Stay on Track Blog Series: Community Conversations Phase Continues with New Virtual Town Hall Experience
Community input on the Caltrain electrification project to continue with virtual town hall from August 19 — September 14.
“Stay On Track” is a blog series to inform and engage the community on designing Palo Alto’s rail corridor for the future.
Follow along as we continue our blog series to learn about the rail crossing (grade separation) process, share your input, and gain an understanding of the options currently being evaluated by a community-based panel. This blog provides details about the City’s new Virtual Town Hall launched on Wednesday, August 19, and offers a community summary on activities to date since early 2020. Visit the dedicated web page on this effort at Connecting Palo Alto.
September 8, 2020: Our Virtual Town Hall experience will now be extended through September 14! The Virtual Town Hall was launched to give community members an opportunity to engage and provide feedback on upcoming council decisions this fall on electric rail crossing options. On August 27 and September 3, two Virtual Town Hall Q&A sessions were held for City staff and project consultants to answer questions from the community sent through the Virtual Town Hall. Visit us here for up-to-date information from those two sessions, including questions from the community and answers from city staff, a replay of both sessions, a tutorial on how the Virtual Town Hall works, and access to the Virtual Town Hall. Continue reading this blog for more information on this community initiative. Visit here for complete information on Connecting Palo Alto.
September 1, 2020: This Thursday, September 3 at 4:00 p.m. will be the second of our Virtual Town Hall Q&A sessions for the Connecting Palo Alto community initiative. This session will be focused on Meadow-Charleston Grade Separation alternatives. At our first session on August 27, City staff and project consultants answered questions from the community that was sent to us through the Virtual Town Hall related to Churchill Avenue grade separation alternatives. You can watch a replay of that session. Everything you need to watch and engage in this Thursday’s session is right here. Visit us here for full information and resources on the Connecting Palo Alto initiative.
Virtual Town Hall Available August 19 through September 14
The City is continuing “Connecting Palo Alto,” our community-based process to address the increased traffic congestion expected when Caltrain electrifies the tracks and runs more trains through the corridor. Community feedback and collaboration are a vital part of this decision-making process that will affect future generations to come.
On Wednesday, August 19, the City launched a new Virtual Town Hall experience to engage and inform the community on rail crossing alternatives in advance of the City’s next phase in the fall/winter where the City Council will decide and select rail crossing options. Check back for updates and more information on this exciting and innovative community engagement forum. For information on the Expanded Community Advisory Panel (XCAP) past meetings, presentations, reports, agendas, videos, and more can be found here.
Catch up on Activities to Date on this Effort
Throughout 2020, the XCAP, the Palo Alto City Council, and City staff continued several activities on this effort.
Highlights include:
January 2020: City Council discussed new and existing alternatives that were narrowed down to 7 alternatives for further evaluations. Council directed staff to include two new ideas presented by community members to City.
January -February 2020: The City hosted two town hall meetings to discuss the rail crossing options, gain community input, and answer community questions.
March 2020: XCAP provided an update to City Council on their review of grade separation alternatives.
May 2020: XCAP provided an update to City Council and unanimously voted to eliminate two tunnel alternatives (with and without freight) from their deliberation process.
June 2020: Staff presented a report to City Council including beginning the development of a Virtual Town Hall community engagement effort set for late summer.
June and July 2020: Noise and vibration, updated layouts, renderings, fact sheets, renderings, and an updated traffic study were provided to XCAP based on comments received.
August 2020: Virtual Town Hall launched on August 19 and on August 27 XCAP will initiate deliberation on Churchill Avenue rail crossing options.
September 2020: Virtual Town Hall extended.
For a more detailed timeline on this project, please visit here.
Rail Crossing Fact Sheets
Several fact sheets are available and are broken down by various sub-topics related to Connecting Palo Alto. Visit here for updated fact sheets, including project overview and location-specific information.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an at-grade crossing?
An at-grade crossing or train crossing is an intersection of railroad tracks with roads and pedestrian/bicycle at the same street level. Vehicles and pedestrians are forced to stop at the crossing while a train travels through the intersection. At-grade crossings or train crossings have a significant risk of collisions between trains and any other road user (i.e., trucks, cars, bikes, and pedestrians).
What is a rail grade separation?
A grade separation is shifting/separating the grade of the train from the grade of the road. It allows for the safe movement of vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians under or over railroad tracks. Generally, these separations come in the form of either an underpass or an overpass structure (bridge). Grade separations eliminate the risks of collisions with trains, which enhances safety and boosts mobility.
Why is Connecting Palo Alto needed?
There are currently seven roadways where motorists can cross the railroad tracks in Palo Alto. These intersections, called at-grade crossings, differ from other intersections because a train crosses them. Three of the intersections have the road below the level of the tracks (at Embarcadero Road, University Avenue, and Oregon Expressway) and four of them cross the tracks at the same level (at Charleston, Meadow, Churchill, and Palo Alto Avenue/Alma Street). Traffic congestion is expected to get worse at these at-grade locations in the future due to additional trains as part of Caltrain’s electrification effort and potentially high-speed rail. This will mean that railroad crossing arms will come down many more times each day — as much as 45 seconds every 3 minutes — impacting traffic and safety. If we don’t do anything, traffic delays will increase and more traffic will divert to existing grade separations like Embarcadero, University, and San Antonio (in Mountain View) as motorists look for ways to avoid the congestion.
What problem(s) is Connecting Palo Alto trying to solve?
While enhanced rail transit service is important to the City of Palo Alto, the Caltrain corridor creates a physical and visual barrier to east/west connectivity within the City and is also the source of safety concerns for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists, especially at existing at-grade crossings. The rail corridor also creates issues in surrounding neighborhoods, such as noise, vibration, traffic, and visual impacts. The City of Palo Alto, through Connecting Palo Alto, is seeking to reduce the impact on the community from increased Caltrain services.
What is the purpose of Connecting Palo Alto?
Connecting Palo Alto strives to: recognize and build off of the previous rail corridor planning work, improve safety along the rail corridor, reduce the traffic congestion that occurs at existing at-grade crossings every time a train passes by, minimize right-of-way acquisitions and local road closures, improve circulation and access across the rail corridor for all modes of transportation, separate bicyclists and pedestrians from automobile traffic, deliver grade separations and circulation improvements in a timely manner, reduce train noise and vibrations, minimize visual changes along the rail corridor, and support Caltrain service enhancements.
For more Frequently Asked Questions, go here.
Online Resources
For past blog updates and more information on this community project, please visit here and here.
For the dedicated website on this effort, go here.
For the community calendar on this effort, go here.
For renderings and animations on rail crossing options, go here.
For a timeline of past decisions on this initiative, go here.
