City Council - Regular Meeting

one. Uh, welcome to a special meeting of the Palo Alto City Council, Wednesday, December 10th, 2025. And will the clerk please call the role? Of course. Council member Lithcod Haynes here. Council member Rectal here, Mayor Lowing here. Council member Bert here. Vice Mayor Vinker here. Council member Lou here. Council member Stone here. For the record, all present. And just to note for the record that the agenda is currently noticed that we have a teleconference location for council member Keith Rectal and that is no longer a teleconference location and he is here in person.

We beamed him right in for this meeting that's recorded. Yeah,

that's great. Okay, as you know, this is a a very special meeting and uh unusual in that it's a single item and it is um uh it is an action item that we could continue if we if we want to need to. Um and so we really want to make sure that the public has a chance to comment on this, you know, significant milestone where we're going to potentially move to 15% engineering. Um that's still only 15, not you know 55 or 75 or 85, but it's a very significant milestone. Um and uh four of our council members are not as up to speed as those that were on the on the rail committee. So welcome all those questions as well. So we we will get a staff presentation and um from I think a number of people and then we'll go to public comment as is the norm. Um, and a reminder that if we go to a second meeting, uh, there's not going to be any public comment at that meeting because it will be a continuation of this meeting. So, with that, we'll head over to staff.

You do? Okay. And now we have a recusal. Yeah. Just like last week. Yeah. Since my house is within 500 ft of one of the grade separation locations, I have been asked to recuse from this item. So, I will be going to the back room. Thank you. All right. Over to staff. Can we pull up the presentation, please?

Good evening, honorable mayor, members of the council. Ripen Batia, senior engineer with office of transportation. Uh tonight we are bringing this item regarding grade separation project at Churchill Meadow and Charleston crossing along the Calr corridor. Uh we'd like to note that Cal Train is leading this project uh within because it's within the right um railroad right away. However, the project is being advanced in collaboration with Cal Train and city staff and we have an integrated team uh consisting of city staff, Cal Train staff, consultants and uh we are um working towards completing the preliminary engineering and environmental documentation phase uh which includes all three crossings to develop 35% plans for both Churchill, Meadow and Charleston crossings. Next slide please. So on June 24th, city council as staff have to further refine alternatives and reduce impacts to the property. Uh as we'll also look into the traffic circulation and uh mobility elements. The project integrated team worked on these alternatives accordingly and shared these updates with the community for their feedback before bringing it to the council. We also discussed this um brought this for the review of the city council uh for the rail committee before coming to the rail for to the city council. So tonight uh we'll share uh the recent community uh outreach efforts. Uh we will also review each of these alternatives uh for the with the with which were which are in consideration and uh seek council direction on which alternatives to proceed with 15% um design. Supporting me tonight, we have Edgar Torres to my right and also Jill Gibson uh from our project integrated team with Calrain presenting the uh details on the community feedback and how we incorporated this feedback into the

updated design uh technical designs. Also, we have uh staff u from the integrated team Navidid Ali Calran as well as uh Whitney Digimantus uh she's also present to answer any other questions that might come up. So without further delay, uh to Jill Gibson. Thank you, Jill.

Uh good evening, mayor, members of city council. Um we wanted to start tonight with um context of the railroad corridor and the transportation uh network. Um the current grade separation crossings uh shown on the map are in light blue um with the atgrade crossings in dark blue. um wanted to, you know, certainly recognize the importance of the railroad with the surrounding community and the overall mobility network. Um here's a snapshot of the vehicular traffic showing um tens of thousands of uh vehicles um that cross the railroad each day. And as the the map demonstrates the close proximity of uh the community's resources like parks and schools um close to the railroad and as we think about the community's mobility needs um the users of the active transportation network have been a very important consideration as we've made concepts concept refinements. Um and just a note that as the final configuration of the alternatives are refined, the um adjustments may be needed to the broader um active transportation network. So I wanted to recap a bit of where we've been before we talk about the current phase of the project. Um so in November of 2021, uh city council provide the direction to prioritize Meadow and Charleston over the other grade separation um projects. Um and then in June of 2024, uh the city council approved hybrid and underpass for both Meadow Drive and Charleston. And then city council requested updates through the refinements, um with the opportunity to provide continued direction and the ability to focus the concepts. Um so in the spirit of that direction um from June of 2024, we're here today to update

you on the progress of the alternatives and the refinements and provide the opportunity for council um to provide that direction um including the possibility of narrowing our focus of these alternatives. Um and then also in that uh June of 2024 council provide that direction to prioritize I'm sorry pro uh provide the direction um with the locally preferred alternative um being the partial underpass and then providing the closure as a backup. Um wanted to note um that the city council provided direction um last year and we've kept these four um kind of key key things in mind. first and for foremost improving safety. Um next the uh improving mo overall mobility and congestion. Um really establishing the project footprint needed for environmental clearance and minimizing environmental impacts and then importantly um minimizing um potential private property impacts. Um so that brings us to the current FA project phase. Um so this this phase of the project is funded through uh VTA's measure B and an FRA rail crossing elimination grant. Um so we are um at the end of Q4 this year and um really in ne uh early next year starting the 15% um design phase um and then the next step would be 35% design um and environmental. And so we're here tonight as the red box um call out um describes to to share an update um and then provide the council an opportunity to focus um which alternatives that we continue to refine. So as Ripen mentioned, we conducted outreach um for the concept refinements we're going to walk through today. Um so

to advertise for the community um outreach included social media um promoted via the the Palo Alto weekly. We sent just over 900 mailers to advertise folks to participate. Um and then just to provide a quick kind of summary of the community meetings. We had two community meetings um for both Meadow Charleston and Churchill. Um and we had uh over a hundred participants in the uh community meetings, over 300 comments. We also just to note we also provided an opportunity for folks to engage online and the presentation of that community meeting was posted online. Um so I wanted to highlight uh the feedback that we received as a part of that in community engagement. Um and really what rose to the top were through three um key themes. First, a lot of uh interest and questions and comments on um traffic impacts. Um next, um a lot of conversations around um active transportation, particularly safety, connectivity, and accessibility. Um and then thirdly, um property impacts. And so you'll see in our presentation tonight, we're going to highlight um these community themes in the concept refinements. And then we'll note that we additionally um have been uh most recently presented to the rail committee twice in September and November and then uh met with the pedestrian and bicycle advocacy sorry advisory committee in October and then also met with the school district and then again in December um with the U payback and then um in advance of this city council meeting we also sent mailers out um over 900 mailers um advertising this council meeting. So to recap, the summary of alternatives

that we're going to go in and do a deep dive in um include Churchill um with a partial underpass um also includes um a bike and pedestrian crossing with two options. One at Seal Avenue and the second at um Alma Street. Um and then for Meadow Drive, it includes both hybrid and underpass. And then for Charleston Road, it includes both hybrid and underpass. And in the underpass, there are two options that include a roundabout option and a direct access ramp option. So, we're going to step through each of the um concepts and um Edgar is going to walk through uh the renderings as well as plan views. Um and then we are going to discuss um kind of the te the considerations. If you go to the next slide, um as you all think about um advancing which alternatives um with the two 15% we're going to talk about traffic and circulation, active transportation, um potential property impacts, construction, and then um I'm going to provide a summary of the community feedback for each um item. With that, turn it over to Edgar.

Uh good evening, mayor, council members. Edgar Torres and I have the privilege of walking you through all of the alternatives and various elements associated with them. Uh we'll begin with Churchill Avenue this evening and uh as part of the direction uh from city council and the guidance of the rail committee we explored options at Churchill to be able to reduce the property impacts. That's one of the four themes as Jill mentioned earlier in the presentation. As part of that, uh, working with not only city staff, but also the fire department and other services within the city explored the option for Churchill Avenue to be able to have effectively one lane in Upper Alma, as you see in the upper left, one lane northbound uh, in lower Alma, and then two lanes southbound. In the previous additions, there was two lanes up on Upper Alma, which required more space to be able to accommodate those two lanes. in working with the fire department and working with uh again staff, we're able to reduce that down to one lane, still be able to provide access for for the fire department. And I'll walk you through some of these key components one through four. The first is that upper Alma again working uh with staff to be able to come up with a cross-section that be able to provide that flow of traffic access for services uh and be able to maintain solid operations uh from a vehicular uh perspective as the Churchill underpass becomes effectively a vehicleonly intersection. uh pedestrians and cyclists will be accommodated at the Seal Avenue uh crossing to be able to allow for that uh undercrossing or partial underpass at the intersection. Alma or portion of Alma known as lower Alma will go down to a T intersection or a new intersection down below to be able to go underneath the railroad tracks. Cyclist along the Embaradero Trail which

is a path which goes north towards um the station Palto station also has that connection uh to Pali as well as a ped bike bridge under number three that allows that connection to the other side of Churchill to be able to provide that grade separated uh experience for cyclists as well. And finally, in this option or this variation of the Churchill Avenue partial underpass, there is a landscape strip uh between effectively the pavement and the sidewalk. That was one option uh to be able to explore creating some more separation between the sidewalk and uh adjacent traffic. Although you'll notice uh with that one lane, there's an adjacent striped out or almost like striping there hatched away. That's to be able to provide a narrow a narrower lane for traffic to be able to focus their their space while providing space for say trash collection or fire department access to the homes in the area. The the non-landscape strip very subtle change is with strip you see the green on the left hand side by the number four the strip goes away uh with the this uh variation. This further reduces the amount of space needed uh and and uh reduces the amount of potential uh partial property acquisition and I'll walk through those here in a moment. Same features for this partial underpass except the landscape strip between the sidewalk and the pavement is removed. So in plan view or bird's eye view, think of it as Google maps overlay. Uh we see those same uh icons just referencing it uh within plan view where upper Alma in the purple, lower Alma in the light blue with the intersection down below be able to provide those movements. the pedestrian bridge from the Embarco path uh to Mariposa Avenue and the again the

landscape strip or without landscape strip. I'm going to do a brief primer on uh preliminary traffic and and what we look for when doing some form of traffic analysis. And in this case, we look at the ability to be able to not only serve the demand, but what type of delay or how much uh waiting time there is for individuals and their vehicles at an intersection. And we do average it out based on, you know, just a total amount of delay over the number of vehicles approaching that intersection. And there's different levels of service. A, think of A, B, and C as like, oh, there's pretty much no delay. Um, D, there's a little bit, but it's very acceptable. E, there's more. Still acceptable in urban areas. And then level of service F is, think of it as, okay, this is a lot of traffic. And that can be experienced uh in certain uh areas within Palto, specifically left turns across the railroad. So think of northbound Churchill trying to make that left turn. They do get to experience long delays at that location. So with regards to the preliminary uh traffic results, really the vehicular uh movement and delay, there's a few things here to be able to note. First is um we do analyze what the existing conditions in this case 2025 traffic counts. New counts were uh uh counted in uh May of 2025 to make sure that we were able to account for school activity, the university being in session. Uh just be able to again uh observe and um estimate based on the real conditions that are being experienced by those today. And then at the bottom you'll see um essentially what movements are allowed. Uh so in this case in today's uh intersection at Churchill all movements are essentially allowed. Uh and they

experience about 30 seconds of delay although while it shows green those who are dealing with the railroad say left turns again northbound left turns they experience more than that. Uh so that's the and again the average delay across um all vehicle users in the partial underpass there is an improvement in that traffic and the operations of that traffic. Um in this case for 2025 and 2040 it goes to level of service B as well for the AM and PM peaks. One thing to note is you'll notice uh in the columns below that there are some movements that are not allowed. they're essentially um prohibited because of how the the T intersection, the new depressed intersection is down below and does not effectively allow through traffic. In other words, traffic going east west uh to uh across Alma uh to the east side of Churchill and vice versa. With regards to the Churchill partial underpass, the there are potential property acquisitions with regards to the landscape strip where we did explore uh placing some of the improvements within uh Calr rightway and some of the improvements within private property that allows for uh 17 parcels being effective or 29 dwelling units um approximately 2 1/2 ft along uh most of those um those parcels. without the landscape strip uh that's further reduced uh and only acquisition may be necessary for ADA ramps or ADA improvements at the intersections. So essentially those parcels along Alma that are not in intersections uh in this case would not need partial acquisition. In terms of construction considerations as these projects are not necessarily easy to build. They take uh several

phases to be able to complete. In this case, we wanted to uh highlight that a crossing if Churchill Avenue were to proceed as partial underpass as as per the LPA, then the bike ped crossing would need to be built first to be able to maintain access for the high school for PI. That's really important because that is a hightraic space for students going to pi uh from old pal Palto. The method of construction is yet to be determined. However, for constructibility reviews, we've been uh proceeding with assuming boxjacking and no shoefly. In other words, a shoefly is creating a new set of tracks to put the train on. Um, and in this case, it uh we're uh proceeding with the assumption of box jacking to avoid the construction of that shoefly in the two tracks. There would be utility relocations including potential undergrounding of electrical. In other words, if the improvements are taking place, taking the opportunity to be able to underground the electrical um phasing of what we call maintenance of traffic. In other words, traffic control during construction to be able to allow for retaining wall and bridge construction. And in because space is needed for a contractor to build these these uh structures, uh Alma Street may be reduced uh to one lane during construction. And again, because the roadway is being depressed or for that partial underpass, there would need to be essentially trucks going in and out to be able to export the soil uh from the site. And I'll hand it off to Joe for community feedback.

