CLIMATE IMPERILS COASTAL RAIL CORRIDOR

State Senate panel says changes needed to unite agencies, safeguard trains

Climate change is “wreaking havoc” on the coastal rail corridor from Santa Barbara to San Diego, Sen. Catherine Blakespear said Monday at a Senate Transportation Subcommittee meeting in San Clemente.

Landslides and cliff collapses have periodically stopped the trains in Del Mar and San Clemente, and many other places also need improvements and protection from sea-level rise along the 351-mile Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo corridor.

“There is much to be optimistic for, but ... much that needs to be done,” Blakespear said at the subcommittee’s meeting of elected officials and transportation experts. The committee is focusing on the implementation of Senate Bill 677 for new research to assess the effects of climate change on the rail corridor.

Investments in rail transportation will take cars off the road, lower greenhouse gases, and move people and goods more efficiently, Blakespear said. However, the work is expensive and requires the cooperation of many agencies, which at times has been difficult.

The so-called LOSSAN corridor between San Diego and San Luis Obispo has seven different right-ofway owners, three different passenger carriers and two different freight carriers.

“We have a very complicated situation here,” said Genvieve Giuliano of the Sol Price School of Public Police at the University of Southern California.

For one thing, she said, there is no good model for regional transportation systems. Long-distance travel is well-served, for example, by aviation. Local transportation in large cities has efficient metropolitan systems.

“We don’t have that in the middle, say 50 miles to 300 miles,” Giuliano said. “There is no actual model that has been developed for this