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HomeMy Public PortalAbout20221213smRCRAIL COMMITTEE DRAFT SUMMARY MINUTES Page 1 of 13 Special Meeting December 13, 2022 The Rail Committee of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers and by virtual teleconference at 1:00 p.m. Present In Person: Burt, Cormack Present Remotely: Kou Absent: None Public Comment 1. Sandra Weiss, resident of 101 Alma Street, advocated for installing a quiet zone at the grade crossing at Alma and Palo Alto Streets. She stated the primary responsibility of City Council members is to keep constituents as safe as possible and described analyses by the Federal Railroad Administration showing grade crossings in quiet zones were generally as safe as those where train horns were sounded. She stated that the ringing at the gates at track level is audible earlier than the horn blasts from the train; therefore, the blasts do not improve warning times. 2. Adrian Brandt spoke in favor of quiet zones. He discussed the Brightline High-Speed Rail service in Florida and the SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit) service, both using quiet zones. He pointed out that quiet zones do not ban the use of horns. Horns are still blown for cause, just as with cars and trucks. When incidents occur on lines when the engineer sees a potential hazard, horn blowing does not prevent the collision. In Europe, even very busy crossings do not have horn blowing and the crossing gates do not make noise. He believed this was possible to do locally. 3. Elizabeth Alexis reiterated support for quiet zones. She mentioned wayside horns next to the crossing rather than on the train. In studies, these are just as safe and also constrain the noise to the immediate area, dramatically changing the distribution of the noise. The FRA considers these to be equivalent to horns on the train, so there is no need to do any upgrades to station areas. She thought the City should look into these even for crossings not at quiet zones. The noise effects in the middle of the night are very real for people. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 2 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 Verbal Update on Interagency Activities C. City Staff Transportation Director Philip Kamhi noted that Staff had a field diagnostic meeting with CPUC and Caltrain regarding quiet zones and are reviewing initial concept plans. He noted that attached to the agenda was a matrix added following the request to clarify the different technical design criteria and the constraints these have for different locations. The VTA ad hoc committee recently discussed the roles and responsibilities of the committee, which hopes to provide a greater role in seeking funding and pursuing projects in a collaborative manner. Mr. Kamhi also raised the consideration of cost sharing with Caltrain on grade separation. The next VTA ad hoc meeting is scheduled for February 24. A memo was received last week from Caltrain on the San Francisquito Creek Bridge providing additional details on the different alternatives being considered by Caltrain. Staff has since requested from Caltrain additional details regarding the alternatives, specifically rehabilitation. He noted that Caltrain would provide a high-level overview of the processes structure of the service agreement but that Staff are still in negotiation over the scope of services and the fees. Mayor Burt stated that Caltrain does not currently have funding dedicated to their services and supporting grade crossings within the corridor-wide plan, and he wanted to support them receiving funding from MTC or another agency in support of that. Regarding quiet zones, he asked if wayside horns and possibly lighting was part of the current design direction. Engineer Ripon Bhatia stated Staff met with CPUC and Caltrain to look at different options but a complete quiet zone was being considered as the first option. If that is not approved, wayside horns would be considered as a second option. Mayor Burt suggested going deeper into the alternatives at a future meeting. He felt meeting a minimum requirement was one threshold but finding the right balance between that and assuring maximum safety was another. A. Caltrain The Caltrain team members introduced themselves. Navi Dhaliwal, Caltrain Government and Community Affairs Officer, gave general updates on the San Francisquito Bridge replacement project, with the recommendation to move forward with the bridge replacement; Caltrain electrification, including signal installation and testing at Churchill Avenue and Palo Alto Avenue and working toward full passenger service in 2024; and ongoing coordination with VTA. She discussed the Corridor Crossings Strategy to develop a corridor-wide strategy and programmatic approach for the organization, project development, funding, and implementation of grade separations or closures. The project's engagement approach encourages active participation from stakeholders to garner consensus on an DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 3 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 informed corridor strategy and vision. This Corridor Crossing Strategy team will present to these groups on a regular basis to keep stakeholders