 Community Meetings 2 Community Meetings 2 Community Meetings
4 Task Force Meetings 4 Task Force Meetings 3 Task Force Meetings
ACTUAL MEETINGS IN PHASE ONE ACTUAL MEETINGS IN PHASE TWO ACTUAL MEETINGS IN PHASE THREE
1 Planning and Transportation Commission Planning and Transportation Commission Planning and Transportation Commission
0 High Speed Rail Committee High Speed Rail Committee High Speed Rail Committee
1 City Council City Council City Council
2 Community Meeting Community Meeting Community Meeting
5 Task Force Meetings Task Force Meetings Task Force Meetings
TASK THREE - PLAN PREPARATION
AUGUST NOVEMBER
TASK ONE - CONTEXT AND VISION
TASK TWO - ALTERNATIVES AND ANALYSIS
2012
DECEMBER JANUARY
2011
FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE JULY SEPTEMBER OCTOBER
Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study | Community Workshop 1 Open House Questions | 1
Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study
Community Meeting #1
Questions for Open House Segment
What do you think is the most important role of the study area?
a. A place to live
b. A place to work
c. A place to obtain services
d. A place for cultural events
e. All of the above
How do you envision the future of the study area?
a. High intensity/diverse urban core
An area of high intensity with a mix of uses similar to downtown Palo Alto with
some taller buildings (above 50 feet)
b. Moderate intensity mix of uses
An area of moderate intensity with heights under 50 feet
c. Little to no change
Are there areas where land uses should be changed and/or intensified to improve the area?
a. University Avenue / Caltrain Station Area
b. California Avenue Area
c. Park Street / El Camino / Fry’s Area (South of Oregon Expressway)
d. El Camino near Charleston Road (South end of study area)
What new uses would be desirable in these areas?
a. University Avenue / Caltrain Station Area
i. Retail
ii. Office
iii. Residential (apartment)
iv. Mixed use (retail under office or residential)
v. Other (describe)
b. California Avenue Area
i. Retail
ii. Office
iii. Residential (apartment)
iv. Mixed use (retail under office or residential)
v. Other (describe)
Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study | Community Workshop 1 Open House Questions | 2
c. Park Street / El Camino / Fry’s Area (South of Oregon Expressway)
vi. Retail
vii. Office
viii. Residential (apartment)
ix. Mixed use (retail under office or residential)
x. Other (describe)
d. El Camino near Charleston Road (South end of study area)
xi. Retail
xii. Office
xiii. Residential (apartment)
xiv. Mixed use (retail under office or residential)
xv. Other (describe)
What do you think is the biggest problem facing the neighborhoods that surround the study
area?
a. Traffic
b. Lack of convenient services
c. Poor connections to the rest of the city
d. Other (describe)
How important is increasing the use of alternative travel modes (transit, bicycling, walking) in
Palo Alto?
a. Very important
b. Somewhat important
c. Not important
Improvements to which types of travel are most important to Palo Alto quality of life?
a. Auto
b. Rail
c. Bus and Bus Rapid Transit
d. Bicycling
e. Walking
Which of these connection improvements are of highest priority?
a. Pedestrian connections across Alma and the rail tracks
b. Bicycle connections across Alma and the rail tracks
c. Vehicular connections across Alma and the rail tracks?
Neighborhood Issues: Traffic (Map Exercise)
Where are the vehicular issues in your neighborhood?
a. Speeding
b. Cut through traffic
Neighborhood Issues: Pedestrian (Map Exercise)
Where are the vehicular issues in your neighborhood?
