Carmageddon: Rail project set for key month, with full project report, public meetings expected ahead of August RTC vote

The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) will be releasing its long-awaited draft project concept report for its ambitious passenger rail project as early as July 21, featuring more details on everything from rail and trail routes to capital and operating cost estimates. 

The agency will incorporate public feedback into a final version of the report to present in the fall to commissioners, who will vote on whether to approve and advance the plan to a preliminary engineering and environmental review phase.

RTC staff brought the draft report’s executive summary to commissioners in mid-June, to mixed reaction. Some commissioners and community members raised concerns over the high price tag — over $4 billion — as well as who will pay for it and how voters would feel about shouldering a potential sales tax to help fund the ambitious project.

The full draft project concept report will be a more in-depth look at many of the same aspects that the executive summary touches on, including possible rail and trail alignments, ridership estimates, station designs and locations, and both capital and operating cost estimates.

At its June meeting, the commission directed staff to produce another report that focuses on how much of the cost of building and operating the train would fall on local taxpayers. It will take a look at this under three different scenarios of taxpayers being on the hook for 20% of the costs of building the train, up to half the costs, and paying for the full cost of operating it.

Additionally, there will be an information session on July 22 that will cover potential station design options. That can be viewed in person at the RTC office at 1101 Pacific Ave., Suite 250, in Santa Cruz, or via Zoom.

Following the information session, members of the community will have a few more chances to connect with project staff and ask questions directly. The RTC is hosting office hours as a substitute for open houses and workshops due to community preference for more face-to-face discussions.

The schedule for those sessions have changed, and will now be held on July 23 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. over Zoom, Aug. 4 in person from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Watsonville Civic Plaza Community Room, and from 4 to 5:30 p.m. on Zoom. Aug. 5 is the final day of office hours from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the RTC’s downtown Santa Cruz office. There will again be Zoom sessions from 4 to 5:30 p.m.

All of this work leads up to the RTC meeting on Aug. 7, when the commission will host a public hearing on the full draft project concept report. Staff will take more feedback at this meeting and incorporate all of the input from the office hours and the public hearing into its final version of the report.

Those interested in office hours can sign up here for in-person sessions, and tune into the Zoom sessions here.

Latest news

Check out our Carmageddon road project list here. This week, pay particular attention to:

• The Highway 1 off-ramps at Park Avenue are still closed as part of the Highway 1 expansion project. The southbound off-ramp will be closed until October. The northbound off-ramp closed April 7 and is scheduled to remain closed until August.

• The Highway 1 on-ramp at Park Avenue is closed for five months as crews reconstruct the ramp. Northbound travelers will be directed to take Soquel Drive to Porter Street to join northbound Highway 1 at the Bay Avenue/Porter on-ramp. Southbound travelers will be directed to exit Highway 1 at the Bay/Porter off-ramp, continue on Bay Avenue to arrive at Park Avenue. The ramp is slated to reopen in November.

• Shoulder work will cause an overnight closure of one lane of northbound Highway 1 between Buena Vista Drive and Rob Roy/Freedom Boulevard from Monday through Friday from 7:30 p.m. to 5 a.m.

• Pavement work, tree work and utility work will shut down sections of Highway 236 in the Santa Cruz Mountains with one-way alternating traffic controls. Those sections are between Azalea Avenue and Branson Ranch Road, Boulder Brook Drive and Park Street, and Big Basin Redwoods State Park and the park headquarters from Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.

• A full closure of the Murray Street Bridge is scheduled to run until February 2026. It will be closed for vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians. Vehicle traffic will be detoured along Soquel Avenue and Capitola Road via Seabright Avenue and 7th Avenue. Bicycles will be detoured across Arana Gulch and along Broadway via Seabright Avenue and 7th Avenue. Pedestrians will be detoured around the north harbor.

• The installation of the Newell Creek Pipeline on Graham Hill Road between Summit Avenue and Lockewood Lane will take place on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and could cause delays of up to 5 minutes.

• Drainage work will close down sections of Highway 9 between Lazy Woods Road and California Drive/Middle Road, Glengarry Road and Russell Avenue, and Rincon Creek Bridge and Henry Cowell Redwoods Vista Point from Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

• Storm damage repair will shut down sections of Eureka Canyon Road in Corralitos for several months. Work will take place only on weekdays from 7:30 a.m. through 5 p.m. beginning on Wednesday and lasting through Oct. 31.

• The Soquel Drive Buffered Bike Lane project will run through Aug. 1 as crews finish installing the underground fiber-optic cable for the new traffic signals along the road. There will be intermittent single-lane closures on Soquel Avenue from Seabright Avenue to La Fonda Avenue, Seabright Avenue from Water Street to Soquel Avenue, and Water Street from North Pacific Avenue to Seabright Avenue.

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