What is the Regional Transportation Commission’s plan for the rail and trail?

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A recent Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) study projected a cost of just under $1 billion to bring the existing bridges and culverts on the rail-trail corridor up to required freight train standards. This high price has caused some to question – not for the first time – if the dream of a zero-emission train through Santa Cruz County is feasible.

I say it is – and we have to try.

Many of those questioning the funding make a critical mistake. They assume the RTC wants to get the funding for the train all or mostly from local taxes or existing local government funds. It doesn’t. Even more confusing, some responding to the $1 billion figure act as if this is money we somehow already have – money that will be diverted from other needed transportation or social projects. That is false, too. 

I think most of us can agree our county will need an alternative to Highway 1 and Soquel Avenue for our future population. We need it now, of course, but the problem will only get worse as our population increases. We have to accept that transportation solutions are expensive and that $1 billion for the bridges and culverts plus the addition of billions necessary for stations, sidings and other capital costs are to be expected if we ever plan to address our transportation crisis.

MORE ON THE RAIL AND TRAIL: Lookout news coverage | Community Voices opinion

A bike and pedestrian path through our county is a positive, valuable public amenity, but it is not a transportation solution. It is recreational. Very few people are going to ride a bike from Watsonville to Santa Cruz for work.

So the question for the RTC is what is the best solution for funding a public transit alternative on the corridor that it purchased in 2012 for the transportation needs of the next 100 years of Santa Cruz County residents?

I firmly believe we have to keep what we have and that we can’t do anything that would put the future use of the corridor at risk. I have no doubt that if we tear out the existing tracks  – as some suggest we do – and lay down a recreational bike and pedestrian path, we will never get the right of way back for a critically necessary public transit use. That’s an informed view based on my decades in public office.

So the RTC strategy is to plan our public transit alternative on the corridor based on the freight right of way or easement that was created in the late 1800s. We still don’t know if the RTC owns the entire right of way on the corridor. It owns part of it, but other parts almost certainly are only an easement that would revert to the property owners on each side of the track if the RTC abandoned freight service.

If the RTC loses the right of way, it loses it not only for the public transportation project but for the pedestrian and bike path as well. We would have an option to apply to the federal government for adverse abandonment of the freight line. If this were successful, the federal government –  and not the local RTC – would pay for the court cases with owners who want to claim land on each side of the track.

How likely this is to be successful is a serious question. The federal government does not like to strand existing or even possible freight service by abandoning part of a line, and Roaring Camp Railroad is asserting that it has an interest in freight on the line in the future. Even if the RTC achieves adverse abandonment, it would take years in court before we would finally resolve the ownership issues necessary to proceed with construction of either the public transit project or the pedestrian and bike path.

Let’s also look at the reverse scenario. If the RTC were to abandon the freight right of way, it would need to pay back the more than $11 million in grants the state chipped in to buy the right of way in 2012. The RTC has also spent millions and about two years to develop the plan and do required environmental work on the current pedestrian and bike path alongside the tracks. All work would have to start from scratch if the RTC were to tear out the tracks and build a bike and pedestrian path. The RTC would also have to return the millions in grants it got for the planning and environmental work.

Then, the RTC would need to start new environmental work. And don’t assume that there are not serious environmental issues in tearing out and building on tracks that have lain dormant for over 150 years, possibly dropping toxic chemicals over and beneath the tracks.

The state likes the RTC’s “multi-modal” approach of mixing transportation modes and has been generous with grants, not just for planning the train, but for the bike and pedestrian path, too. The state has given tens of millions of dollars toward trail planning and construction because it likes our rail and trail project. We would have to return those grants if we abandon our current approach.

Will the rail trail eventually require a local tax? Probably. But that is quite a ways off in the future. For now, all costs for rail planning are coming out of grants or the 8% bucket in 2016’s Measure D that the voters gave to the RTC for the rail project.  

Let’s imagine the alternative. It would still be expensive and there would be no guarantee the trail would get built any faster than is happening now. And, let’s say the current train plan becomes too prohibitive. We might then look at a cheaper public transit system like personal rapid transit, which are small automated vehicles that carry small numbers of people.  

That would cost less, but we would also have to abandon our current planned source of state and federal funding, which hinges on a future for rail. So far, even with all the craziness of the Trump administration, there is no indication the feds or the state are weakening commitment to a future for rail. The Trump administration does not like the California High Speed Rail System, but it appears to support funding other rail initiatives around the country.

And, let’s also return to local voters. In 2022, three-quarters of voters in every supervisorial voted in support of both building a bike and pedestrian path and planning a public transportation project down the RTC’s corridor. No doubt, it is not a perfect expression of everyone’s desires, but it does offer clear direction for what our citizens want in a rail trail project.