|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Of about 55 people polled at a Menlo Park community meeting June 7, most appeared to prefer a project to separate Caltrain tracks from city roads in three locations, instead of only one. The meeting was part of the city’s evaluation of options to improve safety and reduce traffic congestion around railroad crossings in Menlo Park.
Building tunnels or bridges at three crossings could take almost five years and could cost up to $390 million, according to AECOM, the transportation consulting firm hired to analyze the options.
Those attending the meeting were given information about two options being considered to separate Menlo Park roads from Caltrain tracks. One option would tunnel Ravenswood Avenue under Caltrain, a project estimated to take 44 months and cost $150 million to $200 million. The other option would separate Ravenswood, Oak Grove and Glenwood avenues from Caltrain by raising the tracks and lowering the roads, a project estimated to take 58 months and cost $310 to $390 million.
Another alternative – to separate just Ravenswood and Oak Grove avenues from the tracks – was eliminated by the City Council at a meeting earlier this year.
Separating the road from the rails under both options would ease traffic and improve safety, since drivers, cyclists and pedestrians won’t have to cross the tracks, consultants said.
The Ravenswood Avenue undercrossing option would eliminate access to Alma Street, Merrill Street and Alma Lane, increase traffic on Laurel Street and could divert traffic from Oak Grove and Glenwood avenues, consultants said.
The triple-crossing separation would allow full access to be maintained to those streets. It would add traffic signals along Glenwood avenue at Laurel Street and Middlefield Road. Overall, however, the triple-crossing separation would create more disruption, including impacts on driveways.
Those who attended the community meeting responded to several questions related to the project’s construction. They also had the chance to visualize what a completed project might look like through virtual-reality goggles and 3-dimensional video renderings. They generally agreed that road closures should be limited and that construction should not be done at night, with perhaps extended daytime hours for construction allowed during the summer.
“It’s like childbirth, ladies,” said Cedy Fisher, a Menlo Park resident since 1974, said during a discussion with other attendees. “These projects take a long time, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a short period.”
According to Angela Obeso, an associate engineer in the city’s Transportation Division, a best case scenario is that the project would be completed eight to 10 years from now.
Funding the project would be a challenge, but might come from San Mateo County transportation funds or federal funding, among other sources, Ms. Obeso said. Having a preferred alternative does make it easier to apply for government funding, she noted.
Over the summer and early fall, consultants will gather more feedback by meeting with city commissions and those who would be affected by the projects. The plan is to present a report to the council so it can decided on a option in the fall.
After a preferred option is picked, the next phase of the project will be to complete an environmental analysis and design for the grade separations, Ms. Obeso said.
__
But what about Encinal?
I do not prefer grade separation any of the intersections at a huge cost. What I prefer is that drivers pay attention, use common sense and take responsibility for their actions. If they did that we would not need a grade separation.
I live in Palo Alto across the creek from Menlo Park. MP council has the opportunity to exercise leadership by example and publish a simple description and estimates of all of the grade crossing options within its city limits.
All I know is what I read the newspapers.
The range of costs in a few other cities seems inconsistent and is definitely confusing. Perhaps one of the newspapers can assemble intercity data for all Peninsula cities so that we citizens can see the types and costs of grade crossings in better context.
Nobody should expect the data to be perfect or even coordinated…just publish what is available.
Then we can determine if we are sailing on the same ship….or perhaps we may not be riding on the same train.
Good options may be overlooked when only the short-term financial costs are examined. It also is important to consider long-term costs and both short/long-term opportunities for revenue. We also should put a value on aesthetics and other non-financial considerations.
As has been posted in the past, undergrounding or trenching would provide the opportunity to build much-needed housing as well as retail at-grade (and above), bringing revenue from property and sales taxes. That also provides the opportunity to create safe and beautiful north-south bike and pedestrian paths and safe east-west crossings of the tracks. It would help create a lovely town center rather than one marred with tracks, walls, catenaries.
Interest rates are low. Financing spreads costs over time. Maybe there could be a capital campaign that some of the Facebook execs and VC’s will help support?
Common Sense, you make so munch sense. Just this past week I saw people not paying any attention, and stopping dead on the tracks. Luckily at a time when there was no train traffic coming.
People anymore are always quick to blame someone (or some group/organization), and just not take an responsibility for their own actions.
Thank you, Think of More than Costs.
Yes, this monumental effort should not be built without thinking of the aesthetic impact and long-term needs of the Caltrain corridor through our city, as well as our neighbors, Palo Alto, Atherton and beyond. Look at the building going on in MP and PA – there is ever greater urbanization. Cities across the globe have buried their trains to enhance their quality of life (think Park Avenue in NYC).
I agree: Tunneling will both preserve the aesthetics of these beautiful towns, as well as provide the possibility of bike trails and other uses for the corridor. Innovative financing should be sought, private-public partnerships, which is what the original high-speed rail bond mandated. Everyone will benefit.
