What Santa Cruz County Will Lose if the Tracks Are Demolished

by Friends of the Rail and Trail

Local Transportation Agency Putting Both Rail and Trail at Risk

After years of advancing a Rail & Trail project that would preserve the rail corridor while building a continuous trail, in December of 2026 the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) shifted toward pursuing a trail-only approach for the Mid-County corridor. That change has created new legal and regulatory questions that could ultimately delay the trail and jeopardize the future of passenger rail.

The stakes are high. Santa Cruz County is living with a transportation system that simply doesn't work. 

People want to be able to go south in the evening. People want to be able to go north in the morning. But with the current transportation system, it can take an hour to go a few miles. Everyone has felt the pain of getting stuck in our terrible rush-hour traffic. And unless we invest in Rail and Trail together, things will not get better. The Regional Transportation Commission predicts their ongoing highway widening projects will result in congestion staying the same or getting worse. 

The Solution is Investing in both Rail and Trail

Rail transit is the only option we have for a peaceful, reliable, traffic-free way to get back and forth across the county, no matter what time of day.  A health care worker recently told us, "I work on the Westside, I live in Watsonville. It took me two hours to get home from work last night." This is not sustainable. This is not a good way to live.

Having rail transit will allow the 77% of Santa Cruz commuters who commute within Santa Cruz County to get to work by rail instead of driving. It will let countless families have one less car, and use the savings for other things. Public transit will become a pleasure to use, even during rush hour.  Essential workers switching to commute by train will also reduce overflow traffic on our surface streets, giving everyone a more peaceful and safer quality of life. 

Recent Agency Missteps

The RTC leadership has repeatedly expressed confidence that changing course will accelerate trail construction through Mid-county. We remain skeptical. Based on the legal issues that have already emerged, we believe the opposite may prove true.

Progress Has Slowed

Today, the Mid-County Trail is no longer moving forward under the same plan that secured more than $100 million in state Active Transportation Program funding. Instead, the RTC is pursuing a series of legal and regulatory actions to remove rail infrastructure while attempting to preserve future options.

Those actions have yet to receive all of the necessary approvals, and several significant legal questions remain unresolved. Every additional regulatory step creates opportunities for delay, litigation, and rising construction costs.

Unfortunately, what was once presented as the fastest path to completing the trail may instead become one of the slowest.

Capitola Decisions Added More Risk

These challenges were compounded by decisions made in Capitola to reject a less expensive, parallel alignment near Park Avenue that would have preserved both rail and trail while avoiding some of the most difficult engineering challenges.

That decision increased project complexity and narrowed the available options for completing the corridor.

Federal Rail Law Still Matters

As many residents learned during the Greenway ballot campaign, the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line is the only connection between the Felton Branch Line, operated by Roaring Camp, and the national rail network.

Federal law gives the Surface Transportation Board responsibility for protecting those rail connections. Permanently severing an active rail operator from the national system without following the required federal process presents significant legal questions.

The RTC's current strategy relies on a federal "discontinuance" process that is used to suspend rail service while repairing a line, not to remove track infrastructure. Whether that process can legally support large-scale track removal remains uncertain and could ultimately be challenged.

Property Rights Could Trigger Additional Litigation

Another unresolved issue involves property rights along Segment 11 in Aptos.

Experts have warned that if the RTC removes the railroad under a discontinuance rather than through the federal railbanking process, adjacent property owners may have grounds to challenge the continued use of portions of the corridor or seek compensation for property interests. If those claims move forward, they could add years of litigation before construction resumes. And litigation will certainly add to the cost of the trail project.

Whether those lawsuits ultimately succeed is unknown. However, the possibility of prolonged legal disputes creates additional uncertainty for a project already facing rising costs and tight grant deadlines.

Our Concern

We support completing the Mid-County Trail as quickly as possible. We also support preserving the rail corridor so future generations retain the transportation options that voters have repeatedly endorsed.