apprised of project developments and guide. Additional engagement opportunities will arise as the project progresses. There were no public comments. Council Member Cormack stated it was hard to understand which groups are in charge of what. She asked where the stakeholder advisory team fits in and who is on that team. Ms. Dhaliwal stated that the Caltrain team is working on identifying various stakeholders to engage in that process. Council Member Cormack asked if the cities can make suggestions or if people can apply for that team. Ms. Dhaliwal stated the project team is in phase 1 of initial information gathering from internal teams. She would check with the project team for the Corridor Crossings Strategy on when they plan to engage the advisory stakeholders. Council Member Cormack asked to see a Gantt chart showing when things are happening in other places and asked in what format Caltrain anticipated working with the Committee. Rob Bernard, Caltrain Deputy Chief Rail Development, stated the VTA showed the Gantt chart for all the projects at the second ad hoc committee. Caltrain currently has a service agreement to advance 2 projects with Mountain View and provided that detail at the second meeting. They also provide a quarterly report with all that information as part of the VTA process. Council Member Cormack mentioned to Staff that it would be helpful to have any included charts along with the video link. She asked about the flow of the 7 categories. Ms. Dhaliwal stated they are not necessarily chronological but elements of what the Corridor Crossing Strategy will take into consideration as it progresses. The strategy is looking at what has been done thus far but will get to the point of looking at forecasts and what is coming up in terms of standards and processes because cities along the corridor are looking for a general understanding of what that will look like. Council Member Cormack commented that there are occasionally verbal reports on LPMG at Council but nothing in more depth. She stated it would be important to meter that flow of information because everyone on Council, not just Rail Committee, needs to have it. Mayor Burt stated there are often good presentations at LPMG and requested those written materials be routinely provided to the Council. Regarding electrification, he asked if full passenger service is expected in 2024. Ms. Dhaliwal stated that was correct. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 4 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 Mayor Burt stated that getting clarity on the segment considered for 4-track was critical to the grade crossing refinement alternatives. It drives some decision-making and is holding things up. After requesting clarification for a couple years, it was apparent that the zone being considered for 4 tracks had already been narrowed in Mountain View and that there was some way in which a city could pursue that response from Caltrain that Palo Alto was never made aware of. Mr. Bernard stated those conversations proceeded the current team. They are looking at the widths of the right-of-way. At the Mountain View station to the south, it is not wide enough to accommodate a 4-track segment, and the area north of Mountain View is wider. Mayor Burt asked if there has been such a decision and what the process and basis for those decisions is. He stated that Churchill is narrower than Castro and should be ruled out as well. He asked to get those details sooner soon rather than later and wanted to know when there would be clarity on what is happening in Mountain View and the process by which Palo Alto can go through a similar consideration where there is the most constraint. He asked about a timeline for this. Mr. Bernard stated they have been engaging with the City of Palo Alto staff on a service agreement to address those questions with a high level of analysis. The overall picture for the 4-track is part of the Corridor Crossings Study, looking at it on a corridor scale with separate funding. To do something in one specific area, it is a separate analysis process through a service agreement. Mayor Burt stated some of the things shared at the last meeting about the creek bridge need to be articulated more clearly to Caltrain, such as the implications of moving forward with a bridge replacement before the Palo Alto Avenue/Alma grade crossing and looking at the redesign potential in the University Avenue Station and the straightening of the tracks. He stated he looked at the bridge and the creek and got an update from an arborist study, and what leaped out was the terrible corrosion condition of the bridge. He asked if Caltrain was aware of how bad the corrosion is on that bridge. Mr. Bernard stated Caltrain sent a team out to do 3 weekends' worth of analysis on those issues. The team did an analysis of the bridge's condition, took samples of the material to gauge its strength, and did a lidar analysis for loading. Mayor Burt was concerned that the lack of paint maintenance refurbishing would further jeopardize the bridge and that it has not been receiving normal maintenance. The inherent deterioration over its 120-year lifespan is being accelerated as a result of lack of corrosion protection. He felt this needed to be a priority and should be dealt with as promptly as possible. Vice Mayor Kou asked about the next steps before implementation of quiet zones. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 5 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 Mr. Bhatia stated the next step is an outreach process to make sure the community has time to provide input and then CPUC approval by adopting that through City Council. The improvements reflected in the conceptual plan then need to be constructed in order to request a quiet zone from FRA. Once the improvements are in place, a quiet zone can be requested to be established by the Federal Railway Authority. Vice Mayor Kou asked if the program strategy technical categories on the Caltrain slide are already developed. Ms. Dhaliwal stated they are the technical categories identified as core components of the Corridor Crossing Strategy study but would look into it and come back with additional information. Vice Mayor Kou asked how wide a 4-track needs to be. Mr. Bernard stated the standard requirement for a 4-track is 95 feet, with 15 feet between the tracks and 25 feet clearance from the center of the track to the nearest structure on either side. Something less than that would be a design variance that would have to go through an exhaustive evaluation process. B. VTA – There was no update. Action Items 1. Caltrain Presentation/Discussion on Service Agreement Rob Bernard, Caltrain Deputy Chief Rail Development, presented information on Caltrain's approach to supporting grade separation projects while working collaboratively with project sponsors and local jurisdictions. Caltrain's has learned that early participation has value in trying to help solve complex technical issues. Over the past couple years, Caltrain has demonstrated commitment to being a partner with the City of Palo Alto, participating in the Connecting Palo Alto study and reviewing alternatives alongside the expanded community advisory panel. As stewards of public funds, it is important to be cost effective and use resources wisely while serving the communities. Caltrain was here to share their view of the benefits of early involvement when planning grade separations, building on lessons learned. One of the lessons learned is the optimal timing to do those analyses of the alternative contract delivery methods or constructability is early in the design process. Caltrain has very clever engineers and hundreds of pages of well-established criteria, specifications, and drawings. Caltrain retains authority over the areas that require judgment to meet the fiducial obligation to protect public health and safety but wants to be a valued partner and help the community deliver their projects, leveraging Caltrain's experience to maximize potential to the DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 6 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 communities in a way that aligns with each community's vision of how they want to grow. Over the years, Palo Alto has identified key questions that need resolution to help refine the grade separation's design. In June, Caltrain received 2 letters from Palo Alto, the request to review and respond to key technical questions and the 4-track refinement request. For questions that require project- specific answers and Caltrain staff expertise to implement design guidelines, Caltrain and City staff have begun conversations to develop that mechanism, the first draft of the third-party service agreements, looking to answer specific technical questions regarding vertical clearance, thickness of the bridge deck, and curve of the track at Palo Alto. The fourth item is Caltrain's approach to allowing cities to use the newly created area underneath elevated structures, which is a case-by-case review on the specific use and configuration. It requires a threat and vulnerability analysis for use of those spaces, so the details matter. The second group of questions will be addressed as part of the Corridor Crossings Study with separate funding for a corridor-wide study. Caltrain has a standard procedure, G24, to request design variances on a case-by-case basis for unique situations. It is a last resort after exhaustive analysis says the criteria cannot be used and a variance is needed. Any change that impacts the maximum allowable grade or freight standards requires an additional process for 2 reasons, the trackage right agreement with Union Pacific Railroad and the commitment to High-Speed Rail. UP has the right to use both mainline tracks, and JPB has an obligation to maintain that right of way at the levels necessary to allow UP to maintain competitive service levels. To make a change, UP needs to concur that the standard is met to maintain their competitive service levels. There is also an agreement with High-Speed Rail that JPB is not allowed to take any action that would effectively preclude or make materially more complicated or expensive for High-Speed Rail. These project-specific conditions need to be analyzed from the Caltrain standards but also Union Pacific and High-Speed Rail. Outside of this, Caltrain has agreed to take a systemwide approach to some of these questions and to engage in a conversation with UP to look at this at the corridor scale to