If Menlo Park and its neighbors are to be torn up to build some form of grade crossings, then why not do it once and do it right: build it for the future and bury the trains.
population density of manhattan = 66,940 / nyc = 27,000
population density of menlo park = 3,271
Even in NYC 40% of the subway is above ground. Why? because tunneling in expensive and only makes financial sense in the densest of urban areas. we are not even close.
I wish people would stop comparing menlo park to major urban centers. menlo park is a low density 1950s era car centric suburb.
Why are we thinking so locally? The question of Cal train’s intersections with roads is a problem for the whole Peninsula. We need a coordinating body to look at the entire line and make a safe, aesthetic and cost-effective decision for all intersections involved. Stop, Look and Listen is too little, too late for a train traveling 70+MPH.
We agree with @MPer. Tunneling the tracks will cost at least 3 times as much as elevating the tracks and probably take 3 times as long as well. Don’t force a huge debt on my grandchildren for a project that could be don’t much sooner and more cheaply.
@Sandy – several San Mateo County cities have already made their decision and elevated the train tracks through their cities (work is already complete). Menlo Park could have participated then, but apparently failed to due to a weak city government. Now the problem is getting worse and we need to work with the government to take action.
Caltrain is preparing to award a contract for a grade separation project in San Mateo to construct 3 grade-separated intersections between Hillsdale Mall and the County Expo Center and relocated Hillsdale station (31st, 28th and 25th Avenues).
Estimated total price tag for that project: $184M and 15+ years of political wrangling, design (and re-design), and coordinated effort between the City of San Mateo, Caltrain, the San Mateo County Transit Authority, and the High Speed Rail Authority.
” Don’t force a huge debt on my grandchildren for a project that could be don’t much sooner and more cheaply”
You can always get something faster and cheaper but do you really want a wall that cuts the community in half or would you rather have a nice surface level bike/pedestrian/housing corridor with the trains underground?
@Peter Carpenter – I want something that can be completed within 5 years or at most 10 years. If tunneling can realistically finished in that timeframe, then I might be willing to jack up my grandchildrens’ tax bill to get it. If tunneling cannot be finished in a reasonable time period, then we need to forget it and move forward on something that is useful and realistic.
@Peter Carpenter, the wall scare trope doesn’t hunt.
Elevated on a combination of an open airy viaduct and well-planted berm allows for greater cross-track community connectedness than the existing at-grade tracks which are already elevated on a rising berm between Burgess Park up to the alluvial San Fracisquito Creek bank & trestle. Ever look at the berm
Ironically the “wall” scaremongers conveniently leave out that the 150+ year-old status quo effectively acts more like a wall than any of the other reasonably-affordable grade separation options.
In a 2003 interview, former Congressman Bill Royer recounts a $32 million bond issue that would have created 16 grade separations in San Mateo County. The measure was rejected by voters.
https://vimeo.com/user12144111/review/215741725/872abd0b40
The San Carlos approach, with a half height berm and road undercrossings, is the only cost-effective and reasonable method. Tunnel and trench advocates are dancing an absurd jig and should be ignored due to the unaffordable expense.
Unless the pro-tunnel people can put together a realistic schedule and budget that gets the project done in less than 10 years, I say ignore them as a hoax. They are just trying to stall and delay. We need realistic leaders for this project.
It is absurd to compare Menlo Park’s density to New York City. There are plenty of cities and areas of Europe where transit has been put underground – including in residential communities like ours. If jobs keep getting added, more and more density will be necessary so don’t make comparisons today about decisions for the long-term when conditions will be different.
@resident ” several San Mateo County cities have already made their decision and elevated the train tracks” but Atherton, Menlo Park, and Palo Alto want tracks underground and could make a different decision without affecting those cities. There is enough distance to Mt. View in the south and Redwood City in the north for trains to come back to grade.
The construction costs are higher, but there are costs that would not need to be incurred (e.g., eminent domain and legal costs) and profits for use of at-grade land plus costs avoided for grade crossings, north-south bike paths, etc. A value should be placed on the differences of aesthetics and ability to create a downtown core.
Elon Musk’s Boring Company offers exciting new possibilities that should not be ignored. See https://www.curbed.com/2017/7/3/15915692/elon-musk-tunnel-public-transit-boring-company
Politicians who view the future solely by the length of their current term of office will always make cheap, short term solutions.
Just as private homeowners have realized that the price of land now justifies basements local governments will eventually realize that going underground is the only way to increase transportation capacity and to reduce surface congestion.
Putting a train in a trench is fine in the desert, but we have a 30 foot deep creek that we’ll need to go under. This will never happen because of grade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbUsKWbOqUU
Even if you were able to dig a 9 billion dollar tunnel for Caltrain, nobody wants to use a suburban train station that is 30 feet underground.