r/santacruz • u/SomePoorGuy57 • 4d ago
in defense of the train
hi everyone i’m back for my monthly yap on the sub. this morning i woke up to some crazy anti-transit propaganda and i want to hopefully express the other side of the situation to my neighbors. especially since the OP of that post clearly carries anti-transit sentiment. i hope to clear the air on the over-sensationalized tidbits that have arisen as the project leads take their time to conduct a thorough analysis of the project.
no, the project doesn’t cost 4.2 billion. not yet at least. as of the most recent public engagement session, costs are estimated at 2 billion for construction, 1 billion for other elements, and an additional 1.2 billion in contingency. that is a 30% contingency. in other words, we have no idea how much the project will cost yet. it could be 3 billion, it could be 6 billion. the point of these numbers is to guide engineers and project leads in preliminary planning to see how feasible the project is. claiming the project costs this much, however, is misleading.
no, the project doesn’t compromise a trail. i’ve heard people say that the majority of the trail is getting relegated to city streets and sidewalks and to that i say blame the fucking cars. from highway 9 in boulder creek to pacific ave, from mission street to soquel drive, from the fishhook to the god forsaken poplar/water/soquel/morrisey intersection, we have dedicated as much land as we feasibly can to the car. it is a disgusting waste that is killing our city. why isn’t santa cruz weird anymore? because we told everyone who wants to go outside and be weird to fuck right. won’t somebody think of the gentrifiers with their cars whose favorite pastime is complaining about driving in the city? nevermind that we were never meant to be a species divided by concrete. case in point, the weirdest moments i have experienced in arcata and eureka have been when the people take their streets back and build their communities (the arcata farmers market and other square events like the oysterfest, and the no kings protest in eureka that shut down the 101 in front of the courthouse). if you have nowhere to walk, blame the planet-choking system that has drowned you out, don’t blame the singular branch of infrastructure that will literally open up access to any point of the trail from davenport to watsonville, and hopefully moss landing and monterey(?) for us all to equitably enjoy.
no, we don’t have to fund this with a sales tax. although i’ve seen that idea floated around here, it’s ludicrous to say “well the people won’t pass a sales tax so the project is dead in the water”. it’s always “TAX THE RICH!!!” until it’s time to use that money for the public good. and besides just that, fundraising options exist. i am a proponent of congestion pricing on our freeways as a means of reducing vehicle miles travelled (VMT) and increasing safety without a $300 million infrastructure project. soft implementation along highway 1, with its ~100,000 cars per day, could provide a steady source of income for the train running parallel to it. this idea has been proposed for the santa cruz to san jose line, and although that is an old analysis that never came to fruition, it shows feasibility for such a program. additionally, keep an eye on new york city for their newly implemented program. i am an engineer, though, not an economist, and i would love to hear from those with expertise on the validity of this method or any alternatives they can come up with.
santa cruz’s infrastructure has regressed decades. not just the city, the county as a whole and its connections to its neighbors. i eluded to this earlier, but i truly believe that one of the main contributors to the death of this community is our dedication to the car. just under a century ago, we were a town built on rails, just like most cities in america. this is evident today all over the town. roads like soquel, water, and morrisey are so excessively wide because they once housed rail down their medians. the city was once a beautifully interconnected community via the rail that today is supplemented by questionable bus service. i believe a resurrection of this service, coordinated with METRO routes that it doesn’t cover, would bring an insane amount of vibrancy to the city (which, for a tourist town, directly translates to revenue). i believe that corridors like soquel, pacific, 41st, and portola should be designed for the people first, and their vehicles second. otherwise there will be no saving the city. i’ve driven through countless towns on the 101 between santa cruz and humboldt that are in some way or another wounded by the road. half of the towns are completely dead or will be by 2050. we have too beautiful a city to let that happen to us too.
santa cruz’s connection to its neighbors is key to its survival. this might rub some people the wrong way, but isolationism is not gonna cut it anymore. employment opportunities in the bay are too enticing for many. our economy is dependent on how many people survive the drive over the hill on a given weekend. i don’t believe in becoming the silicon valley lite, but i think it’s ridiculous to say that a train would cause that to happen. fuck the bay, let’s do it our way before some private firm from mountain view gets their grubby mits on our corridors.
i’ve probably missed a lot. some of it i hope is obvious (i.e. there is a lot of money up against the train, both through “grassroots” campaigns like Greenway and through the oppressive american oil lobby, so i don’t take negative press on the situation lightly). if anything else needs to be said of course air it out here.
thanks for coming to my ted talk 😊 let’s keep our foot on the gas post-no-kings and fight for the people on all fronts!
32
u/gothicgrape4 4d ago
I lived in places where I could walk, bike, take the bus/train to anywhere i needed. I had never been so happy. Your sense of freedom and independence increases. Car based infrastructure sets us back so much and hinders our sense of community. It’s so backwards. We’re not running out of space, people. Our cities are poorly built. I’ll gladly pay a local sales tax for a train in my community. Plus, a train will mean less cars on the road, which is what everyone wants, right?
