EDITORIAL: The grade separation headache EDITORIAL: The grade separation headache (September 22, 2004)

The grim reality of what parts of downtown Menlo Park might look like if the city proceeds with grade-separation projects on Ravenswood, Oak Grove, Encinal and Glenwood avenues is graphically clear in a report commissioned by the city for the Transportation Commission.

Options include a plan to construct a 20-foot-deep underpass, and one to raise the train tracks 10 feet and build a 10-foot-deep underpass. Both plans involve varying degrees of pain, and neither choice is going to make anyone happy, particularly the owners of commercial property whose customers could be unable to reach their location. Residents who live near the tracks also had plenty of negative comments about the idea.

The need for the separations is driven by the lack of safety at the current grade crossings, and the fact that Caltrain is likely to add more roundtrips between San Francisco and San Jose, pushing the current lineup of 86 weekday trains to 110 in the next few years. Such a schedule could add even more congestion to downtown traffic, particularly at Ravenswood, where, city officials fear, eastbound traffic would quickly back up from the grade crossings onto El Camino Real, the already congested north-south arterial.

With no other choice for a direct east-west route, drivers attempting to cross Menlo Park are forced into the heart of downtown, just to reach Willow or Marsh roads, the city's only access to the Bayshore freeway.

Of the two grade-separation choices presented at the September 8 Transportation Commission meeting, the "split" option to raise the tracks 10 feet over a 10-foot underpass clearly would have the least impact on the ground, but was criticized because it could add a 10-foot wall across the city. There are options, such as raising the rails 7 feet, and depressing the road 13 feet. But its approaches from either direction on all four cross-town routes would have much less impact on surrounding businesses than the alternative, which would require a 20-foot-deep trench under the tracks at current grade. Under either scenario, if tracks are expanded from two to four, the Menlo Park train depot would have to be moved away from the trains, and a tunnel built under the tracks to provide passengers free access to all trains.

Residents near the proposed sites who attended the meeting were strongly opposed to either choice, with a resident of Stone Pine Lane just north of Encinal, off El Camino Real, saying the projects would just increase downtown traffic. Others said a detour for trains during construction would pass within 10 feet of their homes.

At this point, Caltrain can only suggest that Menlo Park and other Peninsula cities build grade separations. But looming in the future is the 2006 ballot measure to authorize spending billions of dollars on a high-speed rail project that would link Los Angeles to San Francisco along a route that could include the Peninsula. If approved by voters, the high-speed rail would mandate grade separations along its entire route, and add two sets of tracks to the set of two already in place in Menlo Park.

Without a high-speed rail mandate, it will be up to the Menlo Park City Council -- which is scheduled to consider the reports October 19 -- to decide whether to proceed with more study and eventually apply for funds to pay for the grade separations, which could come from Measure A, the county's half-cent sales tax. Measure A is on the November ballot, and if it passes, funds would become available in 2009 on a first-come, first-served basis to all cities in the county wishing to build grade separations.

The Menlo Park Transportation Commission, while not backing either option, did advise the city to begin consultations with Atherton and Palo Alto about the idea.

Clearly, there is much more to do, although the city need only look north to Redwood City and San Carlos to see examples of both types of successful grade separations. We believe the city should consider the consequences of not installing grade separations going over or under the tracks. Whatever inconvenience is caused by construction and the altered landscape, in 10 or 15 years we can imagine it will be a tremendous challenge just to cross town without grade separations. And if the city chooses to go forward, every effort should be made to minimize the impact of this gigantic project on neighbors and property owners. Despite, the initial pain, grade separations are the only way to peacefully coexist with Caltrain if the railroad is going to continue to be the Peninsula's primary mass transit option far into the future.

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