The early stages of a grade separation effort at South Linden Avenue and Scott Street is still underway, but Caltrain is pivoting to a new construction method meant to mitigate both costs and surrounding traffic impacts.
Currently, the rail crossing at South Linden Avenue is the only at-grade crossing in South City, with Scott Street crossing in San Bruno less than a mile away, and the two cities have been working with Caltrain and the San Mateo County Transportation Authority on a separation project.
“In your community, this crossing project will help provide both safety and traffic flow and promote development,” said Robert Barnard, chief of rail design and construction at Caltrain, during a council meeting Jan. 22.
Barnard added that the project is particularly salient, given increasing ridership as a result of Caltrain’s electrification launch in September.
Estimates showed a roughly seven-year construction timeline for the grade separations, estimated around $450 million. But Barnard said the agency is looking into a new method, box jacking, that could lower the schedule and budget. It would also lower risk when done on a fully electrified service. The newer approach entails building a concrete box next to the railroad and using hydraulic jacks to push the box underneath the tracks.
“We've been exploring that technology up and down the alignment. We took a look at it in Mountain View for their facilities, we are exploring at Menlo Park for their undercrossing, and we’re exploring it at Palo Alto for their grade crossings,” Barnard said. “We are trying to lower risk, and we’re trying to minimize impacts and lower costs.”
With box jacking, construction could be reduced from seven to three years, and the construction price tag would likely be about 25% lower. The grade separation would involve lowering the road by 22 feet and raising the track less than 2 feet.
“This is a heavy civil construction project. It will have impacts during construction, but the impacts from the optimized alternative, we feel, would be less,” Barnard said.
Several cities in the county are pushing for more grade separations, including Burlingame, which has been hoping to secure the funds for its Broadway crossing for years. The intersection is often considered the most dangerous railroad crossing in California. Recently, its city leaders have raised concern over a spike in costs, which could further delay the highly-anticipated project.
South San Francisco Councilmember Mark Nagales said he was in support of the Linden Avenue project.
“We have this project, and we have the Burlingame crossing project, and it's going to cost millions and millions of dollars to do this, but the safety benefits are really important,” Nagales said. “We already know the safety issues in Burlingame, but one of the reasons why this project is really important is because there was an accident on the San Bruno side at this crossing, so I think this is going to be very important.”
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