So, from a a community perspective, we heard um the desire to certainly prioritize student access and safety. Um I think that we we heard a lot about um the benefits of calming traffic on Alma Street while importantly preserving really the the neighborhood access and egress. Um and last we heard you know a desire to provide more clarity on the potential property impacts including um driveways and sidewalks and and planter strips um which we have provided um more information in the packet. Now we'll proceed to the pedestrian bike portion of the Churchill underpass uh which per uh council's direction in 2024 would be uh at Seal Avenue uh which is um across uh providing that connection to Alexander Pierce Park uh on the west side of the tracks. So we looked at two options here. Um first is u a Seal Avenue ramp. In other words, where the ramp would be along uh Seal Avenue and marker number one, it would be in the middle of the road coming from a tunnel up in between uh effectively uh in the middle of the road between the homes. Uh they would include a tunnel and with number two and then proceed to climb up uh within the dog park area number three before connecting to Stanford Avenue at marker number four. This is a a rendering for illustrative purposes of of that ramp going down the middle of Seal Avenue. Um this would effectively eliminate parking along Seal Avenue to be able to accommodate that ramp. The connection at Stanford Avenue on the south side of Pierce Park. Uh in this case, uh it would not utilize the um access road there for um park staff. However, that is an option that could also be considered.

And then in the the I'm going to call it the the maps view u the same markers of going down the middle of Seal Avenue tunnel ramp connection to Stanford Avenue. The second option considered as that um ramp down the middle of Seal Avenue felt uh possibly infeasible uh from a practical you know access for the neighborhood. Uh we also explored a ramp going along Alma Street to be able to go down underneath both Alma and the railroad before proceeding on a ramp up uh along the north edge of Pierce Park to then Castilea uh Avenue. This uh provides a potential closer connection to Pali uh from the the ramp and from the uh connection uh along Castilea or Maraposa. uh a a rendering for illustrative purposes of that ramp along Alma Street and then the connection to Castilea Avenue on the west side of the tracks on the north side of Pierce Park and then again in bird's eye view being able to show uh where that ramp and tunnel is relative to the park adjacent homes and in this case along number one that ramp going down uh along Alma Street on the north uh adjacent to the northbound lanes. There is uh adjustment uh or potential uh property uh acquisition along multif family homes there in the white roof uh portion of the building. uh just the the sideyard there and then being able to uh one of the key factors here was to be able to provide uh driveway access to another uh set of multif family homes uh from Alma Street and be able to provide that uh driveway access as part of the potential property impacts. Seal Avenue had 14 parcels

which uh on those 14 are 28 dwelling units. It does, please note, remove on street parking along seal avenues and potential removal of trees. For the Alma Street ramp, there are four uh parcels um with 15 dwelling units that uh may be uh affected through partial property acquisition. Um and however, again noting here that the Pierce Park entrance is closer to Pali for construction considerations. Uh so this being a a tunnel underneath both Alma and the railroad, there will be utility relocations necessary, construction would likely occur from the Pierce Park towards Seal Avenue. Uh that's where the space can be accommodated. Uh and then because it is again a tunnel potentially impacting the sewer, there is likely requirement of a sewer pump station uh to be able to again accommodate that service. For the Seal Avenue ramp, there's temporary uh interruption of access to Seal Avenue homes, temporary disruption of utility services. Again, as the ramp is going down the middle of the road, all of those service laterals would need to be rebuilt and accommodated on either side of that uh ramp. And with the Seal Avenue ramp on the west side, necessary changes to the dog park and potential removal of large trees for the Alma Street ramp. Uh again on that uh adjacent to the northbound lanes there's the potential temporary closure on Alma Street uh which uh is dependent on the construction method and there would be temporary disruption of utility service uh to Alma Street homes for the utility rotations necessary to effectively clear the space for for the tunnel. And uh from the community, we heard um concern of the tunnel use given some of the experience uh with California and Embaradero. Um and I think we heard from

folks their concern that students would continue to utilize Church Hill. Um we heard uh interest and interest in um the design and landscape treatments um for Seal Avenue. Um we heard feedback about the concern about the loss of on street parking um the driveway conflicts and tree removal. Um for the Alma Street um ramp um we heard you know more direct route to Pali, fewer property and parking impacts um and conversations around how do we improve um sighteline and and delineation. Um I will note that there um with this concept there was a consistent preference um mostly for Alma Street. So this is a summary of the considerations that we've walked through. We will have this slide at uh towards the end of the presentation as well to be able to recall uh during questions. Now on to Meadow Drive and Charleston Road. So, uh, as Jill mentioned, there are two alternatives here. We'll begin with the hybrid, um, alternative. And I'll, uh, walk through various elements, uh, to be able to highlight some key features that are related between the hybrid and underpass and the contrast between the two. So, the first is with the hybrid, both the railroad is moved up and the roadway is dropped down. So this is allowed to be able to allow that separation uh between the road and the railroad or the tracks. And so in this case in icon number one, Alma Street is coming down albeit at a gentle slope um maximum 4 1/2% grade. And this allows for the full intersection to be slightly depressed. And this allows for pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles to

be at the intersection. It allows for bicycle lanes uh and pedestrian uh facilities to be able to provide that safe crossing. Um it allows for um again the full uh movement of all um for all circulation and then it does provide that physical vertical separation between the tracks and the road of Charles Meadow Drive in this case. And then the tracks are set up higher in plan view uh or map view. You'll see same configuration of effectively the full intersection slightly depressed or slightly lower approximately 4 to 6 ft. Uh that's something that will be continued to be refined. And in this concept you see at least underneath um underneath the railroad you see the bike and ped facilities. We are exploring options to be able to provide wider space and more light underneath uh that area uh to be able to provide a comfortable uh well-lit space or well uh sunlit space for uh cyclists and pedestrians along with the full movement of vehicular traffic at the intersection. For Meadow Drive underpass in this alternative, the roadway is fully depressed. So the tracks remain at the same space or same grade and the roadway is depressed below. In this case um you have Meadow Drive going down. Um and this can vary between 9 and 11%. The because it is going down there needs to be ramps connecting Alma Street in this case from the north side of Charleston. uh number two being the northbound connection uh from Meadow Drive to Alma Street and number three being the southbound down from uh the north towards uh Meadow Meadow Drive.

There is a pedestrian bridge uh to be able to cross on either side of of the tracks or either side of Alma to be able to cross Meadow Drive and provide connections directly or directly to a multi-use path which is shown in green. There's also uh that's number five. And that multi-use path goes along the south side of Meadow Drive to both ends of of the undercrossing. Please note that because both directions of cyclists are combined on the south side, there will need to be improvements both on the west and east side to be able to uncouple them. So unbraid them to be able to allow for uh cyclists uh to continue and be able to access peroalto's active transportation network. And in this case last is number six uh where we show the connection to Park Boulevard from the path both for pedestrians and cyclists um to the south side of Meadow Drive and Park Boulevard. Here are those uh icons and markers in the uh bird's eye view or map view. Um, a few items to note here is that because there's no longer that direct uh connection, say between northbound ramps to uh Meadow Drive or the northbound lanes along Alba to Meto Drive, they would effectively have to go to a new left turn lane and make a a U-turn or access the southbound ramp here before proceeding to Meadow Drive and be able to have access uh to Meadow Drive both to the east and to the west of the tracks. In terms of the preliminary uh traffic results, um Meadow Drive in all the alternatives provide improvement uh to to the vehicular operations. So in other words, the amount of time that um

vehicles are waiting at the uh intersection is reduced. In the case of the hybrid um it is improved and all movements are allowed. In the case of the underpass, the operations is substantively improved to AMB. However, there are um restrictions or prohibitive movements and then there's some and there are out ofdirection travel uh as pointed out uh for the northbound lanes being able to have a U-turn uh before going to Meadow Drive. And that is the case for both AM and PMP peak having improvements in both alternatives operationally for vehicles in terms of the potential property acquisition in the hybrid. Um as one thing to note, we were asked to explore options for the bridge being uh wider or longer. And so there are options that I'll I'll highlight um later to be able to explore again more space or more sunlight underneath the crossing. The hybrid uh now has one uh potential uh partial acquisition that could be further reduced. Uh however, the underpass does have um two parcels or that affect uh 16 dwelling units that are full acquisitions and then six parcels or dwelling units that are affected as partial acquisition. potential acquisitions in the construction considerations for Meadow Drive. Um, for both alternatives, there will be temporary or full closure of Meadow Drive crossing during construction. There will be temporary lane closures on Alma Street and that will depend on the construction method utilized. There will be utility relocations and temporary disruption in utility services including a major sewer line uh relocation.

Um for hybrid uh because the tracks are being moved a shoefly is anticipated and would likely be required. Uh there is potential for phased approach to mitigating traffic impacts along Alma Street with the hybrid. There are fewer utility relocations and interruptions. And then finally, there is both soil import or bringing in soil uh as well as taking out soil of the site. So the railroad going up needs dirt. The road going down needs dirt removed. In the underpass, um we're currently assuming boxjacking similar to identified in Churchill uh to avoid a shoefly. In this case, there's also temporary closure of Park Boulevard at Betto Drive. Al and Alma Street may need to be temporarily reduced to one lane. More utility relocations and interruptions will be required for the underpass. And there will likely be a sewer pump station needed uh as part of that um underpass improvements. There will be phased work for retaining walls uh that extend out from the underpass as well as the bridges. And then there will be soil export uh from the site if an underpass is is selected.

Um for both both um options we um heard across Meadow Drive heard the desire to minimize property acquisitions. Um concern over the construction period impacts both closures, the noise and overall disruptions. Um and we we heard an an interest to avoid graffiti pro uh prone concrete and interest in landscaping and shading. Um for the hybrid um we heard um comments in and perception of of a more comfortable walking and bike biking environment. Um uh consideration and interest in this mixed wall column treatments. Um for the underpass uh noted perception of more steeper uh or steeper grades were noted uh longer ramps and tighter turns rest turning restrictions and conversations around the path of travel. And then next slide is uh the note of the consideration summary that we'll come back to at the end

for Charleston Road. Um we'll start with the hybrid in this case very similar to uh Meadow Drive. The road is slightly depressed 4 to 6 ft. The railroad is moved up uh to be able to provide that separation. The full intersection is provided there along with bike and pedestrian facilities. Oh, and I I I failed to note that along with for Meadow Drive and Charleston for those bike facilities, there's there's the opportunity to be able to protect those uh those facilities as well as be able to provide bike signals uh essentially providing them a lead pedestrian or bike interval uh which are being deployed to be able to allow them to move first into the intersection so that they can be seen by drivers. And uh again, very similar to Meadow Drive. And in the plan view or in uh map view, you can see those same markers. And and I'll just use my cursor here to be able to highlight the bike and ped space going underneath and be able to provide that wider space, uh more comfortable space for pedestrians and cyclists. In the underpass, there are two options for the Charleston Road underpass. The first is the roundabout where the roundabout is shown on the upper right of the screen. And that allows to be able to have sort of uh to be able to have full access from the intersection through a think of slow and go. The roundabout slows traffic down, calms it down, and allows for people to go around the roundabout to be able to go underneath Charleston. And this allows for the movement, for example, with northbound lanes. Right now they have uh in this option they don't have that direct uh access to Charleston Road to the west. So instead they would be able to travel uh make a right turn, go through the roundabout slowly, come back around and down. This is known as a ribbon intersection or a ribbon

interchange. Alma Street would be uh up above with a intersection to be able to control traffic from Charleston Road and Alma Street as well as a ramp from Charleston Road to the southbound lanes along Alma Street. Uh this is uh key note here is that Charleston Road is a key intersection and key access both to the highway system as well as the growth anticipated in South PaloAlto. So this um particular crossing is a a critical one uh for that uh um that traffic that mobility need that's going to be coming from the new homes anticipated as part of South Palo Alto. In this case, uh not only is that ramp uh provided, there's also bike and pedestrian uh similar to Meadow Drive dedicated uh multi-use path in green this time on the north side of the road and be able to provide it along the road with gentler slopes for uh bikes and pads. Uh providing that access for them via a switchback ramp. In other words, it switched back to be able to provide that access to Alma Street and then be able to continue uh further west with a bike ped bridge on the west side of the tracks. And this is uh in plan view here be able to highlight the roundabout and those improvements uh in the roundabout do require space. Uh there is that multi-use path this case in pink shown on the north side or the left side of the page but north side of Charleston Road. Uh and those again when you have both directions of bike and ped travel on one side of the road they need to be uncoupled or you know brought to their respective sides of the road at either end uh of the improvements.

