Manu Koenig: The rail trail is not dead or seriously threatened; we just have to be careful how we manage our scarce resources

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Last weekend I talked to another Santa Cruz County dad who said he just hoped a trail in Live Oak could still be built because it would be such a great resource to him and his family. I agree. The idea that the rail trail is seriously threatened or dead has been spread online and in the media and it’s just not accurate. Allow me to assure you of a couple of things:

• There will be a trail built in Mid-County.
•  State grants will not be jeopardized by a time extension.

The trail in Mid-County will serve our densely populated urban area and has received significant funding support from the state in the form of a $67.6 million grant. Despite reports that the board of supervisors “failed” to approve these next segments, the reality is we simply asked for a short pause to get needed information on the best way to complete them. 

This pause is unlikely to impact our largest-of-its-kind state grant. Mitch Weiss, our interim Regional Transportation Commision (RTC) executive director, who also happens to be the former executive director of the California Transportation Commission (CTC), which awarded Santa Cruz County the grant, calmly explained this at our April 4 meeting.

“The CTC approved 18 time extensions for active transportation projects last year in June. I do not envision a short time extension jeopardizing this project. Everyone wants this project to succeed and a little more time is not going to stop the project.”

It’s important to reiterate this point, because even if the board of supervisors votes the trail project forward at our April 30 meeting, the months of time required to put together an agreement with Caltrans may still mean it’s necessary to request a time extension – a time extension that does not jeopardize the project.

Why did we ask for more time? Because significant new information is coming out every day that should not be ignored in our decision-making. 

Segments 8-12 are $43 million over budget. It will cost $111 million to build 4.5 miles of trail next to the tracks – $24.5 million per mile. To cover this cost overrun we would have to use up all of South County’s trail fund. We may win other grants, we may not. But we’re risking all of the money for Seascape, La Selva and Watsonville’s trail if we have to cover the whole cost overrun in Mid-County with local dollars. If you doubt this, look at Table 1 on page 6 of the recent RTC staff report. 

None of the scenarios for remaining trail dollars plan for segments in South County, and two out of four show us using more money than we have.

Segment 5, the North Coast rail trail from Wilder Ranch to Davenport, has $5-$8 million of unexpected environmental mitigation fees for red-legged frog habitat.

The first information to come back from our $9 million passenger rail environmental impact report is that 26 out of 33 historic trestles will need to be torn down and replaced in order to build a train. That means saying goodbye to the San Lorenzo Steel Truss Trestle, Capitola Trestle, Aptos Creek Trestle and Hidden Beach Trestle. Each of these will cost tens of millions to replace.

Tracks will have to be moved over closer to peoples’ homes from most of 17th Avenue in Live Oak, through 41st Avenue and Seacliff Drive. At least seven mobile homes will need to be moved or torn down completely, potentially rendering the residents homeless.

We’re seeing increasing conflicts between e-bikes, scooters and pedestrians on West Cliff and East Cliff drives. The rail trail in Mid-County would be 4 feet narrower than what currently exists on the Westside.

None of this information was available when people voted on the rail trail two years ago. Should your elected officials ignore it? A little extra time gives us the opportunity to understand what options we have to overcome challenges and avoid bad outcomes. It gives us time to see whether we get additional grants or not; time for value engineering; time to see if we can come to a definitive agreement with Roaring Camp.

To be clear, I’m not anti-train. I’m anti-boondoggle. I’m anti-bad planning. 

As elected officials, we have to be stewards of scarce resources. We have to make hard decisions all the time about whether to improve fire response time or fix a park when there’s not enough money for both. To this end, we must control costs.

Look what happens when we don’t control costs. I  just returned from the California State Association of Counties convention where even supervisors from the Central Valley just shake their heads when you bring up high-speed rail. One of them suggested that the high-speed rail project is an embarrassment of concrete sinking in the middle of the Central Valley. To finish it would cost about $100 billion more than voters were originally promised. That money is nowhere in sight. The federal government is trying to fix the Baltimore bridge and owes Santa Cruz County $144 million in claims for recent disasters. The state budget is somewhere between $30 billion and $70 billion in the red. 

Why has high-speed rail failed? The right of way. It chose a politically popular right of way down the middle of the Central Valley that required the purchase of new land, and easements adding huge costs. It chose this route to win votes and appease people, rather than follow the right of way the public already owns down the middle of Interstate 5 or simply upgrading the existing coastal railroad tracks. This is the same challenge that faces our rail trail. We’re already seeing the bills rack up in terms of land acquisitions and environmental mitigation in order to pave a new path adjacent to the tracks rather than use the existing one created by the rail. We may be able to do value engineering to succeed despite these challenges, we may not. We need more time to know.

RTC Commissioner Mike Rotkin, who is also a Lookout politics columnist, recently suggested that if the rail project in our county is going to fail, it should fail on its own accord, not because anyone voted to stop it. But when do we declare it a failure? If the cost to build rail is $2 billion, will commissioners admit it’s out of reach? $3 billion?

Unlike desalination in the city of Santa Cruz, a previous failed project that Rotkin supported, rail trail is not an all-or-nothing proposal that will fail gracefully by collapsing in on itself. It is a phased project that will have progressively more impacts as it lurches forward and sucks money away from other projects. In this way, it’s also similar to high-speed rail.

Some of my fellow commissioners have already suggested that we should just sacrifice the South County segments of the trail in order to cover the current cost overruns. If budget overruns continue, you can bet that other transportation revenues will be grabbed for – money that is sorely needed to improve safety and fix conditions on our neighborhood streets; money that could extend our bus-on-shoulder lanes and bring effective transit closer to more potential housing sites.

After the 2022 vote on Measure D, the RTC unanimously voted to move forward a $9 million passenger rail environmental impact report. I supported that motion and the will of the people to keep studying rail. This study will be completed by March 2025. It will tell us where the stations would go, how much the land for them will cost, how much replacing all of those bridges will cost, and whether the California Coastal Commission will allow us to build retaining walls along the eroding coastal bluffs.

What’s crazier, a study that costs $9 million (for the first half) or not waiting for the results of that study before committing to spend over $100 million? What do you expect from the stewards of your tax dollars?