Carmageddon: RTC eyes replacing 23 train bridges as it moves toward passenger rail in Santa Cruz County

The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) is taking its first steps to evaluate costs and construction needs associated with possible future passenger rail.

Last Thursday, RTC commissioners voted unanimously to start drafting preliminary designs for how to upgrade and repair the 32-mile Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line to bring it up to industry standards for both passenger and freight travel. 

The work is one of the first tangible stages toward creating a vision of passenger rail in Santa Cruz County, along with public outreach efforts that began earlier this year to get feedback on the biggest transportation needs facing local residents. 

RTC staff are shooting to complete a project concept report by next spring. That report will offer an initial vision of what passenger rail could look like in the county, including aspects other like its environmental impacts, ridership estimates and how much a train could cost. 

A major focus of last week’s meeting was looking at how to update, repair or replace 33 bridges across the county so that they can properly handle both passenger and freight trains. Many of the region’s bridges weren’t built to modern rail standards and aren’t capable of carrying passenger train loads. 

RTC staff inspected the bridges in February and issued preliminary recommendations to replace 23 of them. Those include 16 timber bridges, five steel-girder bridges, one steel truss bridge and one wrought-iron truss bridge. Among them are historic bridges, including the Capitola and San Lorenzo River trestles.

The prospect of upgrading or replacing dozens of bridges across the county – particularly the historic trestles – has alarmed some community members. But RTC Associate Transportation Engineer Riley Gerbrandt said the replacement bridges could be made out of steel, which would allow them to have a similar appearance to the current trestles. He added that there will be more outreach about the structures as the concept report comes together.

While commissioners unanimously voted to begin studying the project, at least one expressed skepticism at the idea of moving forward with passenger rail. Commissioner Randy Johnson said he has reservations about the cost of a train and whether enough people would ride it to make it worthwhile. He also noted that it has taken the commission several years to move from discussing and debating the project to finally taking action.  

Andy Schiffrin, who serves as an alternate on the commission for District 3 County Supervisor Justin Cummings, countered that the reason it has taken so long for the commission to approve a rail study is because of the ongoing disagreements surrounding the project, culminating in 2022’s Measure D.

“The commission was essentially paralyzed because some of its members needed to hear from 73% of the voters that they wanted to protect the rail line in order to agree that we’re going to do this rail study,” he said. “It’s a little bit disturbing to hear the criticism that we’re moving too slowly.”

Cost estimates for upgrading the rail line and its bridges will be clearer next year when RTC staff complete the project concept report, but RTC Senior Transportation Engineer Sarah Christensen said the project “is going to be expensive.” Demolishing and rebuilding a smaller bridge could cost as much as $5 million while a single large bridge could cost into the tens of millions of dollars.

Members of the public spoke at the meeting, sharing mixed feelings about the idea of a train.

Judy Gittlesohn of Watsonville expressed support for studying how to upgrade the region’s rail infrastructure, saying that adapting the train line to be able to withstand passenger rail and freight is “a ticket to getting federal and state funding.”

“With passenger rail and with freight, we can really reduce emissions here and I think it’s necessary,” she said.

Jean Brocklebank said that if new bridges are built, they must be earthquake-safe. “If you’re going to build those bridges and have a passenger or freight rail on them, let’s build them well,” she said.

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

The Pure Water Soquel water purification project continues to move forward, and its current work will affect parts of Laurel Street in Santa Cruz. The installation of an architectural cover for the piping along the Laurel Street bridge will continue this week between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., shutting down one lane of eastbound Laurel Street.

Guardrail repair on southbound Highway 17 will shut down one lane of traffic between the Mount Hermon Road overcrossing and Sims Road from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday, and again between the Granite Creek Road and the Mount Hermon Road overcrossing from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday.

At Tuesday’s Santa Cruz City Council meeting, the council will be voting on the West Cliff Drive 50-year vision, including applying for a state grant to fund a pilot project to transition the roadway to a one-way street with dedicated bike and pedestrian lanes as well as neighborhood traffic calming.

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