The people are having a hard time with all this upheaval and crowding. The mega businesses must be having difficulty too, trying to cram into small spaces and accommodate their employees needs.

The solution is so easy. Relocate a few of the mega businesses that have outgrown our little town. Just a little south past San Jose, where there is still lots of undeveloped land. They can plan and build a town that will suit their needs. I imagine them building a unique town with quirky roads and driverless vehicles. Wouldn't they have fun building a modern new town.

These funds could go a long way towards building a new city. $41 million slate of improvements for pedestrians and cyclist, $28 million bus and shuttle loading are area, and $70 million underground parking garage. Mtn View would no longer need it. BTW IMHO Those amounts boggle the mind!

I can't help but wonder exactly how the city council expects everyone to get downtown if they close Castro at Central. It's also not clear how the current solution is failing right now. If drivers are expected to go around, this only leaves entering and exiting through neighborhoods to Shoreline. Those delays are going to be worse than waiting for trains to pass.

And I wonder how those residents feel about all the additional traffic. If downtown MV weren't so closed off by the tracks, then closing one of the entry/exit points might not be a significant problem, but cutting off major arteries sounds like trouble to me.

I'm really having trouble seeing how the positives outweigh the negatives here. And this will absolutely impact businesses on Castro...I already tend to avoid it more often than I'd like due to parking issues, and that's without making it harder to even get there.

In the next few years, Caltrain is electrifying. Electrification means the cost of running trains will drop. As a consequence, the number of trains will increase. During busy times of the day - the crossing gates will be going down repeatedly - interrupting the flow of traffic across the tracks.

I think this is a major reason to connect evelyn to Shoreline

only a small portion of traffic enters castro from the North (I believe it was 15%). During rush hour it can take a pretty long time to get in or out of castro, and it is expected to get even worse as train frequency increases.

If I need to go to downtown mountain view by car, or even if I want to get on central expressway to, I usually go by way of whisman or shoreline.

@Alternate Solution

We don't need a new city. Mountain View is already a transit hub, the hub is being updated, and there's already lots of corporate offices here. Improvements to Caltrain, light rail, and the coming self-driving car boom will help alleviate traffic in the coming years. Mountain View isn't a little town anymore.

Abe-Koga's claim that Moffet is "the main route into downtown" isn't backed by any data. Like "Me" (above), I also live right across the tracks and still often take Shoreline if I need to drive downtown. Tunneling for cars would take a _lot_ of space (due to the relatively gentle slope), cost a lot of money, and be really ugly.

I like the plan so far and believe if it's done right, pedestrian and bike access across Central and the tracks could be much nicer than today.

"In the next few years, Caltrain is electrifying. Electrification means the cost of running trains will drop. As a consequence, the number of trains will increase. During busy times of the day - the crossing gates will be going down repeatedly - interrupting the flow of traffic across the tracks."

This makes sense, thanks for that perspective.

I think my primary pain point was from trying to get downtown via Villa from Shoreline on a Friday evening and having it take close to 10 minutes to go the 3 blocks. I envision closing Castro at Central making this significantly worse.

And since I live closer to PA, I usually take Central, and so that right turn onto Castro is the quickest. I'm sure I'll adapt, but hoping the solutions are well thought out and as future-proofed as possible. It's just with so few places to get across the tracks, the options seem limited.

@KW*

The chosen "Close Castro St at Tracks" alternative will likely include adding a connection between Shoreline and Evelyn - see slides 23-27 on Web Link

With electrification, the signals will improve, and the number of times the arms come down for trains that are stopping at the station will be eliminated. Also, there will be longer trains rather than more of them for part of the growth in capacity. The downtime of the crossing arms per passenger will be way less. More trains will stop at the station rather than just passing through past Castro street traffic. It will be more efficient.

As for Google, the news today is they are planning a 20,000 employee building in downtown San Jose near Diridon station. Why not make it 3 20,000 employee complexes down there in the city near the Airport and the transit center for downtown San Jose. These are 12 story buildings, and so much more compact than what is up by 101 in Moutain View.

how does electrification change the number of times the arms come down?

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Re: "how does electrification change the number of times the arms come down?"

My understanding is that with electrification comes a migration to more shorter trains, rather than fewer longer trains. It's part of switching from a fleet of locomotives towing passenger cars, to a fleet of electric cars that are all motorized.

With more shorter trains, we have the crossing arms coming down more often.

But the goal isn't to figure out how to deal with the crossing arms coming down more often, or less often, or just as often as they do now. The goal is to eliminate grade crossings entirely.

"how does electrification change the number of times the arms come down?

Now as I understand the situation, before the trains get electrified, there will be the long awaited GRADE SEPARATION, especially at the Resgstorff @ Central Expressway intersection. So therefore, no crossing arms coming down as there won't be any due to the GRADE SEPARATION. Because apparently at such a point in time, HSR trains will be running through as well. SO THERE HAS TO BE GRADE SEPARATION!!! No more crossing arms coming down.

@tommygee54

The way the city council decided to eliminate the grade crossing at Moffett/Castro and Central Expressway was to eliminate the crossing entirely. See the link posted above by Jeff.

Very forward thinking. And linking Evelyn - already a main thoroughfare connecting Sunnyvale and Mountain View directly to Shoreline is a great way to keep though traffic from finding shortcuts through neighborhood streets (like Dana). Bravo to the city council.

Whether or not this is forward thinking will remain to be seen. I don't believe that closing off Castro and replacing Chez TJ and the Tied House with a MegaOffice will prevent traffic from coming through the neighborhood to avoid the traffic jams.

It took me 6 months just to get the Community Shuttles to stop using Dana Street as a shortcut; and unless the plan is to cut off Dana at Shoreline and cut off Oak Street at Villa to the North and at California to the South; turning them into Cul de Sacs, I don't see how flow through traffic will be prevented.

There are many small children that live in this area and we already have issues with cars and trucks traveling at high speed past our homes and apartments. We don't need the problem to be made worse.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View