Caltrain says electrification, due to be completed by 2022, will increase commute service from five hourly trips in each direction to six hourly trips each way. If high-speed rail ever materializes, even more trains would pass through the Peninsula.

While Menlo Park has been looking into separating tracks from roads, called grade separations, for many years, the matter has become more urgent as Caltrain begins to electrify its trains.

Menlo Park has for the past two years been studying options for the four roads in the city that cross the train tracks.

Residents of Menlo Park's Felton Gables neighborhood, located between Encinal Avenue and the Atherton border, turned out in force at the meeting to oppose the idea of elevating the tracks so Encinal can pass under them.

Atherton's City Council, responding to a request for input from Menlo Park, offered no hope at a Dec. 6 study session that it supports elevating train tracks to separate them from the two track-crossing roadways in the town. The council also expressed no interest in enabling such changes at nearby Encinal Avenue in Menlo Park.

This drawing shows what a grade separation, in which the rail tracks would be raised and the road dropped, might look like at Glenwood or Oak Grove avenues in Menlo Park. Menlo Park had asked Atherton if it might enable a similar grade separation at Encinal Avenue by allowing the tracks to be elevated in Atherton south of Watkins Avenue. (Courtesy city of Menlo Park)

That means Menlo Park can't install the type of grade separation it is considering at Encinal without Atherton's cooperation.

Because Encinal Avenue is so close to the Atherton border, raising the train tracks there would mean they would not return to existing grade until near Watkins Avenue, according to Menlo Park transportation engineer Angela Obeso.

The letter also asked if Atherton is interested in grade separations at Watkins or Fair Oaks avenues, Atherton's two roads that cross the tracks.

In November, Menlo Park Mayor Kirsten Keith sent Atherton Mayor Mike Lempres a letter asking if Atherton would be interested in raising the rail line within the town limits to allow Menlo Park to add a grade separation at Encinal Avenue.

"I wholeheartedly agree ... we need to somehow figure out how to finance the real solution" of dropping the tracks into a trench or tunnel, she said. "I think our communities could come together and figure out a way" to finance such a project, she said.

Councilman Rick DeGolia had a similar view for what to do with the Atherton rail crossings. "The right answer to us" is to add quad gates at Watkins, he said. "I cannot see any reason to seriously consider grade separations at Watkins," he said. "It makes zero sense to me."

"We oppose any elevated grade separation at Encinal," said Felton Gables resident Marcy Abramowitz. Adding safer four-gate railroad crossing quad gates and establishing a quiet zone where train horns are limited "best meet the needs of the neighbors," she said.

Councilman Bill Widmer, who lives on Glenwood Avenue in Atherton, said that if grade separations are put on Oak Grove and Glenwood, there should also be one on Encinal, to fairly distribute the east-west traffic that would use them.

Ms. Lewis said she also opposes the proposed grade separations at Oak Grove and Glenwood avenues in Menlo Park because both streets soon cross the border into Atherton and the grade separations would bring more traffic into the town.

Atherton has little interest in elevating train tracks

Felton Gables residents urged town not to help Menlo Park elevate tracks at Encinal Avenue