One item to note is that Park Boulevard here is effectively right in uh or right out only. So there would be only access out of the community at least on the north side of Charleston Road as a right turn to get to Charleston Road towards the west. And then uh eastbound traffic on Charleston Road can only go into Park Boulevard. Uh and so we've been able to uh be able to see how that can be not only accommodated but also be able to provide uh fire access uh fire department access to the homes uh at that lo those locations. So, per the direction of the city council and uh the rail committee and the guidance of the rail committee, we did explore ways to be able to further reduce the property impacts at this uh at the underpass with regards to the use of what's known as a direct access ramp. So, um I'm going to indulge your patience here. I'm going to go back a few slides just to be able to show you that there is that one ramp coming up only connecting to the southbound lanes and the northbound would need to go through uh the roundabout to provide that access. Again, slow and go access through Charleston Road. In this case, that right turn lane was effectively repurposed as a direct access ramp from Alma Street up on the south side of Charleston Road to Charleston Road. This provides effectively that same ramp to the southbound lanes from Charleston Road and then the northbound lanes have a ramp down to an intersection down below Alma Street. This allows for the traffic again predominantly coming from uh Mountain View and the southern side of Charleston Road to be able to access Charleston Road. This is a heavy movement that was observed at this crossing. It's the eastbound Charleston to southbound Alma, northbound Alma to westbound Charleston.

This direct access ramp provides that uh movement and be able to accommodate it with less rightway or less property than um the roundabout uh option did. The in terms of the improvements uh it remains effectively the same in terms of Charleston going underneath the multi-use path being provided the pedestrian bridge and then Park Boulevard or Park Avenue and Park having that right out access from the north and right in access for the south. And then this is that same concept in plan view. And you'll notice that this is approximately where the roundabout is. If you can see my cursor on the screen, um that roundabout, the removal of that roundabout helped to be able to reduce the property impacts that were east of Alma, further away from the crossing. With regards to the uh vehicular traffic results, uh in all alternatives, there are improvements to um the operations of um of the intersection of Alma Street uh and the adjacent um intersections. And so that's sort of the key takeaway with regards to um hybrid. The the improvement is there. However, by 20 240 in the PM peak, it's expected to be able to effectively see that delay increase uh again. The reason why is because of the planned uh future growth on the south side of the city. Um so the homes that are anticipated there uh will uh increase or generate traffic that would be experienced effectively here at Charleston Road. Now, as you see in the bottom, the hybrid allows for all movements for all

directions. Uh, and that means that there's going to be some delay or some more waiting at the intersection for vehicular traffic. However, that provides that still that uh bike ped access again get at that sort of uh traditional scale or human scale uh for cyclists and pedestrians. The underpass um in this case has out of direction travel. Um however it is um it does operate better and it provides that those separated facilities for cyclists uh albeit providing some indirect travel for uh some of the cyclists and pedestrians. In terms of potential property impacts or the need for potential property acquisition, the hybrid has two um partial um acquisitions for corner um spaces associated with the uh potential bridge uh being longer. That could be eliminated. However, we wanted to disclose that that may be necessary for a wider bridge crossing. And then for the underpass roundabout, there were three full parcel acquisitions and 26 partial uh parcel acquisitions potentially needed in the direct access ramp. That was reduced from three down to one full acquisition and then a partial acquial acquisition and then 23 partial potential acquisitions. With regards to construction, very similar to Meadow Drive, uh there would be temporary and full closure of Charleston Road crossing during construction. There would be temporary lane closures on Alma Street which is dependent on the construction method. Utility relocations and temporary disruption utility services will be necessary along with major utility uh relocations and potentially even

protecting uh some of those key uh assets um during construction. In the hybrid, a shoefly is anticipated potential for phased approach to mitigating traffic impacts at Alma Street. There's fewer utility relocations and interruptions and then import export of soil, bringing in and bringing out soil. Similar to Meadow Drive, the underpass uh we've currently we've been assuming boxjacking to avoid a shoe fly. There's temporary closure of Park Boulevard at Charleston Road. Alma Street may be temporarily reduced to one lane uh for prolonged periods of time. The roundabout has more disruption to Charleston road operations and be able and have that access uh to the highway system. The direct access ramp um uh pardon me, the direct access ramp has more uh disruption to Alma Street because it's going down the middle of that road. And then there's some uh more utility relocations. Again, because the road is fully depressed, uh it will require uh a sewer pump station. phased work for retaining wells and bridges will be necessary uh to extend out from that undercrossing and there will be uh soil removal from the site and the community feedback with uh Charleston Road for the hybrid. Um folks noted the least amount of property impacts. Um they like that it maintained neighbor neighborhood access um provided minimal detours. Um we did have conversations and comments about visual concerns about the retaining walls and suggestions on um creative treatments. Um folks noted they perception um for better u pedestrian and bike um access with more direct um travel. Um for the underpass, um concern over construction impacts and a lot of conversations and comments around uh closures and noise and overall disruptions. Um for the

roundabout, um significant uh con concern over property impacts um perceived safety challenges, noting um the indirect travel and overall was less favored um versus the hybrid and the direct access ramp option. for the direct access ramp. U mixed views on the roadway and pedestrian and bike design. Um and then folks noting um fewer property impacts um and overall better traffic operations. And then the consideration summary here for for reference. A bit of context here with regards to these two crossings. They are close to one another uh Meadow and Charleston Road. And so in the past they were effectively considered uh jointly in other words um both being underpass and both being hybrid. We've also explored the opportunity for the the two crossings to be able to essentially function independently as well as looking at a combination of either one being underpass and the other being hybrid and vice versa. then looking for the opportunity to be able to improve constructibility, the ability to be able to deliver both crossings or one if necessary. Um the city uh conducted preliminary cost estimates and uh were developed as a part of the 2020 effort and then updated again in 2024. Some key things here. Uh the integrated delivery team or the project team has not had a chance to uh vet or validate uh these um preliminary costs. And recent commercial industry contractor costs uh for grade separations along the CLR corridor have shown that total project costs have been substantially higher than previously estimated by project sponsors. So as um a commitment uh from the integrated delivery team uh

to uh the council and its project sponsors is to provide a total delivery and construction uh engineering cost estimates for the project completion as part of the 15% design drawings anticipated in in mid next year. This is to inform or will be informed by constructibility with regards to the work or hours associated with the rail service and the service disruptions acknowledging that it is going to impact both the rail service and the uh the community. Construction clearances required for active electrified rail operations and the high voltages along that um contact wire. And then it will reflect current market costs and the market conditions associated both with materials and labor. Um so in summary um we have the Seal Avenue considerations, the Meadow Drive uh considerations and then Charleston Road considerations. So after um our community feedback and um review by the by updates to the alternatives, we we had this uh alternatives reviewed by the rail committee and rail committee on November 18th uh elimin uh prop recommended to eliminate the sea ramp option for the from advancement and also recommended that others alternative be reviewed at a council level uh for further directions to the staff. Uh in addition, next slide please. Uh in addition uh payback also requested that to review these grade separation alternatives and their recommendations was to proceed forward with the hybrid alternative and they did not recommended the enterprise option be advanced further. Next slide please.

So as a next step, we are seeking direction from the city council on which alternatives to proceed forward into the 15% design and environmental review, noting that all uh at one alternative at each of these crossings will be advanced to the 35% level of the development uh for as part of this environmental and preliminary engineering phase. And uh I'd like to note that there were some um modifications to this the the this the presentation from what was uh posted online and since there was there may have been some changes on the slide numbering. So I apologize for that for not noting in advance. So and that concludes the staff presentation and we'll be more than happy to answer any questions. Thank you. How about that? There we go.

All right. Okay. I think it'd be helpful for all of us to hear public comment and then I'm going to have the the chair of the rail committee uh add any comments that he would like to to the staff as well as kind of tell you where we're going uh in this meeting or series of meetings. So, can we go to public comment? And how many do we have? We have 14 requests to speak. 15. 15. Okay. U we can go with the U.

Actually, two more people raised their hands on Zoom. So, it looks like 17. Yeah, let's just go with uh three because this is the only item. Our first speaker is Roland.

Just a reminder to public speakers, the uh timer is on the dis as well as on the screen.

Thank you and good evening. And uh I believe there's a presentation for you. So, let me uh Okay, hang on. I really appreciate the height. Thank you. It's a rare luxury. There we go. G. Okay, this is the PPT, right? Okay, great. Hopefully this is the uh the PowerPoint. If it's the PDF, then uh we'll get to that. So, first slide. So, my proposal to you is to reintroduce the vioduct, but with completely brand new 21st century technology. It's a launch country which works exactly like a tunnel boring machine except is erecting vioaduct in segments 10 foot segments and unlike a tunnel boring machine it just goes back and forth that's how it erects the vioduct no shoe flies no lengthy road closures no impact operations no impacts on alma with the exception that when you erect this machine it's going to need some space um absolutely no impacts on adjacent properties because you're staying totally uh on the other side of Alma in the Calan right of way and uh and later on you can passing tracks the two links over there two videos I don't know but I'm going to have time to show them to you so next slide please okay so this is what the finished product looks like you got ALMA in the front and you got the fire behind it and

then behind this there's a little link that may help you next slide please All right. So, my recommendation is to eliminate all meadow and Charleston and the pass alternatives, advance the hybrids, advance the vioduct, and then we're going to try to um look at a couple of videos. Let's put up the first one. So, the first one, if this works, is going to show you uh this was working great just now. Okay. Well, that's the second one. Either one. Okay. So what is he showing to you? Uh we can we can skip this. Basically what he did he lifted it so that they can start working getting some work. So let's uh skip this and go back to the previous video. So that's was to show you the impact on and this one is not coming up. Okay, that's very unfortunate because that one actually shows you how it's picking up um all these uh blocks. one by one and assembling them. And the the beauty of this technology is that all this concrete is done somewhere outside in a factory just like a TBM when you got the TBM segments and then when the vioduct starts all the segments actually transported over the vioduct as you know as it is being built and then it you know inserts them. Um this video is a great video because she shows you the final segment which is the key you know between one of the arches. So if you can see it offline um you know that would be wonderful and you got my contact information you got any questions. Thank you.

Our next speaker is John M.

Hello I'm John Melanchuk. Thank you so much. Um, can you bring up slide 51, please, Edgar? Would that be possible? Um, so I'm a little nervous. I'll get that out of the way here. And first of all, I I sent a letter to council outlining my concerns, which I think I've articulated better than I will do with public speaking tonight because I'm nervous. I'm pretty terrified about the prospect of great separation, I have to say, because I live across the street right between Meadow and Charleston. And if we see that slide, I'll I'll tell you where I live. And um I should say thank you to everybody who's worked so hard for more than a decade to get us to this point. XCAP, Naja, Mr. Bert, everybody else on the rail committee there and everybody in the consultants and city staff, everybody has worked incredibly hard on this complex, difficult project. And it will be hard to mitigate harms to residents no matter what you do. I'll be one of those people. I got harmed because of great uh because of the electrification project. Couldn't sleep at night. 120 dB an hour or 120 dB of sound at night. Not sleeping. Now we've got 892 blasts a day. What I've seen mostly the the charging documents here for the construction um consultants is discussions about mobility more than about permanent scarring of the neighborhoods. This is a a project of a billion dollars probably beyond the capacity of our city to pay for without huge grants. And when we do this, I think it's a century project for all of us. And I don't think we should settle for the cheapest um alternatives on the basis that there's the fewest

property seizures. There's other harms which are not really quantified and a lot of the language is quite bland. Um oh, we'll have shoefly tracks. Oh, we'll move some soil in and out. That's thousands of trucks for years while Elmo Street is closed. Um, I don't feel protected at all by the city so far, I have to say. And that's been my experience. And going forward, this is a much bigger project, maybe the biggest one in the city's history or in my lifetime. I don't want to die in the house while construction is going on. And I'm asking you to please quantify and look in a holistic way about other harms and help us understand what they're going to be. What does that really mean to have shoefly tracks in Alma Street for years? What does that mean to have boxjacking? What does that mean for us who are going to live with the noise, concrete walls, and disturbed traffic forever after this thing is built? If we ever get

time is up. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Michael W.

