Just the Facts - FAQ's about the Rail Trail and Rail Service

Across the country it's very common for anti-transit groups to use delay tactics, half-truths, and misinformation to try and stop transit and trail projects from ever happening.

Unfortunately, we are not immune to this anti-transit phenomenon. Two small anti-transit groups, Greenway and Trail Now, often publish very misleading information on social media sites and in their newsletters. Luckily, they are the minority. In fact, 74% of Santa Cruz County residents support our Rail & Trail project. Never-the-less, we often get questions from concerned neighbors who have heard some of the misleading messaging and want to know if it's true - or not. We carefully fact check each of their claims and have included the information below so you can know what's really going on.

Will Aptos Village businesses be forced to close? Short answer - No!

Trail Now has been busy claiming that Aptos Village businesses will be forced to close due to loss of parking. This sounds concerning, so we called the County of Santa Cruz planning department to see if that is true. Although some parking spots will be removed in order to make room for the trail through Aptos Village, the County of Santa Cruz planning department assured us that Aptos Village bussinesses will be able to continue operating and that many new State and county laws will allow them to take advantage of the other parking available in Aptos Village. Further more, the trail and future train service will allow more people to visit the village without needing to park, bringing more customers to these businesses without the need to have a parking space for each one. You can contact the Santa Cruz County Department of Planning here to verify the same: Planning.ZoningInfo@santacruzcountyca.gov

Will the trail be diverted onto busy streets in Live Oak and Capitola? Short answer - No!

Rail Trail segments 8, 9, 10, and 11 from Seabright in Santa Cruz to State Park Drive in Aptos are in final design phases. Although outside consultants suggested that potions of these segments could be delayed and/or moved onto adjacent street to reduce costs, the City of Santa Cruz and the County of Santa Cruz are moving forwards with final designs that keep the rail trail next to the tracks. You can read about the status of each of these segments and find links to the designs here: https://www.railandtrail.org/rail-trail

Did the RTC spend all of the Rail Trail money in North County, leaving nothing for South County. Short answer - No!

In 2016 the County of Santa Cruz passed Measure D, a half cent sales tax to fund transportation projects, including the Rail Trail. We use this reliable local funding source to pay for the initial design and engineering for the Rail Trail as well as a source of local funds to meet the 20-30% match requirements of state and federal construction grants. So far, this strategy has worked very well for us and we have been able to receive significant grant awards from the California Active Transportation Fund, the Federal Connected Communities grant and the Federal Lands Access Program.

To date, the RTC has allocated money to fund Segments 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and parts of 18 from design to construction. These segments cover the North Coast, Santa Cruz, Live Oak, Capitola, Aptos and Watsonville. More sections of Segment 18 in Watsonville were moved forward to go through the design and environmental phases faster in the fall of 2024. The remaining Segments 13-20, are starting their design process as part of the Zero Emission Passenger Rail & Trail project.

Per the most recent update (Summer of 2024), the Active Transportation category of Measure D will have approximately $71.3 million in future remaining capacity to proceed with additional projects. The RTC is looking to increase the remaining capacity by looking into federal and state loans that will sigificantly reduce the currently budgeted interest costs and applying for additional grants. If successful, both these strategies will result in even more funds to be available for construction of the remaining Segment 18 phases, Segments 13-17 from Aptos to Watsonville, and Segments 19-20 from Watsonville to Pajaro.

It's likely other funding sources will be needed to help fund maintenance of the entire trail after it's been built. Read about Santa Cruz County Measure D here: https://www.sccrtc.org/funding-planning/measured/

Can the trail be built faster if we take out the tracks? Short Answer - No!

Taking out our historic rail line, even temporarily through 'railbanking' or other mechanisms will actually delay construction of the Rail Trail. Not only does it make design and construction more complicated and expensive, it also goes against our plans to implement rail service ASAP. Additionally, the agency who approves removal of rail lines, the Surface Transportation Board, has never approved a rail line being removed when there is a rail operator who wishes to use the line. That makes it unlikely to impossible for us to remove the line without an expensive political battle. Meanwhile, no design or construction would be bale to move forward while the legal status of the rail line was being litigated. Therefore, the fastest way to get the trail is to just keep building next to the tracks as we've been planning for all along. There nothing faster than 'under construction now'.

More information about railbanking: https://www.railstotrails.org/trail-building-toolbox/how-to-railbank/

See the constrution status of each Rail Trail Segment here: https://www.railandtrail.org/rail-trail

Will we get a train in our life time? Short answer - Yes!

Telling people 'it will never happen' is a common tactic that naysayers use to help ensure that nothing will ever happen. The reality is that the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission is working in partnership with the Caltrans Division of Rail and Mass Transit and the Federal Railroad Administration to bring passenger rail service to Santa Cruz County on the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line. Our project is included in the California State Rail Plan and the Federal Corridor ID program which helps prioritize us for state and federal grant funding. The current timeline has us designing service now, going through environmental engineering over the next 4 years and then starting construction in 2032. That's in 8 years! While it's possible that this project could be delayed for a couple years if we were unable to secure local matching funds or federal and state grant funding on our projected timeline, the only way this project can be stopped is if locally elected officials vote against moving forward with it.

See the timeline for this project here: https://www.sccrtc.org/projects/rail/zeprt/

Can we pay for the train? Short answer - Yes!

Fear mongering about costs is another common tactic used to try and stop public transportation projects. The real question is, can we afford not to invest in alternative transportation options? In Santa Cruz County not building an alternative means more traffic, more road deaths, and an increasing bill for road maintainance. The funding reality is that we pay for all our transportation projects, including our highways, roads, busses, bridges and bike lanes with a combination of local funds and state and federal grants. The unique aspect of a rail project is that we have access to rail specific grants at the state and federal level that can only be used for projects like this. The choice is up to us, do we want to take advantage of this opportunity to build a new option that will decrease traffic, pollution and long term road maintainance costs? Or should we allow the state and federal rail grants to go to other counties?

Read more about the possible paths for funding and grants available to us here: https://www.railandtrail.org/bignews/funding-public-transit-in-santa-cruz-county

Do you have other burning questions? Write to us at info@railandtrail.org and we'll do the research for you.