Why is rail trail Santa Cruz County’s only big idea: Can we get more creative?

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Our Santa Cruz County community has seesawed on the rail-trail debate for so long now that we are all tired of the debate. The choice is always presented as binary: Do we give up on our county’s only big, charismatic idea for decisive public-sector action on traffic and housing? Or do we grit our teeth and eat the exorbitant costs of building a rail line of modest capacity in coastal California, hoping that state and federal subsidies turn out to be generous?

Both options are bad. 

But why is passenger rail the only big, ambitious public project that our region is considering? 

As a Santa Cruz resident in my late 20s, I’ve watched friend after friend move elsewhere because they simply can’t envision a future here, often because of expensive housing and grueling commutes. This status quo feels unsustainable, so pursuing an imperfect rail project sounds better than doing nothing.

But as an engineering student, I’ve also been taught to brainstorm and evaluate all possible solutions before choosing which one to pursue. Otherwise, one can invest great time and resources into solutions that are intuitive and elegant, but inefficient or even impossible. With so many of our region’s resources at stake, that logic seems worth applying.

The rail project is simple, inspiring and easy for voters to envision. It has considerable inertia. But should other less charismatic interventions be given the same attention and consideration? 

MORE RAIL & TRAIL: Lookout news coverage | Community Voices opinion

Now is the time to think creatively about what those other interventions might be, before we commit to or reject the rail project. Other communities with similar challenges can give inspiration, while the ZEPRT (Zero Emission Passenger Rail & Trail) Concept Report can provide a benchmark against which to measure cost and impact. Although much of our existing funding is earmarked for transportation, the substantial new revenues that the train would require could be used to fund anything, so our thinking need not be constrained to transit.

One way to pose the question: If the county were to raise $1 to $4 billion (whatever is the local share of rail costs), are there ways that it could generate more impact on congestion and/or housing than by building a train with 5,000 riders per day and a peak capacity of 500 people per hour in each direction? 

Another way, if raising so much money locally sounds impractical or too inequitable:  Can we envision less costly and more impactful programs (or combinations) aimed at the same issues that still feel ambitious enough to generate rail-like levels of public enthusiasm?

I hope that folks better qualified than I am can suggest ideas. Here are a couple I’m curious about, just to get the conversation started.

How far would a similar amount of money go if it were used to build publicly owned workforce housing, or to subsidize private deed-restricted units? 

I’m excited about projects like the 895 affordable units currently being built in Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz City Schools’ educator housing project and the county housing authority’s new publicly owned Natural Bridges Apartments. 

What if we built far more of each? How many people could we take off the housing authority’s many-year waitlist, or how many essential workers could we house at below-market rates? 

The most relevant current effort – the Workforce Housing Affordability Act headed to the Santa Cruz city ballot in the fall – is exciting but relatively limited in geography and scope, aiming to raise just $5 million per year, an ambition far smaller than ZEPRT.

The recent suggestion of an economic development office for Watsonville is interesting and ought to be considered seriously, either on its own or packaged with other rail-alternative projects.

What if we used rail-capable buses to let Santa Cruz Metro skip only the most congested section of Highway 1 with a small, restored section of the rail line? Restoring a few miles of track with few grade crossings and no stations might be easier than restoring the entire rail line. The single track could be used to bypass the more congested highway direction at any given time, with buses going the other way taking the freeway.

Could a ferry system serve the same destinations with far less concrete and steel? This feels unlikely, but the San Francisco-Vallejo ferry carries more than 2,000 daily passengers more than 20 miles at an operating cost of about $21 million per year, comparable to the operating cost of ZEPRT on a per-daily-rider basis. Ferries’ capital costs are low compared to those of railroads, with ~200-passenger fast ferries costing $5-20 million depending on size and age. That said, dock costs, ocean swells, or the constraints of our Marine Protected Area could well torpedo this idea.

Most of the recent discourse and historic activism on passenger rail has focused on the question of what to do with the corridor itself: rail and trail, or trail alone? 

To me, this seems like a false dichotomy. 

With such large expenditures under consideration, the question ceases to be “How can we put the rail corridor to the best use?” and instead becomes “How should Santa Cruz County channel its finite fiscal capacity to solve its biggest problems?”

To the former question, there are only two answers. To the latter, there could be many. 

Now is the time to explore, articulate and generate excitement about what else those might be.

Richard Randall is a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering at Stanford University. His research focuses on climate change mitigation. He’s lived in Santa Cruz for the past 3½ years and visited frequently for two years before that.