Good evening to the mayor and the city council. After years of deliberation, I hope that today is the day where we will finally table allen underpass options once and for all. The underpass plus roundabout option with its three full and 26 partial property acquisitions is a RP Goldberg contraption for cars to reenable turn patterns of marginal importance less than 30% of all turns that the underpass would disable otherwise. The alternative solution to route traffic through the Eli Mford neighborhood was rejected with the argument that these streets are designated as residentials and hence cannot accommodate additional traffic even if marginal. However, with a newly added underpass plus direct access ramp alternative. Uh we are now considering to facilitate the underpass disabled turn patterns via U-turns on Mumford. something which we actually have not talked about today but it was discussed in previous meetings. This does not make any sense to me. There simply isn't enough space and these streets are still residential. This would create backups, congestion and overall unsafe conditions. Please do not replace one Loop Goldberg contraption with another one. One of the main selling points for the underpass and um roundabout was that it achieves achieves a traffic level of service A rating. However, K train ridership is still low compared to pre-COVID times and is projected to stay below. We don't need grade A rating and there's a catch 22 as well. Given the exorbitant costs for the underpass, if chosen, the city will not be able to address Meadow, hence adding additional traffic to the Shidston underpass. If instead we choose a hybrid, we can probably afford to cover both Shiden and

Meadow, resulting in an overall better traffic flow. Traffs instead of a single underpass. Hence, please endorse what is most practical and most economically feasible. Shooi hybrid for both Shen and Meadow. Thank you for your hard work. Our next speaker is Patrice B followed by Sabrina L.

Good evening, council members and real committee members. Thank you for your time in vetting the various options for great separation at Charleston and Meadow. And I'm specifically saying Charleston and Meadow. Um, please endorse moving the hybrid option for both of these locations forward. They minimize partial property impacts, are the most economical option, um, and they should move ahead with 15% engineering. The roundout option should be eliminated. It still involves unneeded full acquisitions, is disjointed and overengineered. The direct access ramp should also be eliminated. The U-turn component will move congestion from Charleston Alma to Charleston and Mumford. While the rail committee and planning have assured us that the U-turn will be restricted to passenger vehicles only and involve no street winding or partial property takes, this maneuver is still too unwieldy and dangerous. The traffic studies do not reflect the physical rally or trying to cross Charleston and Mumford during rush hour particularly regardless of even crosswalks. Um, the traffic at Charleston will increase dramatically if a grade separation plan does not address East Meadow. At the same time, the direct access ramp plan puts the very citizens we should be protecting at risk. Wear a school route, Gun, Fletcher, JLS, Bionis, Fair Meadow, Hoover, also a mixed family neighborhood, including Stevenson House and Mitchell Place. Plus, we have avid bicyclists and pedestrians. Please protect the people who live in the community. We are also a direct conduit to 101. This is reflected by the speed and the congestion of traffic at Charleston and Mumford. Drivers will not yield to anyone. This makes this plan hazardous for all of us. It's simply a capacity issue. Grade separation was meant to improve flow and reduce congestion. The direct access ramp at Charleston Road will not achieve this and should be eliminated from future study. Finally, I oppose any plan that in that involves reducing the grade separation focus from Charleston and

Meadow. This was not the intent of measure B in 2016. This additional tax for which PaloAlto is expected to get 50% means that at least two of our four intersections should be addressed. This is the intent and the spirit of the law. Um any further any fewer would seem to be a violation of the intent. If we cannot do it right, the final grade separation option is to do nothing and put it to the vote before the entire city. Please endorse further study of the hybrid option only if it includes East Meadow and Charleston. Also, thank you so much for your years of hard work. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sabrina L followed by Carrie Y.

Hi, good evening. Um, I'm Sabrina Lynn. I live in Midtown and I bike around all around Palo Alto. Um I would like to request in in your discussions to uh maybe have some more detailed in-depth discussion on three areas. Uh the first area is around bikes. So I am biased uh that way. If you look at a couple of the solutions, there are uh multi- uh pedestrian and bike pathways described, but that does require an awkward turn. And if you especially consider that half of the gun student population live on the other side of the tracks from gun that would impact their going home path uh quite a bit and since teenagers do not necessarily make good decisions. Uh they may choose to go with the cars instead of doing the a little bit awkward access on the bike uh bike path. Uh the second is regarding traffic improvements. I know that the traffic improvements are only looking at specific intersections. Uh what that uh if both Meadow and Charleston's won't have lights on Alma, if you imagine all of the streets between Meadow all the way through to Churchill, there will not be any lights. So all of the people that live in Midtown, again I'm biased, I live in Midtown, we would not be able to turn left going south to from our streets from uh from our little streets onto Alma because there would be no slowing of traffic that is already speeding today and only stopped with lights. If we add back lights in any of those uh Midtown streets or we only do Charleston and not uh Meadow, then all you're doing

is shifting the traffic jam from where you remove the lights to where you don't have the lights. Um and then uh finally with respect to budget um I don't know what the budget status is and I think it would be useful to talk about potential implications on any budget gaps that there may be and what the tradeoffs might we may have to do or projects we may have to give up in order to support this or incremental assessments or grants or whatever that would have to be uh borne either by the county or the state or the federal federal government or Palo Alto residents. Thanks.

Our next speaker is Carrie Y followed by Bruce A.

Um, good evening, Mayor Lowing and city council members. I have two asks for you since you're going to be discussing this and going into all the studies that have been done. My first ask is that you reconsider, review the decision that was made um that Churchill is not going to be maybe even ever done because East Meadow in Charleston now you've made a decision that they're going to be the first ones done. I um I hope all of you remember March 4th, 2025, nine months ago, a student from Pali threw himself in front of the tracks and killed himself and there were two suicide clusters in 2009 and 2015. I cross there all the time. I am scared. I feel like crying. I see the little vases with all the flowers. I really think you should reconsider the amount of bicycles and pedestrians which I think is over a thousand back and forth going to Pali and Stamford because many times it's Stamford that are using that crossing. So, I think that is the more the most heavily impacted for pedestrians and bicyclists. And that's just from my knowledge of living in this town and having a house on Churchill. Um, and I don't want to see any more vases, any more kids getting killed, any more kids running across right before the train tracks go down, which they always do because they're late for school. I'm sick of it. Um, so I hope you can really look at the numbers and maybe make that in your in your um study. My second ask is um when you do the cost estimates, I went to the community meeting and I thought there was going to be a cost estimate for the Churchill partial underpass and the Churchill closure plus mitigations which was um plan B. There was nothing. I mean, and so I go back to my old XCAP report, 2021, I think 47 meetings worth, lots of community people, and the second one um the Church

of Closure Plus mitigations had the majority vote, six, and then um three people voted didn't vote for that one. Um so it had the majority. I never heard the robust conversation about the cost but if you look at the majority position in the XCAP report one of the reasons was the lower cost option it is was estimated at that time 50 to 65 million for the closure plus mitigations and the underpass which you're looking at right now was 160 to 200 million that is huge that was one of the main considerations and there um the other one that I thought was really important was the construction time they were estim mean two years um instead of three. And so I hope you can really go back to the XCAP report even though everybody's gone way past here and look at page 55 and understand the reasoning that was put forth there. Thank you. Our next speaker is Bruce A followed by Evan A.

Hello city council. I'm here officially for the payback committee recommendation which Ripen actually stole my thunder. I already put the slide in but uh we did review this same presentation on Janu I'm sorry December 2nd and payback had a motion then I'll read it directly which is payback recommends the hybrid options for Charleston and Meadow advance to 15% designs. Payback does not recommend the underpass options to advance. So that's it. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Evan A followed by Elizabeth A. Hi, city council. Uh, if you get one thing for my comment, it's that you should be extremely hesitant to eliminate the underpass design for Charleston Meadow at this point because of the stakes involved with the intersection. I think it would be a serious mistake to eliminate it for two reasons. The first is that it would foreclose the opportunity to fix the Charleston Meadow intersections, which are not future proof at all. I think the first part of this is traffic. Left turns are a nightmare here. If you looked at the design proposal for the hybrid solution, specifically for the Charleston intersection, it would move it from an F to a D, which is still a fail in PA USD. And by 2040, it's back to F because of the increased construction in South Palatoto. So, we'd really not be addressing the traffic situation, which was one of the main reasons to address these intersections. It's not much better on the Meadow Crossing either. I think safety is another serious problem. The intersections at Alma and Park specifically for both of these roads are extremely dangerous. You have to either as a bicyclist make a left turn with just into traffic which is really bad. Uh and at the lights themselves you have bicyclist clustering. There's cars making rights and lefts and also bicless clustering alongside the train tracks as previous people have pointed out. All of which make it so that these intersections are not safe at all. really they're an accident waiting to happen. If we go ahead with the hybrid and not address the intersections themselves, I think we'll see serious problems going forward. This really means that we're being we're spending 500 million at least just to do another $500 million project down the road to fix these intersections. I think we should do this right the first time and save money and make it safer for the people using these intersections. I think a second reason that's really important is the construction time. I think the slides really do not explain the full length and I'm really

sympathetic to John's concerns about construction here. You're talking about either installing a separate set of train tracks and the reason why it's talking about the phased approach is a euphemism because they have to phase it over 3 to 5 years of construction at a minimum. So I think that the impacts here from this construction for the hybrid approach are massive. Whereas for the underpass approach, using the boxjacking approach, we can actually continue construction even when there are trains running. Uh I also agree that property considerations should not be preventing good projects from going forward, especially since the numbers themselves don't actually show what is a partially blocked driveway that we could move. Right? So this is not taking away 26 dwellings from people who are living there. This is potentially impacting them with solvable solutions. Um, I also think that uh the underpass solution doesn't necessarily cause traffic into the Mumford neighborhood because either the in turn in the intersection would prevent people from having to go around and make a U-turn or the uh roundabout would mean that people would go through the roundabout and avoid that issue. So, while I do have sympathy for the considerations, I ultimately think the underass, at least at Charleston, is the best option. Our next speaker is Elizabeth A, followed by her B.

Okay. Um, good evening, council. Uh, I will be speaking tonight in favor of continuing to study and improve both alternatives at Meadow and Charleston as I don't believe that the information we have so far about costs and construction impacts are sufficiently advanced to make a key key decision. I do appreciate the clarification we got today by the consultants that the costs that we've been seeing are not the ones that they have actually vetted and are from the previous study. Based on other projects that we have seen done in the US and elsewhere, the costs are likely to be very different and the most expensive today will may even end up being the cheapest. We also we are very early but the likely differences in construction impacts are significant. A hybrid could be four to five years pile driving pile driving pile driving all night long versus a much shorter period for if Jackbox construction is um permitted. The other issue is that I think the design is still not at its best. The bicycle clearance levels are 50% more than required heights which are making the ramps extremely steep and less useful than they could be. It is very hard I think for residents and for committees to make decisions and to make recommendations. They are looking at what is in front of them and it is hard for them to redesign this in their head. And I think we need to go through that process to make it as as good as possible including changes to bike network so people can understand how traffic would move differently. Um it should also incorporate traffic calming on Charleston from Alma to Wilky Way which would be possible I believe with um with an underpass. It is an unfortunate consequence of our current process that we we are responding as if every detail of the plans are set in stone and we are not we are not even at 15%. Finally, just as um as humans, we we fear change, right? Um and that's one reason why people, I think, are gravitating towards something like the hybrid um which would not change anything. And and sometimes that

is a bad thing because you're actually in a terrible situation. As the previous speaker pointed out, it's a currently very unsafe intersection and this would lock again that would lock something in stone. the raceway between El Camino and Alma on Charleston would remain that way and only get worse. We see induced traffic when we have a um an intersection like this one get a grade separation that leaves it a sort of a normal intersection which people are used to. um you can see I it's not unreasonable to see 30 40 50% increase not just because of you know additional uh residents in that area of town but simply because people reorient themselves because as we've seen many of the people are making turns they're coming from far out of town they're choosing to come this way and they could go other ways so there are already people who are not using that route because of the train and they will flock to this intersection and we will be left worse off like you are when you add a lane to the highway it's temporary relief only and then you're back to where you are and even worse cuz you're clogging all the access roads. So I think we should continue to look at you know the underpass and develop it and I would consider you know I think we should not make that decision tonight.

