A brand new report on the way forward for passenger transit in Santa Cruz County seems to be at the way forward for transportation choices for the Santa Cruz’s coastal rail hall in additional element than earlier research.
The Santa Cruz Department Rail Line is a invaluable infrastructure asset—because it lies inside one mile of 92 parks, 42 faculties and roughly half of the county’s residents, in response to the brand new Transit Hall Options Evaluation and Rail Community Integration Research.
The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Fee (RTC) bought the hall firstly of the earlier decade. The fee first authorised the acquisition in 2010 and finalized it in 2012. Over the intervening years, it grew to become the county’s most contested piece of actual property. The plan has all the time been to construct a motorbike and pedestrian path down the largely deserted rail line. RTC commissioners and employees have additionally needed to introduce passenger rail transit alongside that proposed path, a plan generally often called the “rail path.”
The evaluation gave a positive score to the potential for rail passenger rail transit on the hall—information that the Santa Cruz County Pals of the Rail and Path celebrated on Fb.
Ginger Dykaar, a senior transportation planner, helped spearhead the Options Evaluation and the Unified Hall Research that preceded it. She encourages county residents to go to the RTC’s web site and take a look at the general public on-line open home for the venture via Nov. 27.
“There’s a uncommon alternative right here to make the most of this proper of manner as a devoted transit facility,” she says. “We don’t have a devoted transit facility in our neighborhood proper now, and we’re working towards the bus on the shoulders on the freeway, however having this [rail corridor] as a devoted transit facility would actually present one other service to individuals to journey via Santa Cruz County with out being caught in congestion. And it’ll present an choice for individuals of all ages and skills to journey that that they might not have proper now—individuals who don’t personal a automobile, people who find themselves youthful than the driving age, seniors.”
WHAT ABOUT BUS?
Activists from teams like Path Now and Santa Cruz County Greenway have lengthy raised issues in regards to the rail transit concept—akin to value, low projected ridership and the perceived narrowness of the hall and varied potential operational constraints. They argue new commuter prepare would squeeze out the proposed path, which can be the preferred a part of the plan.
However the idea of a trail-only hall isn’t earlier than the RTC in the mean time. When the fee authorised the hall examine in January 2019, it voted to pursue plans for some sort of transit on the hall alongside the path. That kicked off the brand new Options Evaluation to check what type of transit the RTC ought to introduce.
One of many frontrunners was passenger rail. However one other was bus speedy transit, which might let county residents trip speedy buses up and down the hall, unimpeded by site visitors lights.
Path-only and anti-train teams have additionally proven some openness to the bus speedy transit idea.
The RTC slowly narrowed down its choices, slicing out plenty of proposals, akin to one for a podcar-type private speedy transit system. The newly launched Options Evaluation seems to be at 4 choices: bus speedy transit, two sorts of rail transit and an “autonomous street prepare” that will run like a bus down the railroad tracks.
The excellent news for bus speedy transit is that it has the bottom projected value and one of many highest projected ridership numbers out of any of the choices studied. Nevertheless it nonetheless didn’t find yourself the popular choice.
The report, which is in draft type, lists commuter rail transit and lightweight rail transit as the highest two most well-liked choices. In complete, every of these two choices confirmed the next variety of advantages and fewer drawbacks, in contrast with bus speedy transit.
As an illustration, the report’s projections point out that the 2 rail transit choices have quicker, extra dependable journey occasions, and they’d have fewer greenhouse gasoline emissions.
The bus idea has garnered vital curiosity, although.
It was the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District that pushed the RTC to start an Options Evaluation within the first place. Metro CEO Alex Clifford warned two years in the past that introducing passenger rail service alongside the largely rail hall might be a drain on Metro’s sources, together with its funding. Amongst his issues, Clifford nervous new prepare would mainly drive the bus company to reorient all its routes—slicing again on present routes to as a substitute begin shuttling riders to and from the rail line as a substitute, all whereas competing with the brand new prepare for invaluable transportation dollars.
John Urgo, Metro’s planning and growth director, says his colleagues nonetheless share a few of these issues. Though Metro loved collaborating with RTC employees on the report, he feels that the report’s architects on the RTC seemed on the main points extra narrowly than they in any other case may have. He worries the report, which continues to be in draft type, could also be asking the improper questions. He means that RTC employees might have been too busy finding out what’s finest for the hall itself, when it may have seemed on the greater questions, like what’s finest for the way forward for transportation in Santa Cruz County as an entire.