reduce the freight speeds and increase the allowable grades. Caltrain shared with UP that they would begin to ask some questions about the maximum allowable grade and freight standards, and UP was open to those conversations. The Corridor Crossings team has begun to prepare the submittal to begin the reimbursement agreement to engage UP's staff to ask these questions. Finally, Caltrain is committed to developing those tools and updating the electrification design standards. Other standards were updated in August 2020, and the design criteria for electrification is at 90% updated. Modifications to tracks and power systems, signal systems, train control systems, and train-to- wayside communication require Caltrain expertise. They are operating systems that need to be kept safely in operation every day. Nicole Soltin, Caltrain Deputy Director Capital Programs, described the framework enabling Caltrain staff to allocate time to individual third-party projects like grade separation projects through service agreements. Service agreements are agreements between Caltrain and third parties as a project sponsor established for Caltrain to support third-party project sponsors during their project development. She used the analogy that working on an operating railroad DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 7 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 is like open heart surgery; the patient needs to be kept alive and functioning well. For Caltrain staff, that means coordinating multiple projects simultaneously while ensuring all systems are in a state of good repair and service keeps running at an appropriate level. There are multiple operating systems that are safety critical, and modifying them as part of a third-party project requires Caltrain's work. Early design decisions have implications for the long-term operational and maintenance costs of capital projects. Caltrain has an obligation to provide advice on those decisions in order to provide efficient and cost-effective services in the future and is also required to coordinate with UP and High-Speed Rail. Caltrain receives public funds to deliver efficient and cost-effective rail service, with all funds going toward the management, operations, and maintenance of the commuter rail service. Grade separations are local jurisdiction projects with dedicated funding. Caltrain staff time is necessary to implement those projects, and service agreements are the framework for Caltrain to recover its costs. All of Caltrain's efforts to deliver excellence enhance reporting tools and expand construction delivery options with more consideration to cost, schedule, and risk management. Service agreements are executed across the entire corridor and support grade separation projects as well as bike and ped crossing projects and other municipal projects that impact the railroad right of way. She reviewed the scope of Caltrain's draft service agreement with Palo Alto. Like other service agreements established during the conceptual design phase for grade separation projects, Palo Alto's service agreement scope will include planning, coordination, and technical review of the 5 alternatives under consideration. The technical review's primary goal is to vet viability of alternatives. It identifies potential impacts to JPB facilities and potential access impacts to people walking, biking, and using buses and shuttles to access Caltrain services for each alternative. It considers potential environmental impacts as well as necessary environmental clearances and resources agency permits. The technical review includes a review of the community engagement, outreach plans, and materials. The service agreement scope also includes Caltrain staff assistance with implementation of standards and policies and interpretation of guidelines into actual design. Once the scope is executed, the City gets to make an informed choice on its LPAs knowing that they work. Caltrain will become the lead implementing agency on the project after the community has selected their LPA and once the 15% design packet is complete. Caltrain manages the design and delivery contracts for the projects. A handoff of the project from the City to Caltrain is needed, and the preferred approach is at the conceptual design phase. Caltrain keeps working with the project sponsor and funders throughout the lifecycle of the project. Grade separation projects are locally sponsored and funded, and Caltrain is the implementation agent with knowledge about right of way and interfacing with safety operating systems. Caltrain works for the project sponsor, making sure the project is compatible with systems operations. Prior to the project being handed off, 3 more tasks need to be performed for the project to move into the next phase of work. Typically it is the preliminary engineering and environmental clearance phase. That additional scope would be subject to an amendment of the service agreement, including an alternative contract delivery analysis, development of a cooperative agreement, and development of a request for proposals for advancing the project beyond the conceptual design phase. Next steps include DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 8 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 