Caltrain grade separation plans take shape in Redwood City

“This project is critical to Redwood City’s continuing prosperity and honors the wishes of Staumbaugh Heller neighborhood and meets our goals of increasing connectivity between the west and east side of Redwood City and connects the downtown,” Councilmember Chris Sturken said during Monday’s meeting, noting many collisions have occurred near crossings with four resulting in fatalities. “What we’re doing here is really saving lives at the end of the day.”

Dozens of options were studied but only two alternatives were presented to the council Monday. Alternative 1A proposed separating all crossings to allow for vehicles to pass under the rails except for Maple Street, which would be closed to cars but open to pedestrians and bikes. Alternative 1B would also close the Chestnut Street crossing to cars while leaving it open to bikes and pedestrians. Alternative 2 would separate the tracks of Whipple and Brewster avenues and Broadway while leaving the crossings at grade level on Maple, Main and Chestnut streets.

A similar but smaller-scale grade separation project in San Bruno cost about $5.5 million, a fraction of what the Redwood City project would cost, said Jessica Manzi, the city’s former transportation manager and current director of project delivery for the San Mateo County Transportation Authority.

Still, Manzi noted the Redwood City portion of the track upgrades will play a vital role in improving the entire train system because the city’s project includes a new transit center with a four-track transfer station, new bus depot and improved multimodal connections, making the project more competitive in the race for grants.

“Fundamentally, grade separation is perceived as more of a local circulation project, but by combining that with a new transit center and expanded station, that opens up a lot of transit-specific funding that we wouldn’t be eligible for otherwise. So we do think it will help ultimately fund the project which would otherwise be pretty challenging to fund,” Manzi said.

Councilmembers shared their excitement for the project, appreciation for staff’s work and support for the option that would complete grade separation work of Chestnut Street, noting it’s the option residents appeared to support most, according to outreach conducted in 2021.

Lori Low, Caltrain’s manager of government and community affairs, spoke during public comment Monday and shared the transit agency’s support for the city’s preferred alternative recommendation and appreciates the city’s participation in the study.

“We look forward to continuing our partnership with the city as advancing this work will lead to significant safety improvements as well as help progress Caltrain’s long-term service vision to increase capacity and better serve our riders in the community,” Low said.

With a preferred alternative now selected, staff will finalize the planning study by integrating the Redwood City Transit Center and grade separation projects to be studied as one and seek funding for the project. Incorporating new bike and pedestrian infrastructure and studying potential gentrification impacts and other design elements will also be considered in the next phase.