“We as a area have restricted transportation dollars to work with,” he says. “And we should always all the time be asking, ‘What’s the finest funding for these dollars, whether or not it’s on the rail hall or not?”
TALL ORDER
The report additionally considers it a plus that new rail stations would assist transit-oriented growth, i.e. better housing density close to prepare stops.
To many coverage makers, permitting for taller residence buildings close to transit stops is a no brainer. Elevated density is a method of assembly two targets directly—constructing extra inexpensive housing and likewise making new progress extra sustainable. Nevertheless, lots of the neighborhoods close to the rail line are at present in single-family residential zoning. Meaning nobody can be allowed to construct different sorts of buildings there with out both some kind of rezoning effort on the native degree or zoning reform on the state degree.
Even within the midst of the state’s housing scarcity, zoning adjustments of all styles and sizes is usually a political sizzling potato in Santa Cruz County.
Andy Schiffrin, an RTC alternate serving on behalf of county Supervisor Ryan Coonerty, chaired an ad-hoc committee to assist steer the Options Evaluation course of. He doesn’t wish to share too a lot of his emotions in regards to the report earlier than the general public weighs in, however he’s typically supported research of passenger rail feasibility.
On the identical time, Schiffrin has proven misgivings about growing density on transit corridors, resulting from quality-of-life issues. As a Santa Cruz planning commissioner, he pushed the town to reverse course on its earlier plans that would have allowed for taller buildings alongside a number of the metropolis’s busiest bus routes. Nonetheless, he says there are many unknowns in terms of future transportation and land-use selections within the county.
“I’m all the time just a little nervous about what the longer term holds. The popular various doesn’t finalize something,” Schiffrin says. “It’s a subsequent step. Can we wish to transfer on this route? And there shall be subsequent steps when it comes to creating a marketing strategy and finding out financing. There are all kinds of points that have to be resolved.”
TRAILER PACKAGE
Bud Colligan, a founding father of the anti-train group Greenway, despatched an inventory of 14 questions in regards to the Options Evaluation to RTC Government Director Man Preston—largely about particulars he believes had been disregarded. Colligan says he’s watched because the issues he raised in regards to the rail path performed out in actual time.
He notes that value estimates for the rail path have been going up, and the rail line’s freight operator, Progressive Rail, has proven curiosity in pulling out of their controversial settlement with the RTC—a 2018 settlement that Greenway criticized on the time. RTC spokesperson Shannon Munz says the RTC is working to deal with the corporate’s issues.
Colligan—a enterprise capitalist who was concerned within the early days of Apple—says authorities companies lack the accountability that he’s used to seeing within the enterprise world. “Steve Jobs would are available and hearth this complete fee and begin from scratch,” he says.
Colligan is recent off a marketing campaign victory. His chosen candidate Manu Koenig, Greenway’s former govt director, unseated Supervisor John Leopold, an RTC commissioner, on this fall’s election. He says he and his supporters might look to run extra candidates sooner or later.
At this level, RTC employees is targeted on the Options Evaluation. Munz says they want to get as a lot suggestions as doable.
“We wish to get as enter as we will on these draft outcomes earlier than we take this to our fee,” she says. “That on-line open home is open till Nov. 27. Folks can go at any time, at their leisure and go searching and supply enter.”
There shall be a web based chat session in regards to the Options Evaluation Wednesday, Nov. 18, from 6-7:30pm. For the data on the Options Evaluation and learn how to provide suggestions, go to sccrtc.org/transitcorridoraa.
Information Editor
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Jacob, the information editor for Good Occasions, is an award-winning journalist, whose information pursuits embrace housing, water, transportation, and county politics. A onetime connoisseur of dive bars and taquerias, he has advanced into an aspiring well being meals nut. Favourite yoga pose: shavasana. Comply with him @pierceweekly.
Alex Clifford, Andy Schiffrin, Bud Colligan, Pals of the Rail Path, Ginger Dykaar, John Leopold, John Urgo, lead, Manu Koenig, Metropolitan Transit District, information, Rail Path, Regional Transportation Fee, Ryan Coonerty, Santa Cruz County Greenway, Path Now