Our next speaker is Herb B followed by Peggy K. May allowing council members. Uh these idea of providing a great separations for various means of travel uh had uh apparently two main reasons. One is that uh people in various means of travel need to get from one side of the cow train tracks to the other and the other is that those are places now where there train horn sound and uh if we eliminate uh the need for train horn sounding at those great separations the noise will go away. Uh in fact if you look at the data most of the people crossing on motorized vehicles are commuters both into and out of PaloAlto and they have other options of of going to and from work. So I I don't think we we need uh those great separations for motorized vehicles except for emergency vehicles that would have the ability to uh you know remotely raise any kinds of gates that are blocking them. In terms of the noise problem, it will continue because most of the noise uh is from the freight trains at night. uh and you're not going to stop that noise by uh having great separations. Uh no one has ever uh made a study of uh how loud that noise is and where it's coming from. Uh and there there are two things that could be done. One is uh as I've suggested in the past and provided you a

copy of that letter, uh we could be the ones to do a study of uh how loud and where noise are uh from those freight trains that are coming through town and and seek to find a way to mitigate that. One way that's been discussed in the past is for the cities along Cal Train to have a short hall freight operator who have more control over the uh train operators as to whether or not uh they will abide by uh those noise limits. Uh it seems to me it's more worthwhile to do that for for a faster solution uh to the noise problem rather than wait 5 years or line's going to be uh for not having uh the great separ separations that we exist that exist. Now uh in terms of what we do need uh for crossing these they could be just for bicyclists and pedestrians and I've suggested that they be separate for the two. Of course they're different modes of of speeds of travel and for some people uh on on both seem to think that they can take you know the entire uh lane for both. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Peggy K followed by Nadia N. Hello, council members. Um, thank you everyone who's been working on this project. Um, I would like to advocate for the hybrid at East Meadow and uh, Charleston to go forward. I think the hybrid method based on everything I've seen here looks like the best meth uh, methodology for preserving neighborhoods, preserving property. It's least impactful, but it gets the job done. And I disagree with anyone that thinks the direct access would be better because I think that has its own um issues. I don't think as well that you should only do like I've heard there's funding issues. You might focus on one intersection. Please don't. I think you should do at least East Charleston and sorry East Meadow and Charleston because if you just do Charleston, which maybe is what I'm hearing, um you're going to just drive all the traffic in the area to that, especially if they make a direct access. that'll just be a freeway. That'll destroy that whole neighborhood. Um we have schools, we have parks, we have libraries, all of that in that area. Let's keep it. We can do this and we can still manage the future by doing something like the hybrid. And the other thing to consider is that since co people are not going into work as much. They're doing hybrid work schedules. Some people don't go into work at all. Population uh estimates in California are lowering. we're not supposed to have the increases that I think you saw with the numbers that you probably got at the beginning of the project. So maybe take a deep breath and say maybe we can take more time think about numbers and you know but anyway my advocate I'm advocating for the hybrid at East Meadow and um Charleston. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nadia N followed by Ellen.

Good evening. Um, so we've been talking a lot tonight about why are we doing this project? And as someone who started working on this in 2017, I just want to remind you and flash you back to 2017. Um, obviously we've always had safety concerns, but the real truth is that this was not a safety project. There was other safety improvements that could be made, adding fencing, now we've got intrusion detection, lidar. The real reason for this project is the more trains that you run, which by the way is the goal to reduce greenhouse gases, the more interruptions to the traffic flow and the worse the circulation gets. And yes, circumstances have changed postco, but you're also going to be adding denser and denser areas around the the area, which means you're going to have more cars coming towards these intersections, which means that now you're focusing on what's your best future traffic solution. And uh the only clear winner in looking at the traffic things is after spending however many years of construction this will take and however much money this will take is the underpass. So why isn't it the obvious winner? It's not the obvious winner because it has property impacts which brings us to a different part of the conversation something that I've been focused on since I served on XCAP which is what happens to the people whose properties would be impacted and what happens with eminent domain. I've been asking the city to produce some sort of information for residents and for the council members who would have to make these decisions to talk about it and that hasn't happened. I had an exchange with the city attorney in 2024 about getting this information out and we've never had it. I recognize that it's a very delicate situation. The city has to be very careful about not giving out any tax and legal information, but it also makes it impossible for you guys as city council people to be able to have an informed discussion. you guys have the option to have a closed session and ask all the questions of the city attorney and at a minimum the city can put something out that gives residents basic information about what would be possible. I'm not saying it's easy. I don't mean to belittle how, you know, the the situation it will be, but it is really important and it's a little frustrating for someone who's worked on

it for this long to know that when the bicycle pedestrian transportation plan went out and we were looking at potential places for bike crossings, those people got notices about eminent domain and the people who've been focused on this project for as long as we've been focused on it haven't received even basic stuff. So, I am here tonight just to say you may not make a decision. You may have to go to 15% on on all the alternatives, but I would really request that you guys focus on what happens with eminent donations are about because it's really difficult to say you're going to spend a billion dollars if you do both alternatives, maybe it's even more. And you end up with something only slightly better from traffic, but you chose not to look at some of the other alternatives because you didn't understand what the impacts were to people. And so, I wish I had an answer. I don't. I really thank you for serving in the roles that you do. I couldn't do it, but I do think that as much information as you guys could have, it would be really important. And that's it. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ellen.

Hi. Thank you so much um council members, mayor, for all the work you've done. But I have to say, I don't think you've done a very good job at the traffic implications, especially when it comes to doing two overpasses within a block of each other. And what type of construction are you going to be doing? Is it going to be consecutive? Is it going to be simultaneous? What about the impacts to the neighbors uh along Wilky Way or Munford? None of that has really been looked at realistically um during the decades of construction that this might take. I don't really appreciate having a 14 foot tall retaining wall um you know meant to be something that looks industrial in a residential neighborhood and putting it on both corners of um between um Charleston and West Meadow is just it's not it's unpleasant. And a as far as being a pedestrian and walking across Elma, do you really think people are even going to be enticed to do this? Just like the California Avenue underpass for pedestrians, it's dangerous. It's haunting. And I I just find that we aren't sensit sensitive to the people that live in this neighborhood. and um it needs a lot more looking at in terms of the impacts. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is is Stephen R.

Uh good evening, council members. Um my name is Steven Rosenlum. Uh I live in Old Palo Alto near the California Avenue train station. As you're likely aware, I've been a longtime supporter of a citywide viaduct for all grade separations. Um I on this point I'd like to align myself with the comments by Roland earlier in in the meeting. Um he showed a very nice example of how a vioaduct would look and the vioideuct just involves raising the trains 15 feet above grade level and it eliminates all the issues of traffic and pedestrian motion as everything continues at grade level just like it has in the past. Um the the plans that were presented tonight show the absurd lengths we need to go through to avoid elevating the trains. um at Charleston at Churchill uh one which is one of the seven existing vehicular crossings. Uh that crossing will be eliminated if this plan goes through. Um and it will also require fortune 14 partial property taking um and require a bike tunnel be built at Seal uh Avenue which is not needed if if a vioduct is built. Um, at this point in the process, I I think at a minimum, you have to eliminate the worst options, which are the underpass options. Both options, Meadow Underpass and the Charleston underpass, require absurge to maintain traffic flow. And as was mentioned in the presentation, there are two full property acquisitions associated with Meadow and six partial acquisitions. and the Charleston uh requires three full takings and 28 partial acquisitions. In this point, um, I'd like to align myself with the comments by Payback and Peggy earlier, uh, supporting the hybrid as a better alternative to these two,

although again I would like to suggest that, uh, the hybrid is just 5T lower than a vioideuct would be. Uh, and it, as was mentioned by the previous speaker, it produces a brick wall in the neighborhood, whereas with vioideuct, you'd be able to see see underneath it. Um, so and and I'd also like to remind myself with the comments by Sabrina is that with the underpass, it makes Alma look like an expressway and it will encourage people to speed even more than they already do. I've been on Alma and cars have gone by me at 50 m an hour already and I can't imagine how bad things will be if there are no lights at all. So, um, finally, I'd like to close with a discussion about the costs. Um, the last time the vioideuct was looked at for all three intersections, Churchill, Meadow, and Charleston, the total cost was $1380 million. The Charleston Churchill plus two underpasses is $1,70 million. And Churchill plus two hybrids is 810 million. I think going with any of those Susan besides a time is up. Pennywise would sound foolish. Our next speaker is Wendy. Thank you to staff, council, XCAP, CAP, and CARD for their current or past work. If you could take a moment to visualize now driving down 101. And as you're driving, look at the sound walls. The sound walls are 10 to 14 ft high. The maximum height per Calran for a sound wall is 16 ft. The proposed hybrid wall will be 14 to 19 ft in height. Above

that will be a train which is 15 ft and above the train are the electric wires. Including the wires, the visual impact will be a 32 to 40 ft up in the air. The train tracks were already in place when PaloAlto was developing. It is a pre-existing condition. The hybrid wall is not. It would be a choice of the council to build a permanent structural visual barrier for the distance of approximately half a mile to a mile in South PaloAlto. It would be good if staff could create an image of the hybrid looking at the wall midblock between Meadow and Charleston. The underpass with direct access ramp or the now not considered viaduct will allow for one PaloAlto visually to continue for the next hundred years and not be divided by a future great wall of PaloAlto. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Leewen Shu.

Hello everyone everybody. So as we know the purpose of the great separation funding or injury is to increase safety and to reduce the congestion in multiple parallel crossings on the cow train co um corridor but now it has only enough funding to one crossing. So if the funding can do the separation in multiple crossings, it's fine. But if the funding is not enough to do so, I think the city should stop this project and use this money for other more reasonable projects. If the city really wants to continue this project for only one crossing, it should not be the crossing on Charleston Road because currently Charington row is already a very busy street. If doing separation only in this crossing, it will push all a lot more cars into this street which will make the traffic flow a lot more worse. I mean a lot worse. and a lot more unsafe. So therefore, if the city really wants to go forward, please choose other crossing but not Charleston. All this money is from ours the taxpayers and it should be used for more reasonable projects. Also, if you really wanted to continue these projects, please please choose hybrid instead of underpass because the cost of hybrid is the lowest and it doesn't require home acquisitions. The reason why we elect you is because

we believe you can protect the benefits of our paralo citizens. We and our neighborhood have been suffered with the uncertainty of this project for many many years and the so-called underpass options for many years. So please stop this project and protect our benefits. We don't want to live with anxiety anymore. Finally, we really hope all council members can honestly speak out your opinions and keep consistent between what you say and what you vote. Thank you.

Our final speaker is Linda H.

Good evening, council members. I want to start by thanking you for your service. These are not easy decisions and you and many community members have spent countless hours over the last 10 plus years working on designing ways to fit grade separation into our largely built out residential areas. Now that we are in another suicide cluster, I have been spending a good amount of time working on suicide awareness and suicide prevention issues. Since 2018, five out of the seven people aged 22 and under who died by suicide were killed by a train. The train is the most common method used to die by suicide by our young people. It's a weapon that runs right through our town. We know that restricting access to lethal means does pre prevent at least some suicides. I know that you all wish you could remove this weapon today. The rail century and the intrusion mats are important methods for us and I'm very grateful for council member Bert and the others who've worked on getting those for our crossings. We also know that separating the grade crossings is the most direct and permanent means of restriction, especially in the long term. From tonight's presentation, based on cost and complexity and property takings, it looks like we can remove this weapon more quickly if we advance the hybrid options for both Charleston and Meadow and remove the underpass options. And for Churchill, Carrie earlier reminded us that closing Churchill and adding a bike tunnel or overpass was the preferred option by the XCAP. One of the big reasons, as I understand, for not closing Churchill was opposition from the school district, which has a maintenance yard there. But in the fall of this year, the superintendent of the school district publicly stated that the district could work with access only from El Camino and does not require access from Alma onto Churchill. So, we could revisit closing Churchill and providing pedestrian and bike access separated from the tracks. This would be the least expensive option for that crossing and the quickest that we could advance. As we wrap up tonight, I ask that you please factor the urgent need to

restrict access to the lethal trains as you make these difficult decisions tonight. Again, thank you very much for your service. That concludes public comment on action item one. Okay. Thank you very much to the public comments that we've heard tonight and all the letters that we've gotten uh in the last few months both to the rail committee and to the council. I might like to go now to the the chair of the rail committee and see what you would like to add to this discussion at this point in time.

