Embarcadero road improvements in Palo Alto scheduled for summer

Amid concerns about traffic congestion and emergency response times, one glaring issue that could arise if Palo Alto leaders decide to close the Churchill Avenue train crossing is the lack of an adequate detour for cyclists and pedestrians.

For Palo Alto High School students trying to get to class, their most likely route would follow Embarcadero Road to get on the other side of the Caltrain tracks. But as students and residents have testified, walking or biking along the street feels dangerous due to the lack of pedestrian infrastructure and the speed of passing vehicles.

Some residents have suggested that closing Churchill in an attempt to prevent youth suicides could have the unintended effect of causing injury or death to rerouted high schoolers attempting to traverse Embarcadero on the way to school.

“A closure without the mitigating factors is more likely to cost lives than to save them,” said Midtown resident Mark Lawrence, who spoke against the closure of Churchill at a special council meeting April 15. “We’re going to have some kid on a bicycle get run over while they’re taking that circuitous route, and I wonder how the advocates of the closure will feel then.”

While the Churchill closure remains to be decided by the City Council, which is scheduled to discuss it on May 11, city officials approved a new capital improvement project to improve Embarcadero Road for pedestrians and cyclists on April 20, with the hope that the first phase could be completed over the summer before the school year begins in August.

“The project will improve pedestrian and bicyclist conditions and is needed whether or not Council decides to temporarily close Churchill Avenue,” staff wrote in a report about the project.

At the special April 15 meeting on Churchill, Mayor Vicki Veenker said the council is trying to weigh the safety tradeoffs — including the potential risk posed to rerouted pedestrians and cyclists if Churchill were closed.

“We don’t want to make the city safer in one way only to make it less safe in another way,” she said.

Phase 1 of the improvements would focus on the north side of Embarcadero Road, including eliminating the slip lane at Kingsley Avenue that currently allows cars to turn right onto Embarcadero without a stop light or stop sign. The sidewalk path on Embarcadero between Emerson and High streets would also be widened to allow a greater number of pedestrians and cyclists to use the path.

Overall, the goals of the first phase are to reconfigure the intersections on the north side of Embarcadero to “reduce conflicts, reduce the speed of turning vehicles, and increase visibility for pedestrians and bicyclists,” according to the staff report.

The total cost of the Embarcadero Road Improvement Project is estimated at $3.2 million, with the first phase requiring about half of that funding. The second phase to improve the southern portion of Embarcadero would take place at a later date, the staff report states.

Much of the funding will come from Measure B, a 2016 transportation measure that was approved by Santa Clara County Measure. The project would receive $2.8 million in Measure B funding.

City staff plan to return during the fiscal year 2027 budget process to request another $266,000 from the Measure B revenue.