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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-11-18 Rail Committee Summary MinutesRAIL COMMITTEE SUMMARY MINUTES Page 1 of 8 Regular Meeting November 18, 2025 The Rail Committee of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Community Meeting Room and by virtual teleconference at virtual teleconference at 2:30 p.m. Present In-Person: Burt (Chair), Lauing, Lythcott-Haims Absent: None Call to Order Chair Burt called the meeting to order. Mayor Lauing was present remotely under AB 2449. The clerk called roll declaring a quorum. Public Comments There were no requests to speak. Verbal Updates on Interagency Activities A. Caltrain Navdeep Dhaliwal, Government and Community Affairs Manager at Caltrain, stated Caltrain has been partnering with the City to advance near term safety enhancements in Churchill, Palo Alto, Charleston, and East Meadow. The safety enhancements were approved to be included into the Caltrain capital budget at the November Caltrain board meeting. Construction is expected to take approximately three to five weeks. The timeframe is contingent upon any schedule impact that may come up for CPUC's GO 88-B application approvals as well as any NTP proceeding. Staff is reviewing and finalizing the scope with City Staff. Feedback has been reviewed and incorporated. The GO 88 application package has been submitted for CPUC review. Approvals are expected in the coming weeks allowing construction to begin shortly after. The installation is a short duration effort for the solar markers, delineators, and striping refresh. Ms. Dhaliwal hopes to come back to the Committee providing updates. A coordinated and staged delivery approach was described for Palo Alto and Alma. The refresh will include solar markers, delineators, pavement markings, and striping. There is discussion about traffic signal timing updates. Other improvements include rail sentry at Meadow and Charleston. A package of improvements was done at Churchill previously piloting the rail sentry AI LIDAR technology. Chair Burt explained the rail sentry is a combination of video cameras and LIDAR powered by artificial intelligence to notify through dispatch centers for the trains to stop if there is a vehicle or pedestrian no the right-of-way as a train approaches, exhibiting unusual SUMMARY MINUTES Page 2 of 8 (Regular) Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 11/18/2025 behavior, or if a pedestrian goes outside of the right-of-way. The last component is the anti- intrusion mats. B. VTA. C. City Staff Ripon Bhatia, Senior Engineer, provided a slide presentation including Palo Alto Mobility Hub Planning efforts, Draft 2026 Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan update, Alma Street/Charleston Road safety improvements, and Quiet Zone implementation. Chair Burt stated the Caltrain Board approved the funding for the safety improvements at Charleston and Meadow but the funding came from VTA and the Measure B the county voters supported in 2016. A portion of those funds is called the Caltrain Modernization Program. The CEO at VTA provided that funding on an urgent basis. The CEO at Caltrain has been a driving force for the urgency of these measures. In 2016 dollars, there are $300 million toward the category of Caltrain modernization within Santa Clara County, separate from $740 million toward grade separations between Sunnyvale and Palo Alto. There have been only limited allocations out of that since 2017-2018. The Chair will be serving on an ad hoc committee that will meet early next month. The safety improvements throughout the corridor are already one of the proposed uses. Quiet Zones have not been discussed yet but it is a possibility that would be a funding source. Mr. Bhatia said they were looking at mid-year appropriates to see if additional funding could be added for the project. There could be a kickstart with the design efforts which will be a period of time within which the project can be going. Chair Burt noted that on the Quiet Zones, horn blasting is done as a safety measure. Caltrain is concerned about safety on the corridor. They have had apprehensions about Quiet Zones for decades but when cities have wanted to go forward, they have been willing to do so. The physical measures done for Quiet Zones are the quad gates, median separations on the approaching lanes, and some other federal requirements to establish a Quiet Zone. A number of those measures are not appropriate from a practical standpoint for the grade crossings. From a practical standpoint, the enhanced crossing strategies are more valuable on safety and security than the Quiet Zone measures. When a Quiet Zone is implemented, those additional safety measures will be implemented beyond the quad gates. It addresses the concerns Caltrain has over apprehension about Quiet Zones. Verbal Updates on Interagency Activities Public Comment 1. Adrian B., chair of the Caltrain Citizens Advisory Committee speaking as an individual, described safety concerns at the Palo Alto Crossing and the rail sentry. 