Quick Take
Santa Cruz County faces a rare moment of alignment: a viable path to build the coastal trail now without railbanking or surrendering the corridor, writes trail advocate Jack Brown. With $96.6 million in secured state grants and designs nearly complete, delay threatens to waste money and momentum. With a “peace deal” to build over the tracks before the Regional Transportation Commission, Brown says rail service remains decades away and financially unrealistic, while a world-class trail is within reach by 2030. This is the county’s chance to choose unity, urgency and a real future, one mile at a time, he writes.
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There comes a time when a community must choose to act. Not because it is easy, but because it is right.
Santa Cruz County stands at such a moment with its decision on the rail trail. We can and must move forward by building the trail along the centerline, putting the grant dollars the community has already secured to work. This is our chance to rise to the challenge before us and complete the trail from Watsonville to Davenport by the end of this decade.
Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) leaders are now exploring a practical “peace deal” that would allow construction of the trail over the existing tracks without railbanking and without giving up the corridor. It’s a rare moment of alignment, a recognition that losing the $96.6 million state grant would harm everyone, rail supporters and trail supporters alike. The details are still emerging, but the message is unmistakable: The window to act is short, and the cost of inaction is enormous. This is the time for courage, clarity, urgency and unity of purpose.
This is our moonshot.
We have the resources. We have the plans. We have the public support. What we need now is the will — the collective determination to finish what we started and give this generation, and the next, a lasting gift: a continuous, safe, world-class coastal trail connecting every community in our county.
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Imagine it.
By 2030, families will be biking from Seacliff to Santa Cruz without hugging the shoulder of Soquel Drive. Seniors walking shaded paths with benches and ocean views. Commuters will be gliding along a smooth route from Live Oak to downtown, skipping Highway 1 gridlock entirely. Kids riding to school on a trail designed for safety and freedom.
That vision isn’t distant science fiction. It’s entirely within reach if we stop letting the nightmare of a $4.3 billion rail project hold the county hostage.
Some facts are clear. The RTC already has over $100 million in secured grants to build the trail, and we can finish it with money left over.
Environmental reviews and design work are nearly done. Every delay costs money and momentum. The only thing standing in the way is indecision.
Meanwhile, the proposed rail line remains a mirage. Decades away, unaffordable, and unsupported by reality. No local rail contractors. No operating expertise. No clear path to funding the next $15 million study or the billions needed for construction, maintenance and operations. Every year spent chasing that train to nowhere is a year we could have spent building something real.
Completing the trail isn’t giving up. It’s growing up.
It’s recognizing that progress is built one mile at a time, not one myth at a time. It’s choosing a future we can actually touch, ride and share. One that makes our neighborhoods safer, our air cleaner and our economy stronger.
A completed coastal trail would bring connection to our communities and commerce to our small businesses. It would connect farmworkers to jobs, students to campuses and visitors to our natural beauty. It would make Santa Cruz County a model for healthy, sustainable human-scale mobility.
And just as the nation once looked to the stars, our community could look to the coast and say: We did this together.
Because this challenge isn’t about politics. It’s about people. It’s about reclaiming the spirit that built our wharves, our bridges, our parks, our libraries and our schools. It’s the spirit that believes we can still do great things when we choose to work as one.
So let us set a bold goal: Complete the Santa Cruz Coastal Trail by the end of this decade. Not in theory. Not on paper. In pavement, boardwalk and bridge.
Let’s hold our leaders accountable, align our funding, and inspire our community to make it happen.
Let this be the decade Santa Cruz County looked beyond division and dared to finish the job.
Because when future generations ride this trail, through the sloughs, the farmland, the redwoods to the sea. They won’t remember the arguments. They’ll remember that we chose to act.
We choose to build the trail, not because it is easy, but because it is necessary. And if we start now, we can finish by decade’s end.
Jack Brown is an information technology program manager in the transportation industry who lives in Aptos. He is the founder and executive director of the Santa Cruz Coastal Trail Conservancy.