Our concern is simple: changing course after years of planning has introduced legal and regulatory risks that were largely avoided under the original Rail & Trail approach.

If those concerns prove well-founded, the result could be years of additional delay, escalating construction costs, and the loss of valuable state and federal funding opportunities.

Everyone who wants a completed trail should expect a strategy that minimizes legal risk rather than increases it. We hope RTC commissioners carefully evaluate these issues before taking actions that could jeopardize progress on both the trail and the rail corridor.

Caltrans is Carrying our Rail Project Forward

Caltrans Rail is committed to our rail corridor and is already working on the project. They have added the Santa Cruz Branch Line to the State Rail Plan, and have gotten federal grants to develop a realistic phased implementation plan that could start construction in the next 10 years. 

The biggest asset we have, and our strongest competitive advantage over other projects, in the USA is that we already have a rail line. 

Federal grants cover 80% of the final engineering and construction cost for passenger rail projects in the USA. But as of today, our rail project isn't yet ready to apply for those grants. Caltrans is doing the work to get us ready. 

People say that rail is expensive. But the question is, expensive for who? Compared to what?

• The annual vehicle, insurance, and maintenance costs for a car average $10K a year.

• It costs roughly $10 in gas to drive the 18 miles from Watsonville to Santa Cruz and back. That is $2,600 per year in gas alone.  

• Contrast that with a 1% sales tax, which in California runs the average family about $250 a year. 

Having rail transit will mean affordable, reliable transportation that can easily be boarded with a bike or a wheelchair. Rail transit as the foundation of our public transportation system will get us out of traffic and create a more affordable county with a higher quality of life for everyone.

Democracy and Rail at Risk

Unfortunately, the Caltrans Rail work is being undermined by our own local Regional Transportation Commission. The agency that should be working to improve and modernize our transportation system is instead seriously considering demolishing the tracks. 

This presents huge risk for the rail project.  

• First, removing the tracks would undermine the Caltrans effort. Federal grant agencies look at readiness criteria and at local commitment to rail. Track removal sends exactly the wrong message. 

• Second, once the tracks are removed, restoring them for rail service becomes extraordinarily difficult, expensive, and politically unlikely. 

In the entire U.S. of A., there is not one place where railroad tracks were demolished, replaced with a paved trail, and then later the trail was demolished, the tracks rebuilt, and a new paved trail was built in a new alignment alongside the tracks. The RTC assertion that we can demolish the tracks while pursuing rail is a fantasy. 

Transportation Matters

Transportation determines who can participate in community life, and how. It shapes access to jobs, education, healthcare, and recreation. The choice before us is not simply about infrastructure. It is about whether or not we consign the future of Santa Cruz County to a downward spiral of worsening traffic congestion and increasing segregation, year after year. 

Removing the tracks would close doors that can never be reopened.

How did it Come to This?

The tragedy is, Santa Cruz County was never forced to choose between trail-only versus rail. 

The county purchased the Santa Cruz Branch Line In 2012, after ten years of advocacy from Friends of the Rail & Trail in a coalition of local and regional leaders. The county purchased the rail line using a rail grant, with the explicit intention to provide passenger rail service with a walking and biking trail alongside.

Since that day, community members, transportation and cycling advocates, elected leaders, and public agencies have all been united in the Rail & Trail movement, carrying forward projects that build the trail beside the tracks while continuing to work towards rail transit. 

Building projects in California is never easy, but we have seen remarkable success.

A Newcomer Opposes the Rail Project

In 2022, an organization calling itself 'Greenway,' founded and funded by Orange County transplant and recreational cyclist Bud Colligan, placed a measure on the ballot to do two things: 

• Remove rail planning from the county general plan

• Prioritize removing the tracks and paving a trail down the center of the rail corridor 

  
  

The Voters Deliver a Mandate for Rail

To Mr. Colligan's surprise, the Greenway ballot measure was defeated by a crushing landslide.