2. Roland clarified the $300 million has nothing to do with Caltrain modernization. That is funded through VTA's 2000 Measure A funding. The funding for the grade crossings and improvement up and down the peninsula should be coming from the grade crossing SUMMARY MINUTES Page 3 of 8 (Regular) Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 11/18/2025 part rather than the part for Caltrain corridor capacity especially between San Jose and Gilroy. Chair Burt stated for the record there are two funds from the Measure B. The Caltrain modernization is the second one. Agenda Items 1. South Palo Alto Bike/Ped Connectivity: Initial Review of Conceptual Design Alternatives. Charlie Coles, Senior Planner Office of Transportation, provided a slide presentation including the recommendation, project study area, project background, project timeline, complexity of transportation projects, conceptual design alternative locations, preliminary conceptual design alternatives, initial assessment of conceptual alternatives, phase 2 community engagement (fall 2025 – early 2026), next steps (tentative meeting dates), and phase 2 stakeholder input summary (received to date). Chair Burt discussed the relationship between these alternatives and the next item in the grade separations. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims wanted clarity on what is meant by parcel impacts. Mr. Coles responded that information is in attachment B starting on packet page 83 of the alternatives analysis. The range of parcel impacts is none, partial parcel impact that does not impact existing buildings, and full parcel impact on two or more parcels. There is flexibility to move the alternatives up and down the corridor parcel. Chair Burt shared the concern about full property acquisitions assumes a homeowner residing in their home does not want to give up their home. That is not the only possible scenario. There can be willing sellers that are either rental property owners or a homeowner that would take the tax incentives, etc. Most are looking at two properties. Where there are two properties, the chances of having two side by side willing sellers becomes less likely. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims mentioned a 1.3 mile stretch on San Antonio that is inadequate for cyclists. Chair Burt described how origins and destinations are an important consideration. Nadia Naik, Co-founder of Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design, voiced concern about the four-track situation for Caltrain straddling the Cal Ave area in looking at the alternatives. Ms. Naik advised to check in with the City School Liaison Committees about feedback. Chair Burt asked if exploring a second location in the vicinity of D, E, and F would open up the design alternatives for the vehicular crossing and potentially reduce property impacts if the bikes and peds were moved off of that intersection. Chair Burt discussed a possible bike and ped improved access at a San Antonio overpass in collaboration with Mountain View. G and H serve Mountain View more than Palo Alto. Consideration of those would need to be a deep collaboration and partnership with Mountain View. Ria Lo, Chief Transportation Official, Office of Transportation, stated there have been discussions with Mountain View. There was a SUMMARY MINUTES Page 4 of 8 (Regular) Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 11/18/2025 placeholder in the old CIP five-year plan for H. There have been budget issues and it has been removed from the unscheduled list. For the grade separations, the bike-ped pieces cannot be extracted at this stage because it would affect grants and funding. Chair Burt noted alternatives A, B, and C appear to concentrate on one in the vicinity of Matadero. The staff report indicates A would take 40 or 41 parking spaces in the commercial parking lot. Chair Burt counted about 20 parking spaces not counting whether they could reconfigure the lot. A potential impact is a question of the slope of the ramp. The ideal is a 5 percent slope. For all the options, 7 percent was used. ADA requirement is 8.3 percent. The ramp at Cal Ave is 12 percent and is too steep. Chair Burt was interested if the same amount of property would be impacted if they went to 8.3 percent. An observation was made that the shading on A did not correspond to the narrative. It was noted that these are preliminary conceptual and a lot of the problems may be able to be resolved through design improvements. Chair Burt was inclined to prioritize A. Mayor Lauing suggested dropping B. Chair Burt concurred with concerns on B but thought they applied as much or more on C and described the benefits of A. Chair Burt wanted to know if A had a variation that would lead to El Carmelo on the east side. Mr. Coles stated there could be some designs explored to that goal. The challenge is how to get across Alma Street. Item 1 Public Comment 1. Melinda M. described the benefits of the El Dorado alternative and wondered about plans to improve the California Avenue Underpass and Stanford's involvement. 2. Sabrina L. talked about the traffic in the Midtown area between Oregon Expressway and Meadow if the underpass plans are adopted. It will be hard for those living in that area to turn left toward Mountain View due to heavy traffic. 3. Adrian B. explained how the Cal Ave underpass is the most important bike-ped underpass and urged the City to include looking at redoing a parallel tunnel and how to improve the existing Cal Ave bike-ped underpass. 