North Coast Railroad Authority, TRANSDEF at odds over railbanking for trail
UKIAH >> Tensions flare between the Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund — a Bay Area nonprofit transportation advocacy group —and North Coast Railroad Authority following the NCRA’s refusal to rescind its decision to railbank a section of the railbed between Humboldt and Mendocino counties to make way for the proposed Great Redwood Trail.
According to several letters between the two organizations in the last month, TRANSDEF asserts the NCRA board has no legal authority to begin the process of railbanking, while the NCRA maintains it is covered by California SB 1029.
According to the National Trails System Act and Railroad Rights-of-Way, the railbanking statute allows a railroad to remove all of its equipment — with the exception of bridges, tunnels and culverts — from a corridor and to turn the corridor over to any qualified private organization or public agency to maintain it for future rail use.
TRANSDEF President David Schonbrunn said North Coast Sen. Mike McGuire’s SB 1029, which laid the groundwork for the Great Redwood Trail proposal, is “meaningless as a legal authority.”
“(The NCRA) claimed that the legal authority for the board having acted to railbank is a segment of SB 1029 that states the Legislature’s intent,” Schonbrunn told the Times-Standard on Monday. “We have told the NCRA that legislative intent language is meaningless as a legal authority. Not only that but the passage that they cited says some other entity other than NCRA would possibly railbank. So that’s hardly a justification or a foundation for NCRA taking the actions they’ve taken.”
The section of SB1029 referenced by Schonbrunn said, “The Legislature finds and declares that it is in the public interest to dissolve (NCRA), and to transfer its rights-of-way to other entities for the purpose of potentially developing a trail that could include railbanking and continuing freight where it was operational on January 1, 2018.”
“Railbanking is a means of protecting the legal right of way if one tears out the tracks,” Schonbrunn said. “There’s no need to railbank if the tracks remain in place.”
In this case, NCRA executive director Mitch Stogner said railbanking only applies to the 100mile stretch of tracks from Willits up to Humboldt Bay, adding that most of the track will remain intact.
“There are a couple of portions of the right of way where, in order to make the construction of the trail less expensive and address practical and infrastructure issues were, the (County of Humboldt) is contemplating removal of the rail and raising the
rail prism,” Stogner told the Times-Standard on Monday. “For the most part, the trail will be built on top of the rail and, in other sections, it will be so-called rails with trails which means it’ll be next to the trail.”
Schonbrunn said TRANSDEF is fine with a trail alongside the rail line but reiterated his point that “there is no reason to railbank if you’re not ripping up the tracks.”
When asked if TRANSDEF would pursue litigation against the NCRA, Schonbrunn said, “I don’t want to be too definitive right this moment, but we seek to get this resolved.”
The attorney representing NCRA called any legislation filed against the group “frivolous.”
“You may of course address your concerns to the California Legislature. However, I reiterate on behalf of NCRA that any litigation filed against NCRA or its interests in connection with railbanking of MP 139.5 north would be totally frivolous,” wrote Elizabeth Coleman, deputy county counsel from Sonoma County, in an April 2 letter on behalf of the NCRA.