The requirement that a $6 million pedestrian-and-bike tunnel be included in the Mayfield Mall project sparked a spirited City Council discussion last week, and in the end a unanimous council did the right thing.
Despite unusually strong opposition from Toll Brothers, the company developing the 450 housing units at 100 Mayfield Ave., the council held its ground in requiring the tunnel under Central Expressway.
Without such a tunnel, the estimated 1,000 new residents at Mayfield would have had to cross five lanes of high-speed traffic to reach the nearby Caltrain station — a bad situation in the eyes of most council members.
To Toll Brothers, the tunnel represented a $6 million hit. But their howls of protest — company rep Jo Price argued at the meeting that the high cost of the tunnel should have been considered, and that it would take too long to build — fell on deaf ears. Instead, council members brought up the death of a bicyclist in 2001. The cyclist, who was in the crosswalk, was struck by a car coming down the on-ramp from San Antonio Road.
There are reasons besides safety to build the tunnel. For one, it will offer easy access to mass transit, a link that is growing more important with every jump in the price of gasoline. In addition, the city has an interest in making Central Expressway more efficient, and so it will be if pedestrians and cyclists are able to access the train station without halting all traffic on the expressway. (The idea for a bridge over the expressway was ruled out due to lack of space near the Caltrain station.)
It’s no surprise to see Toll Brothers object to the tunnel, which is a big project — 20 feet wide and 125 feet long — the cost of which we expect will come right out of the company’s bottom line. But as council member Jac Siegel said, the $6 million is a small price to pay on a housing development worth more than $300 million when completed.
Still, given the current downturn in the nation’s housing industry and its possible impact on Toll Brothers, we are concerned by the strongly worded statement from Price that the tunnel would not be built “in a reasonable amount of time.” If possible, the city should require that Toll Brothers complete the tunnel as soon as the first Mayfield units are occupied, ruling out any possibility that the company drags out construction for years after home sales have begun at Mayfield.