Well, thank you. Um so when the council um decided to move forward with 15% engineering um on these options over a year ago um we were hopeful but unsure uh about whether advancing the engineering would provide us with improved alternatives. And even though as of right now we're only at the 5 to 10% engineering phase, we've seen that we've we've really seen some some good improvements in reducing uh impacts and mitigating them and some creative solutions that weren't even on the table before. Um, one of those uh that the the rail committee actually uh made a recommendation to the council is to uh drop the consideration of the bike and ped underpass at Seal and to continue to pursue the one that has the um similar location of underpass but the ramp on Elma. And um so that was the one that was the clearest for us. The other set of of considerations we just felt continue to be um first uh so complex and nuanced um that we really wanted to make sure that the full council was making those recommendations to on what we do going forward and not merely the rail committee. uh through this really extensive opportunity we have to to uh have this meeting and perhaps uh following it up on next Monday. But we did flush out a number of things. Um and

first I want to um talk about what we may still um uh have of additional information that would inform best decisions. if we move forward with um taking the other options to at least 15% engineering. So one is we've already made real progress on reducing property impacts um uh including uh at the with the alternative the direct access at uh Charleston. Uh but uh we we still have other opportunities hopefully uh including getting more latitude from Cal Train on being able to uh have them accommodate designs whether through a bit more intrusion on their rightway or other matters in what their design standards are that either reduce our costs, reduce our construction time or reduce property impacts. And so, um, I I'm hopeful that will happen. At the Cal Train board, I've been pushing for the last year and, um, and the, uh, leadership has now agreed that we're going to, uh, have a review of Cal Train policies that are really in conflict with one another. One is to promote grade separations uh in the cities throughout the peninsula and the other is essentially guarding cow trains interests rigidly on their their property intrusions and the impacts on operations. Those two objectives are really in conflict with each other. It doesn't mean that we will get everything we would hope but um uh there is a real need to go back and reconcile that with at least to some

degree I anticipate Cal Train will uh establish greater latitude that will help uh cities have lower cost grade separations or lower impact ones or both. Um I also um uh think that we're we we have additional work to do on understanding bike movements um and what are all the possibilities to refine those. Um uh we've the the report spoke about construction impacts but that needs uh additional evaluation. there is a wide range of potential construction impacts um on the community um and um and especially as the report has said uh to look at the costs uh and do an updated review uh not only um to re-evaluate the the costing under today's cost structure which has really gone up unfortunately uh but uh also to look at things we had talked on the hybrid well what if we had some combination of earth and burm and podium which uh the answer is yes that's doable but a higher cost and we don't know how much higher so those kinds of things and how much uh different construction methods like a jackbox construction can reduce both the direct costs and the construction time. So there's a lot that we've already seen in progress and uh I think quite a bit more that um we will hopefully see by moving um either all or most of these options forward. Um, and I did want to um, uh, make sure that we really looked at

uh, what are the reasons we're doing this? And things have changed since 2019. Um, our growth projections are lower. uh and the number of trains per hour in the Cal Train service plan is reduced but that plan still is looking at perspectively going up to eight or 10 trains per hour in the coming years. um on the uh the big thick report of the traffic analysis about 300 pages but in the summary on page 75 is something that I think is really important uh for us to dwell on which says that under the current conditions um at Charleston and Meadow um if we don't do anything cues would extend to the San Antonio Road interchange uh and south that's northbound Q's and southbound Q's and the I presume the PM extend up to the Oregon Expressway interchange and unfortunately um uh the hybrid option as was pointed out does not much improvement on the um on the the capacity of the intersection. Um uh so we're we're look looking at an option that is tentatively the lower cost but the main reason that we would be doing this construction um has very little benefit for it for what may be a half a billion dollars. Um and then we also have always had at a a very high priority in our community safety and security on the tracks and certainly the highest safety and highest security is a grade separated um intersection. Uh but as was noted, we have had a

significant change at Cal Train in the last months actually of embracing these enhanced crossing strategies which we have most of that installed at Churchill uh and we will soon have at Charleston Meadow and Alma. And it's a series of technologies that not only the high security fencing running up to the intersection uh but um for pedestrian intrusions this rail century program for I know all of you are familiar but maybe not all the members of the public are yet but is a combination of multiple video cameras and LAR technology with AI that is able to detect in unusual behavior behavior uh and intrusions and will dispatch trains to be stopped uh first if there's lingering in a crosswalk and more immediately if someone goes outside of the crosswalks. We will soon have these anti-intrusion mats that basically prohibit people from being able to walk outside of the crosswalks and going up track. Um that combination of measures exceeds uh what I thought we would ever be able to do for security shy of grade separations and can be done in months rather than decades. Um it's not um uh uh 100% effective and we we're going to need to learn from it, but it is an exceptionally strong set of measures more than we ever thought we could have really because technologies have continued to advance. So, I think um those are my primary comments from the from the rail committee and the and the issues that we'll be struggling with. Um so, thank you.

Okay, let's just bring it back to the the dis and see what kind of I'm sure there's a number of questions in addition to comments, but we can raise those for for the staff or the consultants. Council Liths, who's on the rail committee.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I do want to give my colleagues who aren't on the rail committee the opportunity to speak um, as much as they need to. Of course, I just wanted to ask a few technical questions. um appreciate very much all the work that has gone into this on the part of our staff and our um partners uh at Cal Train and consultants u as well as members of the community who have developed quite a bit of expertise on this subject over the years. I know some of you greatly impacted uh uh a couple comments. I don't feel protected. Please protect the people who live there. You've you've been heard. Uh, I think it's probably the hardest thing about being up here is feeling that deep desire to look out for everybody and unfortunately it's hard to often to come up with solutions that are in everybody's best interests. Um, but I appreciate that you articulated it nevertheless and are holding us accountable. Um, my technical question is on uh the duration of construction. And I think the point has been made a few times tonight that we didn't really get info on how long these projects are going to take. We saw the cost comparisons of hybrid hybrid hybrid underpass uh uh underpass underpass. Can you give us ballpark on what we expect the construction projects duration to be? Um I realize it's ballpark as the dollars are but I think it'd be useful for us to understand um you know to get from here to there. Are we talking two years? Are we talking 5 years? We talking seven years depending on the whether we go with the identical things at Charleston and Meadow uh or a a different option for either.

I can start. Um uh council member we previously had looked into the these alternatives and have not developed a construction timelines in the newer realm of our understanding of different uh construction methodologies that we're looking at. So um we are as part of our newer efforts looking at how these construction timelines will be impacted work windows as well as the uh costs that will be associated with that. Unfortunately, we don't have more greater information, but I can have uh Edgar add more information to what his technical expertise can show. Yes, these do take years. I we do not have the the exact um or having a range for you right now. The reason why is that we are looking as part of the direction of the council to be able to understand whether we're looking at one or two alternatives for these two crossings for both detailed constructibility review that would then inform the updated cost estimates because just for context when we are looking at cost estimates that's usually means the ability to not only uh do the work but the space to do the work and so for to do so with the electrified environ that was not present when the previous analysis was done. We would be doing that in the coming months as part of subsequent um briefings to both rail committee and the city council. So it's looking at the ability to disrupt rail service or what times that can occur and the ability to maintain reasonable service for those uh for passengers along the entire peninsula. This is at the at the heart of of the corridor with one of the busiest train stations at at Palatoto and serving not only the city but Stanford. Um so we would do that in more detail for you and be able to provide a a more precise answer in the

coming months. Thank you. There was mention of a U-turn with the Charleston direct access and I I keep having trouble finding it on the map. Could we pull up the slide that shows where that U-turn is? Yes. Let me go ahead and pull up that slide now. Um, here we go. And in the meantime, it's also been articulated that there would be essentially no traffic lights stopping uh traffic on Alma if we go with the underpass options. Um, and I'm not sure that that's accurate and I wondered if you could address that. Yes. So, um, a couple of of thoughts here and I'm going to go to the the aerial view and map view and I'm going to use the the zoom feature, the magnifying feature here. Um, what we are looking at with the direct access ramp, which is here with the indicator number one. Um, for traffic going southbound on Alma Street, they would be making a left turn onto Charleston Road, merging over, and then being able to perform a Uturn here. We we've done the um the tracking, the vehicle tracking to be able to allow for that U-turn at this location. However, to be precise, the caveat is that it's passenger vehicles being able to make that movement. So, it'd be restricted for anything larger than a than a passenger vehicle uh being able to make that turn. Um and so that's the U-turn that was referenced at Mumford. It would require Mumford to be signalized um at that location to be able to allow for that safe movement be a to then be able to proceed on Charleston westbound. The same would occur for traffic going eastbound on Charleston Road wanting to access the northbound lanes along Alma. They would

proceed along Charleston, make the U-turn when permitted here, and then be able to proceed to the ramp that connects uh Charleston to Alma Street before making the right turn going north. That's the the U-turn alluded to. So, it's maintaining a little bit of that roundabout feel for two different turns, but eliminating it for the people who are trying to come north on Alma and and head to West Charleston. That's accurate.

Okay. I actually did not realize that until just now. So, thank you. I realize I'm over time. If it's possible to just answer that question about it has been asserted that there will if we do underpass, there will be no traffic lights halting trafficly impacting people north of these intersections who live west, sorry, east of Alma, try to make a left to come south on Alma. They currently count on those traffic lights to create a break in the traffic so that they can cut across. Yes. and it's been uh implied that that would no longer happen. Is that accurate?

So, in terms of the the ability to be able to uh access for roadway cyclists, let's let's be clear because there is the multi-use path for those who choose to use the multi-use path in pink uh per the cursor if they can see that. In terms of the there is in the direct access ramp under uh under underpass option a signal at the what I'm going to call lower Alma or lower Charleston um because it has to allow for the left turning movements out uh out of that ramp and still be able to allow for traffic. So there it can be signalized breaks in the traffic that they're experiencing today with what they call platoon. But on upper Charleston for traffic just coming straight from Mountain View all the way up through PaloAlto on Alma.

On Alma there would be the signal at upper Alma as well. So this is reflected. I'm going to zoom out here and go to the previous um slide with the rendering. So here you see that the uh upper Alma is fully signalized to be able to allow for those left turning movements uh on South Balm Alma and on westbound Charleston at the upper intersection. Right. So we will get some red lights there. You would? Yes. And on Meadow Meadow underpass I think there are there is no traffic light.

So there are two traffic lights in that case and we'll go back. I apologize for having to go through many slides. Um, in this case, there would be a signalized intersection for the southbound access ramp and then there would be a signalized intersection for the northbound access ramp on but if you're coming straight up on Elma upper ah so at that location there would not be a signal people north of it counting on a traffic light to create a break in traffic if we went with a meadow underpass uh that traffic light would be eliminated but there would with any solution at Charleston There's still something impeding that forward northbound traffic on Elma.

Correct. Okay. Thank you.

I just had one question and comment being on the rail committee as well. um in this um slide 55 where you have that it's edited somewhat since the rail committee and that the pink letters uh the the obvious idea there is that it improves for 15 years uh till 2040 and then it goes back to F right are you assum assuming there that are you making any assumptions about meadow is it open I mean sorry is it great crossed or not or is it as So in as part of this analysis we did look at meadow being grade separated as well. Um so in this case it would have been a hybrid condition uh concurrent with the Charleston hybrid condition.

So this assumes that both both hybrid correct which makes the problem even bigger. Um

so one one area to clarify is the difference between delays and cues. Um so definitely so in this case yes the delays would be um would say return back to over a 100 seconds on average for that intersection. However, because the tracks are now separated, there's now more reliability at the intersection with the signal operation. So those cues would be much reduced compared to the existing condition. And I'm sure in the 15% and beyond, you'd be looking at other ways to kind of improve this beyond 2040. That

That's correct. Not only would we look at ways to be able to improve operations, we'd also look for opportunities for safe crossings, how that then dovetales with the city's plans for other improvements with regards to active transportation improvements on either side of of the projects.

