Project faces a greater divide

Two camps — rail and trail and trail only — have delayed the acceptance of the locally preferred alternative once again

SANTA CRUZ >> After a three-anda-half-hour long public hearing Thursday on the final draft of the rail-trail study prepared by Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission staff, the commission voted to close the public hearing and bring the item back for review in February.

“It won’t be a public hearing but it will be on our agenda,” board chair and Watsonville City Councilman Aurelio Gonzalez said after the meeting. “People will still be able to comment.”

Members of the commission itself reflected two different frames of mind going into the project — those who believe rail and trail are best and those who don’t want a rail. Individuals, groups and agencies that partnered with RTC to create the study, formally known as the Transit Corridor Alternatives Analysis and Rail Network Integration Study, primarily fall into those categories.

Survey results, emails and letters of support show that most local advocacy and partner agencies favor the study’s “locally preferred alternative” of electric passenger rail. The Sierra Club, Regeneracion — Pajaro Valley Climate Action, Ecology Action, Friends of the Rail and Trail, Caltrans, Watsonville City Council, Santa Cruz City Council, the Transportation Agency for Monterey County and countylevel advisory groups such as the Bicycle Advisory Commission all favor the idea largely because of the carbon emissions that would be cut by a passenger rail.

A few business owners wrote to the RTC, public documents show, stating that it would help their operations. Golden Love, CEO of the landscaping company Love’s Gardens in Santa Cruz, cited ease in transportation for his staff as a benefit to supporting the passenger rail.

But another population, advising groups such as Greenway and Trail Now have found faults in the idea — that it’s too pricey, that it would be too loud or that it’s simply unnecessary (among other issues).

One common belief that all involved parties share is that the project is important. When

commission member and Capitola City Councilman Jacques Bertrand questioned whether the public would approve of the project, senior transportation planner Ginger Dykaar pointed out the project’s extensive public outreach efforts — efforts she said yielded more than 1,000 survey responses and approximately 275 email comments.

Passion led residents to get imaginative in discussing the rail-trail project, using phrases such as “expensive choo-choo train” and “nothing more than a fantasy boondoggle.” The commission and its staff, which have heavily studied the rail and trail option for some time, were told to “wake up and smell the coffee” in another response from a member of the public.

Those who spoke in favor of the rail alternative largely spoke of the essential workers who still needed public transportation to get around, especially those from South County — a potent retort after board member and Scotts Valley City Councilman Randy Johnson speculated that many wouldn’t need a rail because of the Zoom-infused work environments society has embraced as a result of the pandemic. Re-generacion Executive Director Nancy Faulstich lamented that a class of students who wanted to weigh in couldn’t because the hearing had run so long they had to return to class; another representative of the youth in the county was brought to tears.

“The importance of passenger rail for students in South County and the workers cannot be overstated,” former South County student Faina Segal said. “This provides opportunities to get to universities and schools that they are not otherwise afforded… A personal vehicle is not an option, a $200 bicycle is not an option. Public transportation is about investing in the community.”

Many against the rail requested that the decision be put to public vote on the 2022 ballot to be approved by two-thirds of voters, as they don’t feel Measure D was explicitly designed to fund a rail line. Others, such as members of Trail Now, asked the RTC to choose trail only and speed it up so that pedestrians and cyclists could enjoy the facilities sooner rather than later.

“My home that I have lived in for 30 years is adjacent to the rail trail,” Santa Cruz resident Royce Fincher wrote in a letter. “I may be able to be called biased due to the fact that I live on the rail line, but I have seen enough to know what is going on in this corridor… please consider a more down to earth plan and put the big-city metro dream to bed for a minute.”