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A Feb. 18 Community Voices opinion piece titled “Santa Cruz needs a reality check on the rail-trail project” is hyper-romanticised commentary on the vision of passenger rail in our county. It demonstrates precisely why so many studies have produced no actual progress on rail – none has shown that there will be enough passengers – or funding – to support the massive cost. 

The piece by Matt Farrell never mentions cost or the taxes that we will all pay for this dubious venture. Right now we can’t even repair our streets – but we should build an entirely separate transportation infrastructure? Seriously?!

Here are some obstacles to rail not mentioned in the commentary: replace 22-plus bridges and the Capitola trestle, find a solution for our crumbling coastal cliffs under the tracks, shore up sinking tracks across Watsonville’s sloughs due to sea level rise, address the seldom-mentioned fact that our 100-plus-year-old tracks will have to be entirely replaced for any future train. What else?

Passengers? The tracks are more than a mile from our largest employers, so who will ride this train? Traffic relief? What about local street access from trains going by four times an hour? 

Passenger rail is an unaffordable fantasy for the indeterminate future, but here’s the bait-and-switch: We were promised a trail next to the tracks. Remember “We can have both?! Rail and trail!” Nope! Now it’s a narrow trail phenomenally priced at what I estimate is $26 million per mile, half of which is bike lanes detoured onto streets. What should cost $5 million per mile, now costs five times as much for half the length. And we’re still calling it a rail trail?

Greenway’s just the messenger. If rail requires far greater population and far more money then let’s do the best thing we can do soonest for the climate and for our transportation priorities: build a safe, wide, and affordable bike and pedestrian trail now and leave the indeterminate issues of rail for some future era.

Nadene Thorne

Santa Cruz