Yeah. Okay. The only comment I want to make is that uh we've had some public comment tonight of saying let's just let's just shut this down. We don't need it. Um I just could not disagree more with that because we have to take a future view and we're now getting 6,086 units from the state. That's not supposed to last 100 years. That's less than 10 years and the state will do that again and again and again. So we have a lot of population to plan for for the next the next hundred years. Uh, I don't I don't think it's an option to just say let's let's wait a while. Okay, I want to go to others. Um, I'm sorry I haven't been looking at the lights. I think it might have been Council Member Stone that was first. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess this will be the first uh Council Member Not on the on the rail committee. So, first appreciate all my colleagues on the rail committee. I know this has been a a lot of work, huge lift. Same with staff and all the community members and community organizations that have participated. I know it's been slow, but we're we're getting there. Uh, just a few, I think, just kind of quick comments of of where I am. Completely agree with the rail committee on the Alma Street ramp. That seems just so obvious to to me. So, I like the Alma Street ramp. Um, as far as sorry, as far as the like the bike pedestrian crossing to make sure I'm clear there, just simpler, less disruptive to Seal Avenue residents, more convenient exit point on Pierce Park. It's great. Uh, definitely supportive of the uh of the Churchill partial underpass uh rather than rather than uh clo than the closing. And then of course right when it comes to Charleston Met that's the that's the real challenge and so yeah I so I I have a few more more

questions on it. I mean I I see the I see the logic of the of of the hybrid. I like the lower cost. I like the the zero full takings and the less impact on the partial takings and really appreciate all the work that has been done to try to engineer really reducing that e even more. But also I agree with comments that have been made. this really has has always been a a project to reduce traffic impacts and it has of course all these other great benefits as well as the safety impacts but at its core it has always been a traffic reduction. So my I guess my my first question it really kind of comes down to that traffic I'm trying to really understand uh level of service and and all that. So does level of service does that only count wait times for those people who are like waiting at that particular intersection or does it include kind of total added travel time for travelers who are now impacted by that intersection? I don't know how I'm trying to struggle to articulate that. But I guess for example on this roundabout underpass, right, the the the wait time, the level of service is significantly lower. But does that include now this ciruitous complicated route that people have to take by by doing that? So yes, in in the voluminous traffic study that uh council member Bert alluded to, um yes, that does have additional intersections. So this is representing at least at the crossing locations uh as part of the presentation in the report. There are many intersections that are analyzed both upstream uh of the crossing uh and

downstream. So it goes to Mumford, it goes to um Park and and Wilky Way. it and in this case it's only the traffic at the precise intersection reflected on the slide or reflected in in your page but we have the the information across the board. Now in terms of your question in travel time um that is not explicitly reflected in the uh report. Um however the added direction travel does have some uh additional travel time but it's modest in nature.

Okay. I I think for me that would be more I' I'd be more interested in kind of seeing that comparison because I don't I don't care if I'm sitting at a light waiting to turn left if that takes right if if if that takes less or more time than now having to make a right turn, drive down a couple blocks, make a make a roundabout or do a U-turn at a light and continue to travel. So that would be really helpful to be able to see because I think that's what's most important at least how the way I'm I'm viewing this. We can provide that additional information.

Great. Thank you. Um what are the what are the cost and time implications if tonight or Monday our direction is move both at at Charleston and Meadow both uh I a hybrid and an underpass option. Um, of course assuming also within the underpass option, we can we can narrow it down at least to the what the ramp or the roundabout one. Um, I don't really I don't like the roundabout. I think the ramp is the is makes more sense to me, but what does that what does that now look like compared to if we were able to just say move forward with hybrid or or underpass?

I can start and if you can add to that. So as far as the timings of the project is concerned, the city has all the you know discretion of how we want to move forward with the project. There are certain funding constraints that we already have. Uh we have up FRA funding which requires us to complete the 35% design by end of 2027. And then we have a follow-up funding which is already awarded but we have not been allocated yet. But we have to show them that we are able to uh to to do the final design starting 2027. So there is that caveat and um we would be able to uh pursue and ask state to see if they can uh uh postpone that. Uh but that's not guaranteed and we'll have to work with that uh sec secondary funding source for the final design uh which is about $24 million. Um I can add to that.

Hi Ria Huch Barentar low chief transportation official. I think what was being said there also is that if we're doing design for two options it's taking longer. figure. Yeah, I figured that uh a thought on on how much significantly long like I'd love a ballpark on that and the the threat of losing out on on on on funding, especially if we're talking about in the tens of millions of dollars, it is feasible to advance both options as part of 15%. Now, what we will any direction that the council can provide as to what information is going to be necessary to be able to get down to one alternative at the end of 15% would be helpful so that we're able to provide that focus over the next 6 months. Um I I will say that advancing both has their complexities because we have to look at the um the scenarios of if they're both hybrid, both underpass or a variation of the two. And it it may uh seem less complicated when looking at it one at a time as we presented it today. But the reason why I put that slide up of showing those three options is that affecting the tracks has a material impact on the ability to construct. In other words, if the tracks need to move, how far is that shoefly going to go? Um what are the windows that are going to be provided for the contractor to be able to do the work? the reality of the fact that those two crossings are so close to one another only one crossing should be closed at a time uh due to the access necessary for those communities. So I I I would just uh let you know that yes it will take more effort. We will take that direction if both options are to be advanced and or both alternatives and we will then analyze the scenarios

associated with those. Yeah, I mean I I understand you'll you'll do the work and and do it capably. I'm sure I'm not an engineer. I have no clue by advancing both. Is is that a six-month delay, a year delay? Like that that's what I'm trying to better understand. We're already working on the ability to be able to meet the committed schedule, but we're looking at still summer of 26, whether it's June or September time frame. Okay. Whether we tonight or Monday advance two options or one. Yes. Okay. Thanks, Council Lou.

Thank you. And thank you to the entire team. Thank you to the public, to the rail committee. Um, this is obviously a huge lift and uh with huge implications for the city. I want to ask a couple more questions about level of service and those grades. So, uh, as you're talking to Council Member Stone, we can tease out the impact to neighboring intersections. What I'm hoping to see is to get a sort of consolidated view of for all the projected or uh, like current levels of traffic patterns and how they're actually traversing that intersection. sort of what the total time might actually look like. Um, is that something that we can back out from the uh uh uh what what you're describing was available to council member Stone.

Yes, that that can be provided. Okay, great. And so I was also I think I was looking at the right traffic study. Would we be able to include pedestrians and cyclists and try to get a net uh change in their delays?

Yes, that was also provided as part of the previous traffic study. However, we can provide an update to both pedestrian and cyclist travel times. Okay. Uh presumably the net result though would be that the hybrid would look a bit less like an F because uh you provide more directions of travel for all the options but then the underpass would have uh some more trade-offs and some directions of travel would need to take more securous route. Is that how I should think about like the ultimate narrowing? I I I ultimately want to see what those numbers actually look like, but that's a direction things would go, right?

Can you restate it? I want to make sure I capture your your thought precisely. Okay. So, the hybrid looks quite bad in 2040. Mhm. Uh however, it allows many directions of travel and uh maybe more intuitive connections for uh bic bicyclists and pedestrians at least in a couple of directions.

For the underpass, uh of course it looks very efficient, but some people would need to take a roundabout that would add time to their trip. Um, and if I'm just trying to look at like net trip time in traffic, the uh hybrid would look somewhat better or the underpass would look somewhat worse if we uh sort of consolidated everything into sort of one total number. That would really depend on the path you're looking to assess. Right. Right. So it's not just the the the reflected delay at the intersection in the presentation is an is a good proxy typically for overall travel uh impact for um for vehicular movement more precisely.

Right. Um yes, we can look at for example um representative locations of travel time for both bike or for uh vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists so that you can at least have something to compare or at least see how it compares from a travel time perspective. And so we can do something that was done similar in in previous city studies,

right? And we have the projected traffic volumes in any given direction for all the modes. So we can just kind of take those numbers together and we can get a total sense of like what is the actual delay uh or impact to people's travel. Um which seems like the most important number that we want to get out of here in terms of uh the ultimate goal which is mitigation to traffic. Yes, it would not necessarily be the the cumulative but it would be at least a representative um number.

Okay. um what would it take and when could we potentially get uh a summary or like ability to see those kinds of numbers? Uh we can see if we can get that to the council either uh by the end of the week or beginning of next.

Okay. So potentially in time for a Monday meeting. That would be uh really critical for me. Um uh in general I'm really persuaded by the hybrids just significantly lower cost um and uh want to see what the mitigations are like what the sort of net impact for traffic would look like. So like that would be a really critical uh piece of information for my decisions. Um, what are the biggest things that we're potentially looking to change for both the hybrid and the uh underpass for the next phases of engineering? I'm particularly interested in how much potential you ultimately see in reducing costs and/or property impacts for either. That is uh one of or actually set of questions that we're exploring but but it's part of 15% uh design or the drawings. The intent is for two critical pieces of information to be able to provide to you. One is um additional constructibility and construction period considerations to be able to understand the construction of those retaining walls, the some of the utility relocations, be able to be able to provide more precise context of those considerations. The second uh because it uh it impacts uh it's impacted by constructibility is the cost uh and be able to provide updated um market-based um cost estimates from um essentially retired contractors who have this experience in estimating.

Okay. I know in the context of say a hybrid or just any sort of earth inn structure that there have been conversations about oh how much can we relax the standards and potentially there could be ways that require really significantly less earth works. Um and you know those kinds of things could be a really big impact to bottom line costs but probably wouldn't be the kinds of questions you consider at 15% engineering right actually we do look at elements the constructibility looks at the clearances necessary to be able to um build this. So we would look at the minimum clearances from active track to be able to provide a safe space for the contractor to be able to do their work. Um and the ability to do that then determines what the construction windows will be and then the the potential cost. So we we can have more um context to that cost and be able to provide you more detail as to what's driving the cost.

The just for context moving earth generally is inexpensive. That's not the expensive part is the ability or the space to move the earth. um because that just being able to provide the contractor the ability to move trucks, be able to get the trucks in and out, assuming it is trucks, it could be rail cars that bring the the earth out. So, we we would look for opportunities to be able to uh improve upon the constructibility of the option options advanced. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor Baker.

Thank you. And I add my thanks to everyone who has persisted over all the years and continued to be patiently, thoughtfully, creatively looking at uh the alternatives and evaluating them uh so that we can make the best choice possible. Um and uh Mr. Tor is Taurus, right? I think you did a magnificent job explaining all of these things. It's it's it's a lot. Um and uh as the third and last council member uh present tonight who is not on the rail committee, um it was really tremendously helpful. Um I want to so with respect to the uh the ramps at the Churchill uh crossing, um I was very very pleased to see the Alma Street ramp alternative. I think that addresses a lot of uh concerns uh for the residents on seal and to have the unusual ramp down the middle of seal. Um but I do have a couple of questions about the two alternatives. First, just sticking with the seal one, uh another concern that I had not appreciated previously was that some of those residents would lose access to their homes uh for some period of time. I mean, do you have just a ballpark sense of how long that would be? Days, weeks, hours?

Well, access would still be provided to their homes, but to uh during construction. However, it would be limited to certain times of the day or local access. So, the contractor would still have to provide the ability to access those homes, similar to when there's utility relocations along a local street. So, the potential interruption of access would be a few hours here and there or for for a period of time. Correct. Okay. But that could happen day after day. Yes. For roughly how long? Day after day.

The one thing I will add is that the um driveways would be um um restricted to right in right out. They wouldn't be any u homes. And I'll share my screen again here for you. Um, yeah, any home along the ramp, as seen in this rendering, would couldn't go make a left across that. So, they'd have to be able to only be able to do a ride in and a right out and they would lose their on street parking as part of that. Okay. And then, okay. And similarly, you mentioned that the temporary disruption of utility services would be again for a matter of hours but potentially for days, weeks in some cases.

Yes.

