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To launch a new year and a majority-new City Council, Menlo Park’s council meeting scheduled tonight (Jan. 15) will waste no time diving into one of the city’s biggest questions right now: how to separate the Caltrain tracks from the places they intersect with roads in the city.
The council will meet for a study session starting at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at 701 Laurel St. to talk through a series of options.
The first decision will be how to complete the initial phase of work on the project, called a project study report. Council members can either approve the report with a preferred alternative to separate only Ravenswood Avenue from the tracks with an underpass, thereby enabling the city to move forward with the next phase, which is to find funding for environmental study and design.
The council could also choose another alternative: to separate Ravenswood, Oak Grove and Glenwood avenues from the tracks with a “hybrid” approach, by raising the tracks and lowering the roads to get the needed clearance between the two. This would require revision of the project study report, and the report could be considered complete as soon as February, according to a staff report.
The next step is to conduct further studies – but of what? Staff presented three options:
First, the council could choose to move forward with an established draft of additional matters to analyze and set aside $275,000 for it, expected to take about six to nine months to complete. Those analyses would include a financial assessment of what it would take to put the tracks below ground in a trench or tunnel, and the completion of a conceptual design and a noise, tree and visual impact analysis of what it would take to put the tracks fully above the roads, such as with a viaduct.
Second, the council could opt to authorize further analysis of the trench, tunnel or viaduct options. These might include evaluations of how steeply the tracks would have to rise or descend to have the tracks be at ground level at the city’s borders with Atherton and Palo Alto, and whether pursuing those options would require the use of eminent domain to claim private property.
It’s not immediately clear how much these extra analyses would cost and how long they would take, according to staff.
Or third, staffers say, the council could opt to not do any additional studies.
Other items
The council is scheduled to start its meeting at 5 p.m. in a closed session – not open to the public – regarding the hiring of a new city manager and negotiations about property at 1305 and 1345 Willow Road. Those properties are owned by MidPen Housing Corp. and the site has been proposed to be redeveloped for more affordable housing units.
After the study session about grade separations, the council’s main item of business will be whether to approve a set of priorities surrounding proposed library system improvements for the Menlo Park main and Belle Haven branch libraries.
The Menlo Park City Council will meet at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at 701 Laurel St. in the Menlo Park Civic Center to start its study session and meeting. Access the meeting agenda here or stream it online here. (The streaming link was not working yesterday; staff said they’re working on fixing it for today’s meeting.)
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Only the hybrid plan to separate all the intersections makes any sense. Therefore, we can be quite confident that Menlo Park will choose something else.
“These might include evaluations of how steeply the tracks would have to rise or descend to have the tracks be at ground level at the city’s borders with Atherton and Palo Alto,
This news item adds to the confusion surrounding the elevation of tracks, i.e., the so-called “viaduct” option.
The proposed Fully Elevated Grade Separation study should evaluate all practical track profiles that remain entirely within Menlo Park and do not require lowering streets more than a few feet, This avoids the cost, complexities, risks and traffic congestion associated with major street excavation.
“Almost” fully elevated train tracks, i.e., streets lowered only a few feet have been built in San Carlos and approved for San Mateo and Burlingame and should be considered in Menlo Park, as well. This design might be needed at Glenwood and should be evaluated as one potential solution.
Interpreting a viaduct to mean no street lowering is short-sighted and impractical.
It makes no sense to rule-out options without first fully understanding them.
“It makes no sense to rule-out options without first fully understanding them.”
Correct. Which is why a total life cycle analysis of the bored tunnel option should also be evaluated. It is much more expensive in the short term but would provide a much better and much less disruptive long term option.
Do it once and do it right!
“Or third, staffers say, the council could opt to not do any additional studies.” Yeah, right. Aren’t studies the very life-blood of administrative staff? (rhetorical question!) Don’t worry, staff. So long as any funding is obtainable, there will always be “additional studies.”
It is stunning that these discussions are taking place independently in (at least) three contiguous towns (Ath.MP,PA), as if any construction and operational consequences stop at the respective borders.
Nearly ten years ago, various towns on the Peninsula met (in Palo Alto) publicly, and frequently, to discuss the ramifications of various below, at, and above ground options for Caltrain’s future operation. That group’s existence should have been extended and certainly should be in business today.
Discussions acknowledged that there could be no independent town solution that did not impact its neighbors. The tracks cannot undulate like a carnival roller-coaster. Solutions need to be collective.
It seems to me that a first step is not what Menlo Park does or doesn’t recommend to Caltrain, but to reconstitute a Peninsula-long committee — independent of Caltrain’s planners — to ascertain what is in our collective best interest.
No, Martin, studies are not “the very life-blood of administrative staff.” You think people go to work for the government so they can get nothing done, rinse, repeat? What could they possibly have to gain from this kind of frustrating stalemate?
If it were up to staff, grade separation would have happened years ago, as it did in Belmont, San Carlos, etc. But previous councils have been reluctant to pull the trigger, fearful that hindsight would show that a tunnel–nay, a viaduct!–would have been the smarter choice. Last night’s study session gave me hope, however. We heard from the usual panoply of contradicting voices–and the four council members responded with pragmatism. Maybe in my lifetime we will get this done.