Government takes it does not give. What it does give, first it had to take. The rich, liberals of Palo alto are now finding out that being rich, voting for Progressive Democrats does not prevent government from stealing from you.
“Dozens of residents, some sad, some angry, most anxious, objected to the council’s proposal to build an underpass for cars at Churchill Avenue and a tunnel for bikes and pedestrians at Seale Avenue. Many others complained about a separate proposal to build an underpass at Charleston Road and Meadow Drive, a project that the council plans to consider next week.
The criticisms were wide-ranging, with some residents complaining about potential construction noise and others talking about bike safety or project costs. The most common refrain, however, came from those whose properties stand in the way of the city’s plans for grade separation, the redesign of rail crossings so that tracks and roads would no longer intersect.”
They elected these city officials and are now getting the results of their ill informed votes.
As rail plans advance, fears grow that property will be taken
Despite residents’ concerns, Palo Alto council backs further analysis for Churchill Avenue underpass
| by Gennady Sheyner, CalMatters, 6/11/24 https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2024/06/11/as-rail-plans-advance-fears-grow-that-property-will-be-taken/ |
As Palo Alto’s elected leaders advanced a plan to build an underpass at the Churchill Avenue rail crossing on June 10, they confronted a sobering reality: this option, much like every other, faces steep opposition from residents who live near the tracks.
Dozens of residents, some sad, some angry, most anxious, objected to the council’s proposal to build an underpass for cars at Churchill Avenue and a tunnel for bikes and pedestrians at Seale Avenue. Many others complained about a separate proposal to build an underpass at Charleston Road and Meadow Drive, a project that the council plans to consider next week.
The criticisms were wide-ranging, with some residents complaining about potential construction noise and others talking about bike safety or project costs. The most common refrain, however, came from those whose properties stand in the way of the city’s plans for grade separation, the redesign of rail crossings so that tracks and roads would no longer intersect.
The council is now in the final stages of choosing its alternatives for the three rail crossings. On Churchill, the council is backing a plan that includes a car underpass on Churchill and a bike tunnel on Seale Avenue — a concept that the council agreed on June 10 to study further by virtue of a 5-2 vote, with council members Lydia Kou and Greg Tanaka dissenting;
At the Meadow and Charleston crossings, the council has narrowed down its options to a car underpass, a “hybrid” design that involves lowering roads and raising the tracks and a trench option that many members now see as infeasible because of high costs and engineering challenges. Council members plan to formally approve further analysis of one or more options in south Palo Alto at their June 18 meeting.
Council members stressed that they are still a long way from finalizing the designs for the various options, much less constructing them. The plans for Churchill Avenue grade separation remain in the early concept phase. The Monday action authorized staff to take it into “preliminary engineering.” City officials hope the design revisions will reduce, if not eliminate, the need for property acquisitions around Alma Street..
“The council as a whole has previously given as a policy direction to truly minimize any property impacts,” said Council member Pat Burt, who chairs the council’s Rail Committee. “The committee has re-endorsed that and that remains where we’re headed.
“What we have here basically is scenarios that are the worst-case scenarios. We don’t have the best case yet,” Burt said. “That’s what we’re going to work toward — the best case.”
Not everyone, however, was swayed by assurances from city officials that they will do everything they could to avoid property takings. Ruby Castillo, who lives on Alma Street and Kellogg Avenue, was among those who asked the council not to reverse its choice of an underpass as a preferred alternative for Churchill Avenue. She said she only became aware of the project’s impacts in April, when she saw her address on a map, marked in yellow, which indicated a partial property acquisition.
She and others who live around Alma suggested that losing a portion of their property could significantly impact their livelihoods and potentially make their homes unlivable.
“I can see that eminent domain is going to be coming, sometime soon in the future,” Castillo said. “However, realistically the footage that the city plans to take is not a feasible plan because it does interrupt with our livelihoods.”
The city currently doesn’t have a clear idea on how many properties would need to be acquired, in part or in whole, but early plans suggest that the problem may be more severe in the south Palo Alto crossings than on Churchill. Early plans suggest that the Charleston underpass, which involves a roundabout for cars, would involve 23 partial property acquisitions and two full property acquisitions.
Nicole Chiu-Wang, who lives near the Charleston rail crossing, told the council that she had only learned in May that her home was on the list of properties that would be affected as part of the underpass option. She implored the council to consider options that don’t involve the use of eminent domain.
“If you go with the underpass option on Charleston, part of our property will be taken,” Chiu-Wang said.
The council’s plan for implementing grade separation calls for starting with Charleston and Meadow crossings and then moving on to Churchill. Burt noted that given the post-pandemic changes in traffic volumes and Caltrain ridership, it’s far from clear if and when the Churchill project will advance.
The grade separation effort was spurred by Caltrain’s projected increase in train trips, which city officials said would cause massive traffic jams around rail crossings. Burt noted that the project would also have the benefit of addressing security issues at the tracks and alluded to the city’s history of suicides at the tracks.
“We can fence the corridor in between the crossings, but to have security at those crossings the only real full-proof method is the grade separation,” Burt said. “That doesn’t mean we will grade separate all of these, but just from that safety standpoint, this is real.
“It’s been a tragedy for our community and it’s not the only factor, but it’s a very significant one,” he said.
Some council members suggested just about any property takings would be unacceptable. Lydia Kou and Greg Tanaka both voted against advancing the Churchill plans, citing eminent domain concerns. Tanaka argued that the city is unnecessarily “putting a cloud over people’s properties.” Kou noted that prior discussions of the Church underpass and the Seale tunnel didn’t feature property takings.
“Property takings are just a ‘no’ for me,” Kou said. “Unless another plan comes up where there is no housing or property taken away from residents, I will not be able to support that.”
Council members Julie Lythcott-Haims and Vicki Veenker also said they were sympathetic to residents’ concerns and indicated that they would not support options that involve significant property takings.
“Even if it will be a while until any takings are actually made for anybody’s property, for those of you on the potential list that is little solace,” Veenker said.
Despite concerns about property takings, the council majority opted to stay the course in keeping the Churchill underpass as its preferred alternative. The option would create a T-intersection at Alma Street for westbound cars on Churchill, requiring them to turn either north or south on Alma. The council’s backup plan is closing Churchill to traffic at the Alma intersection and building an underpass for bikes.
“We have been on a very long path to get to this point and I have been very concerned about now not going with the partial underpass at Churchill,” Mayor Greer Stone said. “If we start to go down that path, we’ll hear from many other members of the community who are going to be equally upset.”