Okay. So, it's another um concern with that. But I did want to while you keep if you could keep your slides up because I wanted to ask you just a little bit more about the Alma Street ramp. Um it's so if you could look at the second Alma Street ramp slide, which is the photograph of the ramp to from the top. Yes, that one. Thank you. Um, so I I want to think for a minute and there may be solutions or there may be things we can do to deal with this, but as um bikes or or pedestrians um exit, let's start with the exit. I want to talk about both the exiting and the entering, but let's talk with about the exiting from that ramp. So these would be eastbound bikes that have come under the the the tracks and

presumably at that point would turn left down Seal, right? Because they're on the wrong side of Alma and presumably they're trying to go somewhere east. So would they not at that point then need to cross seal to turn left? And my concern is that um a lot of times cars traveling along Alma, particularly those who are southbound making a left turn, would not necessarily look for a bike there. So how can we protect the bicyclists exiting and and similar even cars coming along seal, you don't necessarily look for a bike coming the wrong way. How can we protect those bicyclists?

Yeah. So I'm going to go to the plan view here to at least provide that context of that left turn. Um and and so the the intent there would be to um it's not just the um the left turning vehicle, it's also the cyclists having to look over their shoulder potentially at a blind spot. So we would look as part of 15% design to see how to be able to improve um those those conditions at the intersection. I think it's really important and and partly so it's it's for the egressing bikes that's a word um but also for the entering bikes um be they probably I guess they wouldn't be coming along Alma but I'm just worried that they would be you know weaving strangely as well. So I just think that I I understand I appreciate that would be at a later level of design but while I much I see all the uh benefits over the other ramp I think that particular corner needs a little more thought to be safe.

Yeah. And we would what we would explore here is not only for the cyclists on the ramp going in and out. We would also consider the road cyclists on Alma Street and their ability to be able to access that location. And so that may there may be multiple considerations there as to how to be able to provide that access. Referencing that if you have a northbound bicyclist on Alma and you have somebody coming out of the ramp, how do they engage and get one to the right and you because they have to cross paths. So I just think there's a lot more engineering there that's

a little different than if you had the seal ramp. And I I want to make sure that's in the mix as we do this. I still think it nets out on this side, but I think it's less of a no-brainer than I first thought when I saw it. Um, so I would appreciate uh, you know, that being kept in consideration. Sounds like you're already there. Um,

okay. And then another general question I have is for the hybrid options at Meadow and Charleston. Um, and I and I apologize if it's probably somewhere in the materials, but I I couldn't quickly discern it. Um, from what what I did see on the renderings, it looked like the um the the raised tracks are on top of a wall. And we had talked last time, one of the reasons I was more interested in the hybrid last time was we talked about that being able and maybe it's just the D design phase again, but I want to make sure that when we're considering this option, we talked about that also being able to be on pillars or pedestals more like a vioideuct. So, is that still the case with what we're with the options we're looking at now?

Yes. Yes. I'm trying to pull up that slide of the bridge examples that we had for you. Um further down.

Yeah, it's further down. We did present um these options to rail committee. Um that shows um different options that are available for the hybrid in order to be able to place the columns supporting the bridge structure. So yes, it would be retaining walls or an abupment on either end. Uh we looked at an option where the the column support is in the center uh providing more open on on the sides um separating traffic. We looked at what's known as side column options where the columns would effectively uh almost behave as protection between traffic and pedestrians and cyclists. And then uh at the request of we also looked at the ability to widen that bridge and provide uh a wider space for pedestrian and cyclists on either side of those columns.

So that's at the bridge between the two crossings. Uh it would stay elevated, right? Correct. I had thought that that area could also be on pedestals and not necessarily a wall. So that that's what the piece I'm concerned about. At at that point it would behave as either a very long bridge or effectively a vioaduct and that becomes more expensive uh to provide. Yeah. It be essentially a lower vioduct but that's more expensive than having a wall. Yes. Yeah. It's it's substantially order of magnitude more expensive than a retaining wall in Earth.

Yeah. because I thought that was still we're assured that was an option and um Okay. So then so that hadn't wouldn't hasn't been costed other than to say it'd be more correct.

Okay. Um so I'm over time Mr. Mayor I I would say this has been tremendously helpful but my personal view and I don't know what my colleagues view is. Um, I would say for those of us not on the rail committee, this is a lot to digest. And for me personally, I would like to go back and reflect on what I've learned since we have this agenda is for Monday, take another look at the materials, come back with I have others like small questions now, but I think when I really focus in there might be more and I would be personally better prepared to really work this through with my colleagues. I I do think we need to get to a decision, but my recommendation would be to at this point continue that discussion, but um you know, that's obviously up to the body.

Yeah. The the question on that was also council member Stone had asked some questions. Um and would you be able to have it back as quick as Monday because that's when the that's when we're scheduled to have the next meeting. Yeah, we'll we'll definitely look at it tonight to see what the level of effort will be, but we want to make sure that we we are able to provide accurate information in terms of that travel time and and be able to represent um also the the network implications. Here we showed the intersections adjacent to the crossings but also be able to uh show the the network uh improvements overall.

Yeah, that has that has to be completely accurate. No question. Which means that if you say you can't have it, then we really can't have that agenda uh on Monday. We would have to punt that because that's the last of uh the season here. I know. I know. I'll I'll commit to having it to you uh by Monday. Well, if there's like eight of nine things you can have, you know, as long as the night the ninth one is not critical. All right. Thanks, Council Member Lith. HS had a

I have another Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have another one to add to the mix. I think it's been raised by members of the public and it's certainly where I've landed as originally a Vioideuct fan who became a hybrid fan who's really listening to the arguments about traffic safety and efficiency of those intersections. So, I'm really appreciating that underpass yields um you know grade A and B intersections instead of grade C, D or F. Toward that end though, then we face the property impacts and I think the question has been raised by members of the public. What are the what will we be able to offer people? Maybe I'm looking at you, but I should probably look at the city manager. When will we be able to provide more guidance um as to the approach the city might take? If somebody hypothetically sees their home on the map and says, "I'd rather sell it to you now than wait around for four or five years to figure out if you're actually going to use it." Would would we be able to say to entertain that? If not now, when would we be able to? What are the ramifications? Um there's tremendous uncertainty and fear when we're talking about impacts. And I think, you know, the sooner we can get to clarity on what type of impact, what degree we're talking about, and what the homeowners um next steps might be, um I think that'll help us assess whether underpass is um a much more attractive solution because impacts are amilarated or handled well or a really hard solution because some people are um going to end up, you know, uh needing to sell us their homes. Do you want me to say that?

Okay. Um, so I think in response to I mean I think that in terms of a decision on properties um a couple of things. One thing is that if council wants to authorize the city to be able to, you know, to purchase things that that's that is the council decision. Um, in terms of the impacts, we I think that people need to, you know, we we don't have clarity on the impacts at the moment. So, people should continue to uh live their lives and use their properties in the way that they want to um until we have clarity on on what those impacts are. Council, just want to reiterate that for the project, we will not be able to use the project funding to purchase any property until we complete the environmental impact study report.

That's 35%. with the 35% and after that we would have to go through the since the federal funding is involved and state funding is involved we have to go through the entire process of federal funding and state requirements in order to initiate the process for any property acquisitions. So city funds only could be used to acquire properties sooner than that in advance. Yes. Not even city funds will not be used. So since federal funding is involved

not if there's any expectation that the city funding would count toward the overall project cost or be participating as I think is the term of art. So in effect it would be a transaction completely separated from the project altogether if if that makes sense.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I think the 15% engineering needs to be done uh to give us kind of latitude to to get at all sort of serious about that. Um so, Council Bird, uh thank you. Um, first, um, I think, uh, the vice mayor's, uh, uh, comments on really needing to have the opportunity to reflect on this is, uh, it's what we thought would be the case and why we broke this up. And I, uh, I think that affirmation is useful. Um uh on the one thing on the property impacts uh aside from whether we could do any early acquisitions is simply the information on what is existing. Um uh uh tax law and other incentives that um that uh help ameliate um uh properties that are acquired uh through either eminent domain or for public purposes. and um whatever we can get back even on Monday, these things are, you know, out there in the in the public domain. Uh I know there's a certain apprehension about uh pre presenting this as city information, but a lot of this is it's tax law and and people don't know that and we're not providing it. And there's a great a greater apprehension in the absence of that information than there would be with it. It's not that all the apprehension would go away, but at least people need to understand that. Um, and that information is out there. All you have people have to Google it. Any of the law firms that specialize in this have web pages that just lay this information out there. Um, and then, um, one other thing, uh, Edra, I don't know

if you'd be able to do this in advance of Monday, but the the bicycle travel times, um, for instance, at Charleston, if a bicyclist uh, has a more ciruitous route versus a route where they have to stop at the traffic signal, uh, how do those times compare if if that's readily available by Monday? If not, I understand. So we do have the previous study slides um for that travel time. Um the effort to be able to extract the information for vehicular travel times more straightforward. Beex uh bikes and peds are a little bit more challenging. Um it it's uh it's it's mostly because uh the the software while it takes those phases into consideration, we have to take some judgment as to when a bike arrives or you know creating some randomness so to speak. Uh so we can take we could take a look at that.

Yeah. And even if we can know the the um the ciruitous uninterrupted time, we can make our own ballparks on average signal weight time. And what that would add. We we can provide some preliminary numbers on those. Okay. Thanks. Any other comments from council? Yeah. Could I Sorry. There it goes. Yes. Council

tired. You know what? Um, Council Member Lou said something about things looking a lot worse in 2040. And I turned to Council Member Stone and said, "I'll be looking a lot worse in 2040." Also, uh, which just uh speaks to the significance of this project and the duration that we're trying to do the right thing over the long haul. Um, there is a question about the ciruitous route that gun students will travel if they live east of Alma and are returning home from gun on a bicycle, how they will have to do kind of a letter W or a cursive U turn. And I wonder if you could pull up that map and just show us what that reality would be because I think the point has been made that, you know, kids in particular, you know, like water, they want to find a way. They want to find the fastest way. They're not necessarily going to take some route because the city designated it for them. And uh if that intersection for bicycles seems really uh out of the way, you know, are we in danger of sending them just straight down regular old Charleston Road? My apologies. I'll I'll use Meadow as as an example and I'll and I'll go back to Charleston. Um so when you do have the both lanes on one side of of the street in order to be able to provide their dedicated facility through a multi-use path, um there needs to be a point at either end in which cyclists can be able to cross the street. So, for example, in this case, if they're going along uh westbound on Meadow, um they would need to be able to find a a place which they're able to cross and then access that multi-use path. So, it's here's reflected in green um and then be able to use the multi-use path and then be able to cross again to be able to uh get to the facility on the west side.

Sorry, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Charleston underpass heading eastbound on Charleston. So, in this case, it would be very similar. I was uh using that as an an example here. So if we use the underpass with direct access ramp here and I'm going to zoom in. Could we go to the rendering that shows the green bike path?

Yes. So, in this case, um, if the cyclists are on the north side of of Charleston, uh, they actually have a pretty straightforward access to that multi-use path. They would be able to access, uh, I forget what which road this was. Um, but they'd be able to access it from the north without having to cross traffic and be able to continue. Now, if uh if they come up to this point, they could either continue as a road user on this um um lane here from Park Boulevard uh essentially as a sher or bike boulevard and then continue to the west to any bike facility to the west. on the eastbound side, they would have to come along the the lane here, continue along the ped bridge, which is at a direction, and then continue on the multi-use path. Now, if they live on the south side of Charleston, then they would need to use the intersection at Mumford to be able to access the communities and homes to the south of Charleston. Yep. I think it's that in the bottom left portion of the screen. It's that if they're on the right side of Charleston Road headed east, they come up to the green, they have to go up and around. They make a very tight U-turn down at the bottom and then uh go straight to go under the train and the road. I think that's the assertion is that they're not going to do that. But to your point, they could just come down Charleston on, you know, the left side of Charleston, although I'm not sure we want them to do that. Um,

oh, we wouldn't recommend going opposing traffic. That's that's not allowed per vehicle coding. Exactly. Okay. I thought I thought you were advocating for that earlier. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Just to be uh consistent and formal, I think we should have a a motion to continue this to the 15th. So move to the second. Any other discussion? Please take a vote. Just confirm the maker was council member Liths and seconder was Vice Mayor Vinker. Okay. Mayor Lowing. Yes. Council member Lou. Yes. Vice Mayor Vinker. Yes. Council member Bert. Yes. Council member Lithmes. Yes. Council member Stone.

Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. And once again, uh, thanks to the public for for all your input and great staff work and enjoy your wonderful weekend getting ready for