Santa Cruz CA Traffic mess –YES a Rail Trail, NO Train says Jack Brown

written by Jack Brown

“Unfortunately most of the other commenters are part of the trail advocacy groups that spread misinformation about the trail and  couldn’t care less if the trail is built at all.

“They are rail advocates plain and simple.

“For those of us that do ride know that the the trail design advocated by the rail group is substandard.

“A good percentage of the trail would be diverted back onto the road where the trail will not fit with a train. Their train (unfunded and not scalable) takes priority.

“Also note that all of us of that support a trail only on the rail corridor are not seeing it as an ‘end all’ solution.

“We know a trail by itself will not solve Santa Cruz County’s transportation crisis.

“A trail will not solve the problem, but a train definitely will not solve the problem.

“Those of us on the Trail only in the corridor would like to see Bus Rapid Transit along Soquel Avenue,

 

Bus on Shoulder  on Highway 1 along with on ramp metering and other transportation technology improvements to improve flow between all parts of our county.

“A train that is unfunded will not be of the most expensive electric one noted by others on this thread. It will be a noisy, dirty diesel.

“Most of the rail advocates are now pushing for Progressive Rail to take over and to start moving frieght and hazardous materials through the corridor.

“A trail will best protect our environment and keep commuter and freight traffic where it is already allocated, but moving at a higher speed. This has a far greater impact than trying to place a commuter train where there simply is not the width, nor the population to support it.

“The cost for rail will be astronomical with no relief to current traffic. The current proposals run well over $100M to $600M and history of rail projects are massively overshooting their budgets.

“A simple example is the California High Speed Rail project where it was sold to the people as only costing $33B with the federal government paying a third and private business investment covering the rest. Today the cost if esitmated at $77 to $98B with the federal government only proviiding $3.5B in grants and no private investment.

Rail in Santa Cruz is a sham.

There are better, more efficient ways to solve the problem and it’s time we stop spending more good money on a bad idea for Santa Cruz.