Transportation & Parking

Castilleja Families, welcome to your Transportation Portal. Please familiarize yourself with the Traffic Demand Management (TDM) Policies for 2023–2024. Thank you in advance for your support and cooperation!

Questions? Please contact Director of Operations Sherie Graysmark

Traffic reduction and environmental sustainability are long-standing priorities at Castilleja.

We require all employees and families to work with Castilleja to achieve the following goals:

Reduce the number of car trips in the neighborhood
Reduce traffic in the neighborhood
Mitigate our impact on our neighbors

In order to comply with our new Conditional Use Permit (CUP), granted by the City of Palo Alto in June 2022, we ask all community members to follow our guidelines around parking and commuting to and from campus.

We expect every employee, student, and parent/guardian to support our Traffic Demand Management (TDM) program by adopting one or more ways to commute to school other than via single-occupancy vehicle.

Please use one of the following forms of transportation at least three days a week:

Bike or Walk to Campus
Biking and walking are great alternatives for those living within 1-2 miles of school. Castilleja has many bike racks in different locations around campus. See safe bike routes to school here: Castilleja School Safe Bike Routes.

Take Castilleja Morning and Afternoon School Buses/Shuttles
Castilleja has various bus and shuttle routes throughout the Mid Peninsula including San Carlos, Portola Valley/Menlo Park, Los Altos, San Mateo, Burlingame/Woodside, and East Palo Alto.

View the route schedule and sign up here
Ride Caltrain
If you live near a Caltrain station, consider taking the train. Castilleja picks up at the University Avenue station in the morning and provides return service after school via school shuttles. Check out the Caltrain schedules here and Castilleja’s Caltrain shuttle schedule and sign up here.

Carpool to School
Looking for a carpool or friends for your student to walk or bike with? Fill out this form to connect with other Castilleja families who are also interested in forming a carpool.

Parking
Student Drivers (Seniors)

Parking

Castilleja community members, including students, will only be able to park in campus lots and on the school side of the street. There are no longer approved zones across the street from campus or on surrounding blocks.

Consider carpooling, walking, biking, or public transportation to meetings on campus. If you must drive a car to campus for a meeting, you can park in visitor spaces in the Admin lot or on the school side of the street on Bryant, Kellogg, and Emerson. All other parking around campus and in the neighborhood is in violation of our new CUP.

Student Drivers (Seniors)

Moving forward, our new CUP states that we may only allow seniors to drive to school. Seniors may only park in the Senior Lot or on the schoolside of the street. We can grant a small number of juniors parking permission for special circumstances (e.g. they live out of reach of other TDM options, have an injury, etc.) Each case will be evaluated by the Head of School. Please contact Upper School Head Anne Rubin if you need more information about applying for an exception, or if you would like to talk over which commuting option will be best for your family.

Any senior or approved junior who drives to school must register their car using the Vehicle Registration Form. Seniors may park in the senior parking lot or find parking on Bryant, Kellogg, or Emerson on the school side of the street. There are no longer approved zones on surrounding blocks; students who are in violation of these rules will be reported to the Head of Upper School, and disciplinary action will be taken. Multiple infractions will result in revocation of the parking privilege. For our detailed parking violation consequences please see the Student and Parent Guardian Handbook.

Circulation

If you must drive, please follow these guidelines when driving through the neighborhood:

Traffic flows clockwise (right turns only).
No left turns into or out of campus driveways are permitted at any time.
No pick-up or drop-off is allowed in the street. All cars must travel through Castilleja’s driveways in order to drop-off or pick-up.
Watch for bicycles and pedestrians: Bryant Street is an official Bike Boulevard. Exercise special caution when driving and parking on Bryant Street.
No double-parking is permitted at any time.

Drop-Off and Pick-Up

Any car driving to campus must be registered via the Vehicle Registration Form and have a parking sticker affixed to the lower right hand corner of the windshield.

Middle School: Drop-off and pick-up for the Middle School will be on Bryant Street. For families with students in both divisions, use Bryant Street.
Upper School: Drop-off and pick-up for the Upper School will be on Kellogg Street
Carpools: Please use the Employee parking lot at the corner of Kellogg Street and Emerson Street. Enter from Kellogg and exit on Emerson.
Traffic must move at all times on Kellogg, Bryant, Emerson, and Embarcadero. If queuing occurs from the driveway onto the street, please circle the block and return.

Helpful Links

Van/Shuttle Schedule & CalTrain Schedule

VehiCle Registration

Look for a Carpool