San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
FEDS STILL SITTING ON RAILROAD FENCE RULING
Surface Transportation Board will decide who has authority over project
A federal agency responsible for whether Del Mar gets a safety fence installed along its 1.7 miles of blufftop railroad has reached no decision more than 21⁄2 years after the North County Transit District submitted its petition for a declaratory order.
The regulatory hot potato was tossed to the Surface Transportation Board on Aug. 28, 2020, after years of acrimony over the fence between the transit district and Del Mar residents. The California Coastal Commission, the San Diego Association of Governments, the Surfrider Foundation and others have weighed in on the petition.
NCTD Executive Director Matt Tucker has said repeatedly that the fence will not be built until the federal board has issued a decision on the petition.
“No update,” NCTD Communications Director Chris Orlando said Tuesday.
Approval of the petition would give the transit district the sole authority over the fence installation and the ongoing efforts to stabilize the tracks on the eroding coastal bluffs in Del Mar. Otherwise, the work needs permits from the state, the city and other agencies.
Among the responses to the petition last year were a cease-and-desist order requested by the Coastal Commission and a lawsuit filed in San Diego Superior Court by a group of residents called Friends of the Del Mar Bluffs. Neither case has been decided.
The Surface Transportation Board was created in 1996 and is similar to a court in the regulation of national railroad matters.
“Each case is different, so I couldn’t say if the time (the NCTD petition) is taking is typical or not,” STB public affairs officer Michael Booth said
Wednesday.
“There is no statutory deadline for an STB decision,” Booth said previously. “Each case has its own complexity, so there are no comparisons. The board prefers that parties work out their differences before requiring STB intervention. The board has given the space and time for the parties to do that.”
NCTD contributed to the delay when in November 2020 it asked the STB to hold the petition “in abeyance” for 120 days in an effort to resolve the issue through negotiations with Del