4. Elizabeth A. observed that underpasses needed to default to minimum vertical clearances and bridge depths given they would be used by children who need gentler slopes. There should be at least one bike-ped crossing that provides separation from both Alma and the tracks in South Palo Alto. It would be helpful to take the data from the evaluation criteria to help people understand how travel routes would change. Putting a light at Cal Ave would enable people to go straight on to the platform and would provide access to the ADA compliant undercrossings of the train tracks. 5. Cedric D. supported option A. It would be good to cross Alma below grade. Chair Burt raised the issue of the vertical clearance of the slope which shortens the length of the underpass. Those two things combined may reduce the serpentine need. There was suggestion of a vehicular signal on Cal Ave would give access to the train station versus the SUMMARY MINUTES Page 5 of 8 (Regular) Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 11/18/2025 underpass for pedestrians and a separate underpass someday, one for pedestrians and one for bikes. The signal at the El Dorado location would calm the speeding traffic on Alma. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims wondered if there would be merit in looking at A, B, and C and variables. Chair Burt stated B and C could be mitigated because of slope and vertical clearance but did not appear to be able to avoid the serpentine area. Mr. Coles explained multiple different iterations were gone through as part of the development of the eight alternatives and looked at what it would take to get down to just using one parcel. Fitting a ramp into the tight space creates tight 90-degree turns and narrower facilities. More information is needed before running through the different alternatives to see what changing the slope by a percent means. Jaggi Bhandal, BKF, added connecting from point A to point B and having the vertical rise within one parcel becomes constrained. There are angular 90-degree turns that are needed. The challenge comes from a constructability perspective because when walls share the rise and run of the ramps on both sides, it gets very narrow and challenging to construct. It is very tight and they deviated from jsut identifying one parcel because there would be challenges from a constructability perspective and would likely be the need of a second parcel to just facilitate construction of that meandering pathway. Chair Burt stated that reaffirms why B and C are not good options. Nadia Naik, Co-founder of Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design Sylvia Star-Lack, Manager of Transportation Planning Office of Transportation Ria Lo, Chief Transportation Official, Office of Transportation Ed Shikada, City Manager MOTION: Councilmember Lythcott-Haims moved, seconded by Councilmember Burt, to recommend the City Council to focus on Conceptual Alternative A and eliminate alternative B, C, D, E, G, F and H from further consideration. MOTION FAILED/PASSED: 3-0 2. Review of Refined Alternatives Designs for Recommendation to City Council to Advance the Selected Grade Separation Alternatives to 15% Design at Churchill Avenue, Meadow Drive, and Charleston Road. Mr. Bhatia, Jill Gibson, Vice President at Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc., and Edgar Torres, Transit Consultant at Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc., provided a slide presentation including the meeting purpose, current project phase, community engagement recap, community engagement feedback, feedback themes across all alternatives, summary of alternatives, crossing content flow, considerations to advance selected alternatives to 15 percent, previous SUMMARY MINUTES Page 6 of 8 (Regular) Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 11/18/2025 preliminary cost estimates, Churchill Avenue Partial underpass renderings, potential property acquisition, construction considerations with and without the landscape strip, community feedback, Seale Avenue – Seale Avenue Ramp renderings, Seale Avenue – Alma Street Ramp renderings, potential property acquisition Seale Avenue – bicycle/pedestrian crossing, construction considerations Seale Avenue - bicycle/pedestrian crossing, community feedback Seale Avenue - bicycle/pedestrian crossing, Meadow Drive and Charleston Road draft crossing alternative profiles, Meadow Drive hybrid, Meadow Drive hybrid bridge column options, Meadow Drive underpass renderings, potential property acquisition – Meadow Drive, construction considerations – Meadow Drive, community feedback Meadow Drive, Charleston Road – hybrid, Charleston Road – hybrid bridge column options, Charleston Road underpass – roundabout renderings, Charleston Road underpass direct access ramp, potential property acquisition – Charleston Road, construction considerations – Charleston Road, community feedback – Charleston Road, recommendation to City Council, summary of alternatives, and Rail Committee motion. Chair Burt wanted to know how much property would be impacted on the Churchill Avenue partial underpass. Mr. Torres replied approximately two to