In a letter to the editor, a Santa Cruz resident expresses doubt over the future of local passenger rail under the current leadership of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission.
rail trail opinion
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Let’s keep the tracks
In a letter to the editor, a Santa Cruz resident urges Mayor Fred Keeley to support a rail trail option that doesn’t involve removing the existing train tracks.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: A persisting bike dream
In a letter to the editor, a Soquel resident writes about his hopes for a bike trail from Watsonville to Santa Cruz’s Westside.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Tracks aren’t the train
In a letter to the editor, a Live Oak resident takes issue with those urging regional transit authorities to bury existing train tracks under upcoming segments of the Coastal Rail Trail instead of removing them.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
The RTC finally chooses progress over paralysis on the rail trail
The RTC’s vote for the interim trail marks the first real movement on the rail corridor after a decade of drift, writes Doug Erickson, founder and executive director of Santa Cruz Works. The interim trail — buildable, fundable and immediately useful — aligns policy with reality and public demand.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Let’s not call the new rail-trail plan a ‘peace deal’: Paving over rail for 20 years rejects voters’ will
Local activist and yoga instructor Mark Stephens argues that the Koenig–Keeley “peace deal” approved last week by the RTC is not a harmless compromise but a 20-year removal of rail service that effectively kills future commuter rail in Santa Cruz County. He notes that voters overwhelmingly rejected that idea in 2022, when 73% voted against Measure D’s trail-only vision. Stephens warns that paving over tracks would make restoring rail economically and politically impossible, despite claims of a temporary fix. He urges officials to honor the public mandate and take any plan that eliminates rail back to the ballot box.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Santa Cruz’s moonshot: Build the trail now and stop chasing a rail mirage
Santa Cruz County faces a rare moment of alignment: a viable path to build the coastal trail without railbanking or surrendering the corridor, writes trail advocate Jack Brown. With a “peace deal” to build over the tracks before the Regional Transportation Commission, Brown says rail remains decades away and financially unrealistic.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
The rail-trail ‘peace deal’ is political theater: It rests on shaky legal ground
Santa Cruz County’s rail-trail “peace deal” promises 20 years of trail use, but it’s built on shaky legal ground, writes retired software engineer Peter Gibson. Federal freight rights — not local politicians — ultimately control the corridor, and those rights can’t be suspended by agreement.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Why is rail trail Santa Cruz County’s only big idea: Can we get more creative?
Is the rail trail really Santa Cruz County’s best bold idea? Stanford Ph.D. student Richard Randall argues it’s time to imagine alternatives — like massive workforce housing, smarter buses or even ferries — before sinking billions into a train with modest capacity.
Posted inLatest News
Street view: Santa Cruz County residents split on $4.3 billion train and trail
Lookout photojournalist Kevin Painchaud took to the streets to talk to residents about their perspectives on the planned passenger train and 32-mile coastal trail, whether they would regularly use either, and if they would support higher sales taxes to help pay for the ambitious projects.