Santa Cruz County voters affirmed support for keeping the tracks and continuing with rail by an unprecedented 73%. The Greenway measure lost in every city and every supervisorial district throughout the county.

Residents walked away from the ballot box relieved, knowing that the election sent a mandate to keep the tracks and pursue rail and trail together. 

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end. The Greenway plan lives on, enshrined in bureaucracy and carried forward by mismanagement and lack of transparency at the RTC. T

The failures around the rail corridor reveal a troubling pattern of mismanagement and disrespect for the voters. 

Mismanaged ZEPRT Study

One of the most serious RTC missteps was the development of the bloated and unsubstantiated cost estimate in the RTC's Zero Emission Passenger Rail and Trail concept study. 

Independent transportation experts have challenged both the cost estimate and the overall study as deeply flawed. Engineering reviews pointed out significant problems with the assumptions, methodology, and comparisons used in the analysis. These reviews noted that the study lacked any value-engineering cost-saving analysis and lacked any analysis of phased implementation options. The projected cost per mile was wildly out of scale with comparable projects across the state. 

Rather than conducting a transparent and collaborative process to refine costs and evaluate opportunities, the RTC kept the basis for the ZEPRT cost estimates hidden and allowed the suspect numbers to dominate public discussion. As a result, many residents were left with the impression that rail was impossible before the project had ever been seriously developed.

Lack of Communication in Capitola Led to Disaster

At the same time, the RTC mishandled public communications surrounding trail options through Capitola. 

Trail staff had developed a cost-saving design for the trail in Capitola, bringing it into alignment with the Park Avenue sidewalk. It was a good design that lowered costs, added safety benefits, and increased neighborhood access. Unfortunately, rather than being transparent and taking the time to explain the benefits of the redesign, the RTC presented residents with a last-minute barrage of incomplete and confusing information. Greenway took advantage of this, building mistrust and division. Eventually an embattled and confused Capitola city council refused to accept the new trail design. 

The result has been years of delay, conflict, and lost opportunity. 

RTC Following the Greenway Plan

To add insult to injury, the RTC now seems poised to pursue Greenway's plan for track removal through Mid-county. The RTC is considering this action despite serious questions about whether taking out the tracks will be able to deliver any trail at all. 

Track demolition on our rail line is not legal

As we learned during Greenway's failed ballot campaign, the Santa Cruz Branch Line provides the only connection to the regional rail network for the Felton Branch Line, which Roaring Camp owns and operates. The federal Surface Transportation Board, which regulates rail lines, is charged with protecting rail operators. Severing a rail operator from the regional network without their consent is prohibited. 

The RTC's new plan of record is to use a shady maneuver designed to get around the legal requirements. The idea is to use a 'discontinuance,' which is specifically intended for the purpose of repairing tracks. Not demolishing them. We foresee problems.  

Property Litigation Risks

Property owners on Segment 11 in Aptos are estimated to own between $10 and $30 Million worth of land under the rail easement. If the RTC uses discontinuance to remove the tracks rather than repairing them, those property owners will be able to bring suit to either get the land or be compensated at current market value. 

Ironically, the very strategy the RTC is promoting as the fastest way to build a trail would instead create serious legal and regulatory risks, with the potential to add years of delay. Delay that will drive further cost increases. 

Even for a trail-only supporter, this is not a good plan. We should expect better from our public agencies. 

Santa Cruz County does not need to choose between Rail and Trail

We can preserve our rail corridor, maintain eligibility for future rail investments, and continue building the trail network that residents want. The real question is whether the RTC will risk sacrificing one of the county's most valuable public assets for a legally questionable trail-only plan that voters have already rejected. 

The rail corridor is in the middle of a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Our local agency should be doing everything possible to support the work of Caltrans Rail to make our project eligible for federal construction grants. Not recklessly pushing forward with backroom maneuvers to take out the tracks. 

It’s up to our elected commissioners to change directions and put the RTC back on track.