But as members of the council\u2019s Rail Committee acknowledged Tuesday, the high costs of actually constructing grade separation make it all but impossible for the city to pursue all three projects, which would collectively cost more than $1.5 billion, according to new projections.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s preferred alternative for Churchill, a \u201cpartial underpass\u201d for cars, would have a price tag between $420 million and $450 million, according to Caltrain. Building a car underpass on Charleston, the city\u2019s busiest crossing, would cost between $480 million and $530 million. Meanwhile, pairing Charleston with East Meadow, where the city is exploring a \u201chybrid\u201d design that raises the tracks and lowers the road, would cost between $1 billion and $1.3 billion, depending on the work sequencing.<\/p>\n
All three committee members \u2014 Chair Pat Burt, Julie Lythcott-Haims and Ed Lauing \u2014 highlighted funding as a major concern. Lauing called the projected costs for the three grade crossings \u201cstaggering\u201d and suggested that pursuing all three would be \u201cunrealistic.\u201d He suggested it may be time to formally pause work on the other crossings.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould we at this point in time sort of take a little bit of a turn and say, \u2018Let\u2019s focus on Charleston?\u2019 That solves our immediate needs,\u201d Lauing said at the meeting.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Palo-Alto-Caltrain-crossing-Embarcadero-1024x682.webp\")
Cars wait as a train crosses through the Churchill Avenue intersection. Photo by Magali Gauthier.<\/p>\n
Lythcott-Haims said even the city\u2019s preferred alternatives have flaws, with the East Meadow and Charleston crossings requiring either partial or full property acquisitions to accommodate utilities and new road configurations. She wondered what the odds are that the city secures the needed state, federal and regional funding to pay for these projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be talking about it if it was completely impossible, but obviously it\u2019s not a shoo-in,\u201d Lythcott-Haims said. \u201cWe know it\u2019s not entirely on the city to have bake sales to raise $1 billion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burt, who serves on the Caltrain<\/a> board of directors, was particularly explicit about his desire to narrow the city\u2019s scope to one crossing. He said even if the city limits its ambitions to building an underpass for cars at the Charleston crossing in conjunction with an underpass for bikes and pedestrians near Matadero Creek, that would be a long and costly endeavor.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a lot to take on, with a lot of construction impacts, a lot of benefits. Those are two historic projects,\u201d Burt said.<\/p>\n The committee\u2019s comments represent a market shift in the city\u2019s conversation about grade separation. Earlier this year, the city was strongly considering closing the Churchill crossing in the aftermath of a student who died by suicide. Former school Superintendent Don Austin was among those who advocated for the Churchill closure as a part of the city\u2019s response to a suicide cluster.<\/p>\n After hearing from both advocates and opponents of the Churchill closure, the council abandoned that option in May.<\/p>\n The idea of reducing student access to the tracks resurfaced in a new report from the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit that specializes in mental health. The report recommended the city pursue grade separation at all railroad crossings in Palo Alto.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough restricting access along railway systems can be operationally challenging and costly in the short term (grade separation), such interventions may prove cost-effective over time,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n The report identifies grade separation as part of a package of measures that could reduce access to the railroad right-of-way, a list that also includes high-security fencing, intrusion detection systems and anti-trespass infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile such projects require substantial financial investment and extensive planning, they offer the greatest potential for durable risk reduction and may prove cost-effective over time when considering the human, social, and economic costs associated with repeated fatalities and traumatic incidents,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n Caltrain has already installed some safety measures, including LiDAR systems that use artificial intelligence and lasers to detect intrusions at the tracks. The council and Palo Alto Unified School District have also hired security guards to patrol the tracks at an annual cost of $1.7 million, which the two entities are splitting.<\/p>\n Even though the council has been discussing grade separation for more than 15 years, Burt pushed back Tuesday against the Jed Foundation\u2019s recommendation that the city should continue to look at all at-grade rail crossings. Even if the city found a way to fund grade separations at all four existing rail crossings<\/a> \u2014 Palo Alto Avenue, Churchill Avenue, East Meadow Drive and Charleston Road \u2014 the projects would likely take at least two decades to be completed, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe recommendation from Jed Foundation to do something that is $2 billion, that is very unlikely to materialize and take 20 years to do it was really a disserve to us to make that recommendation in the way that it did,\u201d Burt said. \u201cIt\u2019s not realistic and it has elements of the community going, \u2018Why don\u2019t you just think about grade separating it all and you\u2019ll solve this problem?\u2019 We\u2019ve been thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After more than a decade of designing, debating and dreaming of grade separation at three local rail crossings,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[712,88,90,89],"class_list":["post-459319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-centerpiece","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}