Atherton directs staff to add surface parking at Town Center and pursue Station Lane pedestrian design and one‑way analysis

Staff and consultant TJKM presented a parking and pedestrian study for the Town Center and Station Lane. The Town Center has 98 existing stalls (including EV chargers and accessible stalls) and experiences peak occupancy around midmorning to early afternoon. The consultant found the lot and adjacent areas could yield up to about 17 additional spaces through modest surface improvements; staff recommended an initial package that would add approximately 11 spaces in the mulch area adjacent to the corporation yard and achieve much of the benefit for an estimated total cost of about $85,000 (seal coat, restriping, and minor surfacing), deferring more complex options (utility-vault traffic-rating, larger expansions) for later review.

Councilmembers and residents discussed restriping some areas (narrowing a few 9-foot spaces to about 8.5 feet to gain one or two stalls), leaving the library-facing curved stalls at their current width for families and stroller access, and the distribution of accessible stalls across the campus. Staff said the municipality will coordinate with utility owners on vault traffic-rating if the council wants to use the planter area near Ashefield Road and will verify accessible-parking requirements with the building official before converting any accessible stalls.

On Station Lane, staff presented three alternatives: (1) a 5-foot pedestrian path on the town side between Maple and Watkins (the preferred, most direct option but requiring removal of up to about a dozen trees and costing roughly $200,000); (2) a path on the second block that preserves some parking but is less direct; and (3) a constrained track-side path that would require coordination with Caltrain and utilities and would impact screening vegetation. Police leadership and several councilmembers favored exploring a one-way conversion (south-to-north) to reduce conflict between vehicles and pedestrians and to reduce tree impacts; they also emphasized the need for a crosswalk at Watkins.

Council gave direction to staff to proceed with the low-cost Town Center parking improvements (phase 1: add up to 11 spaces in the mulch area; restripe selected areas but avoid narrowing library-facing curved stalls), to investigate the utility-vault traffic-rating option for the Ashefield planting area (and defer that spot if conversion is costly), and to return after implementing initial parking steps with monitoring results. Council also directed staff to commission a topographic/tree survey and one-way/jogged-alignment analysis for Station Lane, to model options (including one-way conversion from south to north), and to return with design concepts and cost estimates (staff indicated the crosswalk at Watkins is included in estimates and that they would seek to return with design-level proposals within the coming weeks).