continuing ongoing coordination with Palo Alto Staff on the Corridor Crossings Strategy and detailed discussions with Staff on the service agreement's scope of work, budget, and deliverables in hopes of moving the project forward. Adrian Brandt recalled that the San Francisquito Bridge had not been sandblasted or painted in the 32 years that the JPB have owned the right of way and further back to Southern Pacific. He stated the bridge has been allowed to fall apart in terms of maintenance. Regarding the width required for 4 tracks, he has measured several locations with widths of anywhere from 60 to 80 feet and stated 95 feet is perhaps a goal rather than the minimum. He stated San Bruno received a grade exception for their grade separation project with grades significantly in excess of 1%, and he did not believe Staff had to get permission or consult with UP for that. He asked about other examples where the grade exception was granted and implemented. Regarding wayside horns, he stated they are still noisy and the primary purpose is to warn cars attempting to drive around the gates, which there is no history of with Caltrain. Pedestrians can hear the trains coming, and almost all pedestrian deaths on the Caltrain line are intentional and would not be affected by wayside horns. A proper quiet zone would have quad gates and center medians that make driving around the gates impossible. Nadia Naik reviewed the history of Measure B and consultants working on the issue of where passing tracks are going to go. She stated it seemed disingenuous that now a service agreement is required to answer that. The City has been spending money on consultants to work on this under the impression that the consultants were having meaningful discussions with Caltrain, not merely being given Caltrain's rules and offered a service agreement. She stated Caltrain, as an agency made up of 17 cities along the corridor, had a responsibility to inform the City not to spend money on consultants until an MOU was done. It has been 2 years and a lot of community process, and now Caltrain cannot answer the 4-track question. She felt it was frustrating and hurt Caltrain's reputation in the community and the ability of the cities to have any faith in these agreements. Regarding service agreement issues versus systemwide issues, minimum vertical clearance and bridge deck thickness are specific to making sure the cost of these grade separations is not overwhelming. There is an obligation to make grade separation projects as efficient as possible, and it should be a systemwide issue. Everybody should have the thinnest bridge deck possible and the minimum vertical clearance. The number to work toward should be as thin as you can get it. She understood that having an agreement was the easiest way to move forward but felt the City had been blown off for years. Mayor Burt stated he had had discussion with Caltrain staff over the last several years and recalled that it was portrayed that Caltrain was working on determining that 4-track zone, which was part of this staff capacity issue but not lumped into the necessity for a service agreement. He stated that needed to be revisited. He stated the funding Caltrain has does not cover dealing with individual grade separations and asked if the grade separation corridor-wide study has a separate dedicated funding source. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 9 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 Mr. Bernard stated that is a project-specific funding source from part of Measure B, SSETA, Prop K, and San Mateo Transit Authority. Mayor Burt stated the mutual problem is that Caltrain not having funding to review individual projects means the City pays through local funding of both City dollars and Measure B. It is collaborative, but it is the City paying for Caltrain's work even though these projects are driven by Caltrain's expanded service model. The full service model Caltrain anticipates needs to have crossings grade separated. Caltrain has been dealing with 1 grade separation every few years, and now it is ramping up with multiple in Santa Clara County at various stages. Caltrain has responded by increasing staff capacity and expertise, but Palo Alto does not have good visibility on exactly how that has been increased. The City is facing a service agreement without a clear enough understanding of exactly what Caltrain's capacity and capabilities are. He stated it would be helpful to understand the changes Caltrain has made to provide at least the core of people in place that have the abilities to deal with the design parts and the construction management of multiple projects. He felt that now that grade separating the system is a regional priority, there were prospective funding sources for Caltrain to receive money to be able to support the cities' needs and that should be collectively pursued through legislators. Mayor Burt stated construction impacts tend to get put as a secondary ramification of a project but can be consequential to the cities with incredible road disruptions. The way the system is set up right now, the City is not incentivized to select a design that has the least impacts on Caltrain but the design that has the least construction