santacruztrail.org

Paul Schoellhamer

Think tearing up the tracks would get the rail trail built sooner? Think again. Tearing up the tracks would devastate our chances of getting the rail trail built in our lifetimes.

Much of the funding to build the rail trail will come from the California Transportation Commission, which also provided the state funding for local purchase of the rail line and for rehab of the rail trestles. That state funding provided to our county by the CTC was by law for rail purposes, and the only way we got that money was by committing to operate some level of rail service. If we now tear up the tracks and go to the CTC and say we’d like other funds to build the trail, they are likely to find other projects in the state more worthy of their commitment. It will be extremely difficult to get the rail trail built without funding from the CTC.

Keep in mind as well that a majority of all funding received by our local Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) for transportation projects anywhere in our county is allocated to us by the CTC and can be allocated to other parts of the state. In fact, in the past few years it has been a very substantial majority.

Our local RTC is the countywide entity that now owns the rail line thanks to the CTC and has quite rightly put the rail trail on the fast track (so to speak). Within a couple of months of acquiring the line they made public a draft master plan for a trail along the entire length of the rail line, from the Pajaro River to beyond Davenport. Separated from car traffic and very nearly level, it will be incredibly popular with residents and tourists alike. Public response has been overwhelmingly favorable.

In contrast, any consideration of significantly expanding passenger rail service is on a much more deliberate track. RTC is just beginning to analyze future rail options. For now and the foreseeable future we meet our rail obligations to the CTC with occasional freight service and occasional recreational service. Any decision to do significantly more than that is many years away, a time period in which RTC will study options, make information available to the public, and provide for a thorough public discussion of options. For those who want to argue for or against increased rail service, that’s the time and place to do so. And there will be lots of time for those arguments.

If we were to now put that long-term rail decision ahead of building the trail, that would take the trail off the fast track and put it behind the train on the slow track. The RTC has it right by saying we should build the trail first and then consider over a much longer term whether we want to increase rail service or not. Who knows, our decision on the rail question may hang on how much gasoline costs years from now, not something we have any way of knowing today.

So let’s not hold the rail trail hostage to endless debates about the long-term future of rail. Let’s get to work now on building the rail trail as proposed in the draft master plan, and we’ll have years to discuss and decide what level of rail service is appropriate to our community in the long term. First things first.

________________________________________________________________________

Paul Schoellhamer is a retired congressional staffer specializing in transportation and environment issues, and is now on the Board of Friends of the Rail & Trail.