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Mountain View’s north entrance to downtown Castro Street is finally getting a makeover after years of lingering half-measures, temporary traffic signs and roadway cones, with proposed changes that will finally eliminate all vehicle traffic crossing the Caltrain tracks.
The transit project, which the city’s Council Transportation Committee reviewed Tuesday, Dec. 2, would eliminate northbound traffic on Castro Street across the Caltrain tracks, instead diverting cars towards Shoreline Boulevard along West Evelyn Avenue. Southbound vehicles are already blocked from crossing the Caltrain tracks, a restriction that the city put in place during the pandemic.
Bicyclists and pedestrians would continue to be able to cross the train tracks at Castro Street, with the installation of upgraded bike lanes and crosswalks. The project would also create a contiguous route for bike and vehicle traffic along Evelyn to cross Castro Street, which is currently blocked off by raised curbs, heavy bollards and bright orange plastic barricades.
The intersection is a critical location in Mountain View, marking the nexus between Caltrain, Valley Transportation Authority light rail service, downtown Mountain View and access to major employment centers to the north. More than 1,700 pedestrians and 800 bicyclists cross the tracks at the intersection each day, according to a city staff report.
For nearly a decade, the plan has been to close Castro Street at the tracks and turn it into a T-intersection, with a goal of improving traffic safety. Increased train service following Caltrain electrification was expected to snarl traffic at the intersection and cause major delays, and closing the intersection to cars would cost significantly less than reconstructing the street under the tracks.
The COVID-19 pandemic and abrupt decision in 2020 to close three blocks of Castro Street to vehicle traffic accelerated the timeline, at least partially, prompting the makeshift and temporary traffic barricades and traffic signal modifications that still stand today.
The latest raft of changes at the intersection, which are expected to come to the City Council for final approval next year, would turn some of these visually haphazard pandemic changes into something more permanent.
Vehicle traffic on West Evelyn Avenue will run uninterrupted in an “S” shape across Castro Street, and the street will include a protected bike lane running in the eastbound direction. The westbound direction would have a painted bike lane. West Evelyn Avenue would become a one-way street for vehicles from Hope Street to Wild Cherry Lane, heading in the westbound direction.
Other changes include a protected bike lane along southbound Moffett Boulevard as it approaches the Caltrain tracks, giving bicyclists a safer route heading into downtown.
The traffic improvements, dubbed the Castro and Evelyn Interim Improvements Project, are just one piece of the larger changes planned for Castro Street and the city’s downtown transit center. The full Castro grade separation project still calls for a bike and pedestrian undercrossing that tunnels below Central Expressway and the Caltrain tracks, however that project has a longer timeline and a hefty price tag. The cost estimate jumped from $136 million to $271 million in 2023, prompting city officials to punt on some of the big-ticket upgrades. The interim project, by comparison, is expected to cost $6.6 million.
Council members, community weigh in
Committee members and public speakers at the Tuesday meeting generally supported the changes – with an interest in soliciting more community feedback ahead of the final design – but grappled with the idea that it was an “interim” project with temporary changes. With no set timeline and no committed funding to pay for the full grade separation project and all of its big-budget features, these smaller-scale changes could very well be here to stay, said Adrian Brandt, a member of the Caltrain Citizens Advisory Committee.
“I have seen a lot of projects in my lifetime of this nature, and there’s a good chance this may be the permanent solution,” he said.
Council member and committee chair John McAlister took a different approach, calling for better data to justify the placement of bike lanes and “No Right Turn on Red” restrictions, an idea that public speakers suggested for southbound traffic on Moffett turning onto Central Expressway. He was particularly skeptical of the changes on West Evelyn Avenue, which call for constructing bike lanes in both directions.
The design would remove a total of 12 parking spaces, which he flagged as an issue for downtown businesses and pressed city staff to consider opportunities for preserving the valuable parking spots.
“We have to keep an open mind, especially for our small businesses,” McAlister said.
The project provides little in the way of bike and pedestrian upgrades on Moffett Boulevard, between Central Expressway and Jackson Street. The city is currently working on a comprehensive plan for the Moffett corridor that will provide the roadmap for transportation improvements north of the tracks, which would be created at a later date.
The deferral approach didn’t sit well with the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, which recommended last month to improve the northbound bike lane along Moffett. They also sought protected bike lanes along both directions of West Evelyn Avenue, not just in the eastbound direction.
Another aspect of the project that raised eyebrows was the decision to funnel all bike and pedestrian traffic across the tracks on the east side of Castro Street. According to the city staff report, Caltrain sought to maintain only one at-grade bicycle and pedestrian rail crossing at the location, leading to the elimination of the crossing on the west side of Castro Street.
At the Nov. 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee meeting, committee member John Stone said the change didn’t seem to have a strong justification and would inconvenience those crossing the tracks.
“The answer to why we’re getting rid of it seems to be mostly that Caltrain doesn’t want to maintain it, which is their problem, not our problem,” Stone said. “Diverting everyone around is very pedestrian-hostile, and that’s kind of par for the course for Caltrain, they have a lot of pedestrian-hostile designs.”
Though meant to be quicker, smaller and cheaper, work on the Castro and Evelyn Interim Improvements Project won’t even begin next year. The anticipated timeline calls for pre-construction work to start in early 2027, according to a city staff report.
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This is disappointing for those of us who take public transportation from downtown Mountain View to and from north of Caltrain.
The 51 and 21 buses are a lifeline to work, school and getting to Caltrain itself. Just think of the many employers north of Caltrain to which these buses go. This is going to make the 51 and 21 bus routes take considerably longer to cross Central Expressway. It already takes an extra five minutes to go south. The southbound 51 used to match up with Caltrain, but they no longer match up with each other, and I have to wait nearly an extra half hour for the next Caltrain. I have to take Lyft to Moffett 101 and walk the rest of the way to catch Caltrain on time, but that gets rather expensive after a few rides. I just barely catch the northbound 51 bus from Caltrain when the train arrives, but I guess that won’t be possible either with the new northbound route.
These “improvements” are costing me a lot of personal extra time and money. I don’t see why they are so much better.
I’ll need to see this in reality to really understand it.
I get the point. But man, in looking at the vehicle re-routes (yellow and blue arrows in first diagram), that’s a lengthy extra jaunt through streets (like Villa) that aren’t designed to handle significant traffic.
Looks like more Caltrains laziness to me, didn’t they just get more funding for crossings? I guess they spent it already. I love the pedestrian crossing idea, its human nature to walk back and forth like that. Their plans forgot to include the visuals for fencing and barbed wire to force people to walk that idiotic path. Great idea to make downtown look more busy by forcing traffic on Villa.
They should also add in some massive speed humps like other parts of Villa while they are at it, lets just call it in the name of safety. We all appreciate the blinding oncoming headlights these humps generate, more people should experience them. Its great for visibility at night, especially from older drivers who think their brights are standard headlights.
A decade of talking and 270million, maybe 10s of millions more, just for an pedestrian under crossing that may never happen? While China build entire bridges and hospitals in days. I get it, there’s a process, but then there’s a point where it becomes pretty meaningless and too much beaucracy, benefitting not the public but those who manipulate the project for their own benefits. I mean the 270 million is not going to be distributed among the public is it?
How much does it cost to create gridlock in downtown?
Only $6.6M
And it still does not address the issue it’s supposed to solve. Not a grade separation in the world will stop suicide deaths as long as the trains have open platforms. As for transit, the nearly useless bus lines to and from our “transit center” will become even more useless, mired in downtown gridlock on narrow streets. There are other alternatives, but our esteemed city representatives and city staff are crippled by bike lane and pedestrian path tunnel vision.