a. Inadequate or unsafe crosswalks
b. Inadequate pedestrian amenities
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION |June 27, 2011 |1
CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION
July 11, 2011
City of Palo Alto
Rail Corridor Study
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 2
Agenda
Welcome and Introductions
Project Overview
Planning Approach and Community Input to Date
Discussion
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 3
The BMS Design Group Team
CITY OF PALO ALTO
BMS Design Group
San Francisco, CA
Project Management, Urban Design,
Land Planning, Community Outreach
Barbara Maloney
Partner-in-Charge & Project Director
Michael Smiley, AICP, ASLA
Partner & Project Designer
Fehr + Peers
San Francisco, CA
Transportation Planning
EPS
Berkeley, CA
Market Analysis &
Implementation Feasibility
COMMUNITY
TASK FORCE
ADVISORS
STAKEHOLDERS
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 4
Project Process and Guidelines
July 10, 2010
Evaluate land use, transportation and urban design elements of the
corridor
Generate a Community Vision for land use, transportation and urban
design opportunities along the Caltrain corridor, particularly in
response to proposed improvements to fixed rail services
High Speed Rail not intended to be the primary focus of this study
Authorization of Task Force, a Brown Act Committee
City Council Direction
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 5
Rail Corridor Work Program
Phase 1: Context and Vision February – July 2011
Analysis (urban design, market, transportation)
Issues
Preliminary Vision for the Corridor
Phase 2: Alternatives and Evaluation July 2011 – January 2012
Plan Concepts
Evaluation
Phase 3: Plan Preparation January – March 2012
Refined Plans
Implementation Strategies
Draft and Final Rail Corridor Plan
PLANNING APPROACH AND
COMMUNITY INPUT
Defining Issues, Setting Goals
Preliminary Vision Statements and Concepts
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 7
Rail Corridor Planning Process
Task Force Meetings (8)
Nov 2010 – June 2011
Issues Studied
•Purpose, Procedures
•HSR Update
•Role of the Task Force
•Approach to the Project
•Relevant City Projects
•Connectivity Opportunities
•Land Use and Circulation Opportunities
•Preliminary Visions
Community Meeting
May 19, 2011
•Project Introduction, Issues and Priorities
•Discussion
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 8
Task Force Meetings
EXISTING CONDITIONS
Understanding Role of the Corridor in the City
Analyzing Existing Conditions: Land Use and Circulation
Defining Conservation v. Development Opportunity Areas
Defining Districts (residential, commercial, transit)
Reviewing Regulatory Considerations (Comp Plan, Zoning)
RELEVANT PLANNING CONCEPTS
Transit-Oriented Development
Mixed Use Development
Complete Streets
Layered Circulation Networks
CURRENT PLANNING AND PROPOSED PROJECTS
Caltrain and High Speed Train Options
El Camino Plans and BRT
California Avenue Concept Area Plan
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 9
Study Area with Station Areas
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 10
Existing Land Use
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 11
Task Force Meetings
IDENTIFY PROTECTED RESOURCES
Single family residential
Open space
Schools
Historic resources
IDENTIFY ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Connectivity Improvements
Land use and circulation
Correct existing problems
ARTICULATE PRELIMINARY VISION
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 12
Group Work Session Questions:
How can there be better connections across the rail lines?
Pedestrian / bicycle crossings?
Vehicle crossings?
Where are important destinations?
Imagine the rail in an open-trench along the full corridor; where would you like the
trench covered for open space or development? Cover can be a maximum of 800’
length with 1400’ minimum open trench between covered sections.
Where are there troublesome intersections that should be improved for
pedestrians and bicycles?
Where can additional bicycle routes be provided?
Connectivity Opportunities
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 13
Task Force Connectivity Exercise
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 14
Task Force Land Use and Circulation Exercise
1. How do you envision the future of this corridor?
A. Highest Intensity/Diverse Urban Core.
B. Moderate Intensity
C. Little to No Change
2. Where are potential land use intensification areas located?
3. What kind of uses would be appropriate in those areas?
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 15
Task Force Land Use and Circulation Exercise
1. What are your goals and expectations for transportation and circulation in Palo Alto?
2. What is the role of El Camino Real within Palo Alto?
3. Where are the most problematic areas and intersections?
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 16
Community Meeting 1 | May 19, 2011
Agenda
Project Review
General Discussion
Open House
Limited Community Participation
10 attendees + Task Force members
Open House Questions
What is the Role of the Study Area?
What Uses Would be Desirable in:
University Avenue / Caltrain Station Area
California Avenue Area
Park Street / El Camino / Fry’s Area
South El Camino Area
Biggest Problems? Needed Improvements?
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 17
Community Meeting Open House Sample Questions
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 18
Community Meeting Open House Sample Questions
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 19
Task Force Vision Exercise
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 20
Task Force Vision Exercise
Group 2
Plan and Overarching
Concepts
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 21
Summary
COMMON THEMES
Protect existing single family neighborhoods
Improve neighborhood services
Consider new development in select areas
Improve connections across rail corridor
Improve problem intersections
Improve pedestrian and bicycle circulation
Add open space and recreation
MORE DISCUSSION NEEDED
Implications of the rail alternatives
Appropriate land use mix and location
Specific circulation improvements
COMMUNITY CONCERNS
Infrastructure must keep pace with development
Will traffic congestion increase?
Potential impacts on existing neighborhoods
PALO ALTO RAIL CORRIDOR STUDY | CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION July 11, 2011 | 22
Community Outreach Summary
Project websites
www.paloaltorailcorridor.org
www.cityofpaloalto.org/knowzone/agendas/rail_corridor_task_force.asp
Task Force meetings
•Walking tour with Task Force
Community meetings
Evaluate additional outreach methods
•Focus groups
•Color mailings and posters
•Newsletter
•Press releases
Next Steps
NEXT STEPS
Study Preliminary Concepts July - September
Task Force meeting 9 August 4
Second PTC meeting August (TBD)
City Council September (TBD)
Community Meeting September (TBD)
DISCUSSION