two-and-a-half feet with the landscape strip. That can vary with the ADA ramps. Chair Burt discussed the increases in costs and the less promising state and federal funding availability. They may be looking at Charleston or Meadow rather than both. The number of trains and cars commuting are projected to be lower than what was projected and the regional growth forecasts through 2060 have been revised downward significantly. The amount of housing that gets built will be significant but these changes have reframed the context for this. When Council decided to go forward with the additional engineering on the alternatives looked at so far, they wanted to see what the additional engineering could do to reduce the potential impacts particularly on property acquisitions. They are not at 15 percent. What has been brought forward so far has had significant reductions at both Churchill Seale and at Charleston Meadow. There is hope that as they go to 15 percent, there could be some additional reductions in those impacts. A primary reason to consider the underpass at Meadow and Charleston was being the only alternative that significantly reduced the traffic impact and increased the capacity at the intersections. The preliminary numbers have a gap between the underpass and the hybrid. The right way to go is to bring in the contractor expertise and not just designers. Mr. Torres provided a slide of the Meadow Drive preliminary analysis results. Chair Burt wanted to hear from colleagues if they would be willing to eliminate further consideration of the Seale Ramp and consideration of the landscape strip and focus on the direct access version of the underpass and not continue evaluation of the roundabout at Charleston. Item 2 Public Comment 1. John M. mentioned having sent a letter on November 16. He asked for more human factors analysis to be included in further discussion publicized. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 7 of 8 (Regular) Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 11/18/2025 2. Elizabeth A. had concern that the underpasses are not getting a fair shake and people are not appreciating the benefits of having a bike bridge over Park Boulevard. 3. Eric N. discussed potential alternatives to jackbox construction on the Seale Tunnel. 4. Melinda M. encouraged pulling the plug on the project and focusing on making biking optimal. 5. Rachel C. urged the Committee to prioritize trees on the Churchill option. 6. Ken J. had concerns about forcing all the bike and ped traffic to be on one side of the street on Meadow and Charleston. 7. Patrice B. requested Council and the Rail Committee take a second look at the direct access ramp as it did not include a U-turn from Charleston to Mumford impacting bus and truck traffic. 8. Sabrina L. commented half of the high school population probably live on the east side of Alma so east-west crossing from South Palo Alto to Gunn High School and back is important. She supported the comments that having two bike lanes on the same side of the road creates user issue with students. 9. Roland advised a solution to designing modular viaducts or overpasses with a gantry train in confined environments. Mayor Lauing concurred with Chair Burt's previous comments. The hybrids from Meadow and Charleston look superior to the underpass. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims wanted to see a drawing of the proposed abutment. Mr. Torres explained it was replacing dirt with bridge structure. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims thought this would be a good place for public art in the form of murals and advised keeping the structure under the bridge as wide as possible. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims advised the slides need to be cleaned up further prior to bringing them to Council. Chair Burt stated the hybrid has a signal control for bikes and peds versus the underpass does not. Traffic capacity is nominally improved with the hybrid and significantly improved with the underpass. There are more construction impacts with the underpass than the hybrid. Ms. Naik said it was important that the traffic slide in the backups moves to the front. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims wanted to make sure the question about the direct access route for buses and trucks needing widening and property acquisition comes forward. Mr. Torres said any buses or trucks can still operate on Alma Street or Charleston. They did not anticipate truck or bus traffic to go into the neighborhoods. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 8 of 8 (Regular) Rail Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 11/18/2025 MOTION: Councilmember Burt moved, seconded by Councilmember Lythcott-Haims, to recommend the City Council eliminate the Seale Avenue Ramp at the Churchill Avenue Partial Underpass. MOTION FAILED/PASSED: 3-0 Future Meetings and Agendas Ed Shikada, City Manager, stated there is a special meeting at Council December 10 that is a special meeting exclusively to talk about grade separations with opportunity for community input. That will be continued to December 15 for Council action. The South Palo Alto Bikeway is December 1. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 5:23 p.m.