impacts on the community. Both of those issues need to be looked at, but he was unsure how the impacts on Caltrain get considered in the process. He asked how to integrate the interests of both parties. Mr. Bernard stated looking at constructability in the initial alternative analysis is key because it looks at the impact to the community. Early contractor involvement is also important because the how matters a lot when determining the conduct of construction. It is important to have conversations about the optimal way to minimize the impact to the community balanced with the cost for doing it different ways so there is an informed decision. An option may cost more but have a lower impact or cost more and have a higher impact, and that value decision can be made during the construction phase. Mayor Burt stated that under the current funding structure, cities are incentivized to minimize their direct cost. Caltrain is a system provider looking at both Caltrain's service impact and how disruptions of that service affect all member agencies. Individual cities are not incentivized to focus on that, especially on their dollars. Putting the onus of funding for evaluation of construction impacts on the system and Caltrain onto the cities becomes problematic. He did not believe this would be resolved in the right way by telling cities they need to pay Caltrain to study Caltrain interests and the ramifications of alternatives on other cities in the corridor and the system. Council Member Cormack stated Mr. Bernard referenced that 4-track would be in the service agreement but the slides suggest it is in the Corridor Crossings. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 10 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 Mr. Bernard stated the Corridor Crossings Study will define the 4-track segments with more specificity and will take some time but it has funding. It is behind schedule but is now being launched. If there is a need to get an answer today, the answer is "not preclude," to design it but not preclude a 4-track. If those are not preferred, the only other option is to do a service agreement. Council Member Cormack asked Staff at which of the current crossings is there the most concern about this. Mr. Kamhi stated the matrix provided addresses this precisely but it has implications at all of the different crossings and alternatives. Council Member Cormack asked if the service agreement is at the beginning and then eventually everything ends up as a cooperative agreement or if there is another method. Ms. Soltin stated service agreements are typically between the project sponsor and Caltrain and do not include the funder. Other agreements sometimes have been implemented with more parties to the table with Caltrain the lead implementing agency from the very beginning. On other projects, Caltrain has led the conceptual design phase and owned the contract with the consultants to develop multiple alternatives, review them with the City, and make a decision. Again, those agreements still had the City as the project sponsor but Caltrain was the lead implementing agency. All projects would end up with a cooperative agreement or an MOU from the final design phase through construction. Council Member Cormack asked Mr. Kamhi what percent the current designs are at. Mr. Kamhi responded it is pre 15%, not past the number where it would be handed off. Council Member Cormack asked if he agreed 15% was the time to hand off. Mr. Kamhi replied that 15% is when there would be a second agreement for Caltrain to take over as the lead implementing agency. Council Member Cormack stated it would be great to have Caltrain conceptually help vet the viability of alternatives under consideration. She asked how much Mountain View spent on the service agreement so far. Ms. Soltin did not have an answer. She stated Mountain View currently has a cooperative agreement and is further advanced in the design of their projects, so those costs are typically higher than the service agreement cost being contemplated for Palo Alto grade separation projects. Mr. Bernard stated they would be happy to provide that information. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 11 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 Council Member Cormack stated it would be helpful to have a ballpark of what other people have spent to date. She asked if the goal to compress schedule is in the cooperative agreement stage or in general. Mr. Bernard stated that is in general. One of the goals when using public money is to do things as efficiently as possible and try to overlap some of the activities to eliminate delays. Some alternative contract delivery methods allow nesting those processes to compress schedule and allow for early construction packages, long lead material procurements, and early utility relocation while the design is still being complete. This allows negotiation of a total contract price before the 100% drawings are done, compressing the 6-month bidding period. The agreements allow Caltrain to prepare the products to do those things and compress some of those to be done at the same time even without the alternative delivery methods. There was discussion about how long the process would take and how the time is charged for a service agreement. Council Member Cormack stated it would take a long time to work through what has happened and figure out how much time is needed. She shared frustration about what has happened in the past but wanted to figure out how to move forward. She looked forward to the service agreement being provided to people who will look at it carefully. Navi Dhaliwal, Caltrain Government and Community Affairs Officer, emphasized that throughout the process there have been a lot of lessons learned and Caltrain has been working and coordinating with City Staff to understand the needs of the City of Palo Alto. Part of the intent of today's meeting was to provide a framework of what a service agreement is. It is part 1 to many parts of an eventual understanding of a service agreement the City and Caltrain are comfortable with. She stated Caltrain understands the timing, especially the community engagement component. Council Member Cormack stated it is important to know if this is going to be a budget item. Mr. Bernard stated Caltrain was happy to continue to engage in conversations with Staff because the details matter. The standard template is a starting point for a long conversation of what is really needed for this community to advance their vision and how Caltrain can help. Vice Mayor Kou stated the phrase early involvement has value. She was happy to see this new team but felt that early involvement was 2 or 3 years ago while going through the business plan. This was the first time she was hearing about the service agreement and the cost the City would have to bear because of Caltrain's increased service. Because of that service, the City's streets are going to be impacted with traffic and congestion. This will definitely involve more discussion and transparency. Mayor Burt stated this thoughtful, composed discussion was a good way to approach it. He appreciated the comment on the criticality of utilities as utility impacts are often treated as an afterthought and become horrendous. Too often, consultants only look at something way DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 12 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 down the line, and it does not make sense to make a decision that could be completely altered by discoveries down the line. Part of the dilemma of the process is if consultants are not well managed. Caltrain is now staffed up and stepping up as an alternative to the outside consulting process. The City has the pipeline of additional studies with a consulting group, which will have a certain overlap with Caltrain with this service agreement, and there appears to be a period where it might transition to even a deeper role for Caltrain. Figuring out how to approach it is something that needs to be thought through. On the grade issues, vertical grade and vertical curve can be impactful when considering a design that goes up or down. He asked if there are any grade separations over the years that have been other than the 1% curve and grade. Mr. Bernard thought there were 8 of those but would have to get back on that. Mayor Burt referred to UP maintaining competitive service levels and questioned what maintains competitive service levels. He stated if they were required to accommodate a steeper grade, 2% or maybe 3%, it might mean their fully loaded freight cars might have to travel at a slower speed or have to have less weight, but that does not necessarily make them noncompetitive. Mr. Bernard stated it would be for Union Pacific to illuminate the impacts to their service. Mayor Burt stated UP would fight for their interests, either their service levels or compensation for what they would argue would be some modification of their costs of service. There is a narrow gray area of what constitutes competitive service levels and how much things can be tweaked within that and then a negotiation. One argument is to look at the aggregate cost impacts of either beneficially getting some of these changes through all the grade separations in the corridor or conversely not getting them, and figuring out a resolution to UP can be incredibly cost effective. There is a recognition of the need for a systems solution with UP so all the grade separations that might have lower costs if there are fixes can then start incorporating them. The sooner it is done, the sooner the right preferred alternative can be selected. The City had argued that reduced bridge decks or lack of a center pillar could allow a more viable alternative at Churchill, and this has gone back and forth for some time. What is not well understood by the public or the press is that once the City gets these technical and design standards and can have the most cost effective approach, a decision can move forward much more easily. Being forced to make a decision now means making the more costly, more impactful decision. Next Steps and Future Agendas There was discussion about the date of the next meeting and the process of selecting a new Committee member. The next meeting is scheduled for January 25, 2023. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES Page 13 of 13 (Sp.) Rail Committee Meeting Draft Action Minutes: 12/13/2022 Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 3:13 p.m.