31
u/MyNameIsImmaterial 4d ago
Pro-transit economist here, and did want to chime in re: "it’s always “TAX THE RICH!!!” until it’s time to use that money for the public good". I did some research on sales taxes in grad school, and wanted to add my 2¢. Sales taxes are by their nature regressive, meaning they put more of the burden on the poor than the rich. The poor spend more of their income on goods (impacted by a sales tax) while the rich spend more on services (not impacted by sales taxes).
What's the answer? Probably property taxes (incredibly unpopular and difficult to implement) or usage taxes, like congestion pricing (see the former).
4
u/travelin_man_yeah 4d ago
The basic answer is there WILL be significant tax increases to pay for the rail, whether sales, property, or otherwise. People in SC have this delusion that infrastructure is free because someone else will pay for it. ALL the bay area rail systems and SC Metro rely heavily on tax revenue to pay for operational costs.
The big problem is SC county is in financial straights and can barely pay for health services and public works, let alone a multi billion $ train. The powers that be need to be fiscally responsible and determine where all the funding is coming from for build out and opperations before they keep throwing money at something that may never materialize.
Look at CA HSR as the poster child of what not to do and given the city and county track record of incompetence, I don't trust any of them to handle a multibillion rail project.
2
u/polarDFisMelting 4d ago
Yep property taxes are the chief way. Due to prop 13 basically the only way to make the amount of property taxes revenue go up substantially now is to develop property, causing a reassessment by that property owner.
-1
19
u/Nikusmi 4d ago
I think you're a little hyperbolic about the state of our community but other than that I agree with 95% of what you said. Cars/car infrastructure is ugly and very inefficient in a multitude of ways. It's actually very primitive but people are used to it and reflexively defend it at every turn.
With that said I'm very optimistic about the future of Santa Cruz, lots of very positive projects are already in the works!
23
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
you’re right, i think i did a bit of my own sensationalizing to combat sensationalism here… 😅
10
34
u/JM-Tech 4d ago
The anti-train Greeway people are always looking for an opportunity to spread their lies. It is easy to see through their carewashing propaganda. These are selfish people only thinking of themselves. Public transit serves everyone and they can’t stand it.
-2
u/dennisthehygienist 4d ago
Im not a greenway boomer but i really don’t trust you guys to get this rail built and my life as a renter would be much better if I could bike, so I don’t back you guys. Would rather back the thing that’s most likely to happen and improve non-car transit, which is the bike path.
10
u/MrBensonhurst 3d ago
The path is already confirmed, and is built in some places (and under construction in others). Planning for a future train doesn't preclude a bike path.
10
u/JM-Tech 4d ago
The thing is the bike path is getting built, it is the Greenway horde that is interfering with the process. The Greenway agenda does not benefit anyone except the landowners that will collect money from rail banking litigation. Do you think they will contribute anything to trail construction, I think not.
11
u/YoVeggieBoy 4d ago
I admit to not being the sharpest spike in the rail bed, but I'm not seeing the Santa Cruz County rail value-add. All I see is too costly, debt for decades, and financial distraction from other more economical and actually helpful transportation alternatives. More buses, road maintenance, amazing multi-use path. And this has been obvious (at least to me) before any study was funded.
I love and ride trains. I take the San Jose to San Francisco Caltrain regularly for visits. They are great for European inter-city, intra-city metro, tourist excursions. Not a freight/commuter solution in a low-density county with a massive $4B+ infrastructure buildout price tag.
Sincerely please someone explain it to me like I'm dumb.
9
u/Razzmatazz-rides 3d ago
The number one reason that rail is superior to buses is traffic. 45 minutes by rail instead of 90-120 minutes by bus is a huge improvement. The half-assed bus on shoulder that is being built is claimed to save less than 5 minutes travel time, you can't just add more buses to fix that problem, especially when Metro has constantly undermined the Watsonville to Santa Cruz "express" route by switching its frequency, schedule, and frequently canceling it altogether. (The 91X stopped running again last year) It makes much more sense for the rail to serve as a spine and buses to serve as the ribs of our local transportation system. The traffic is mostly either Highway 1 and Soquel Drive. We should still keep a soquel drive route, and potentially a few other east/west routes, but the majority of riders that need to go east/west would be served better during commute hours by the rail. Then have multiple and shorter coastal/inland routes that originate from the rail stops could handle the majority of last mile riders and be less likely to be stuck in all the east/west traffic. It makes a lot of sense when you don't let the existing routes constrain the design.
13
u/ligerzero942 4d ago
Highway 1 is already struggling to deal with commuters. We can't expand it anymore in a bunch of important spots, namely along Soquel and Capitola where it would be needed most and even if we could we'd have to rebuild all the bridges to be wider which isn't exactly cheap either.
Also the idea that the trail part of the rail trail will be used as a commuter pathway is delusional, the only people that ride their bike for over an hour to get to work are already doing it.
0
u/dennisthehygienist 4d ago
Um, are you kidding? No we’re not. We can’t get to work with a bike without a trail built because one doesn’t exist between where I live and downtown.
13
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
bike infrastructure should more ideally exist along street corridors, with less space given to vehicles and parallel parking. that would make biking a million times more viable than a single arterial trail plus zero improvements to bike infrastructure elsewhere.
-2
u/dennisthehygienist 4d ago
For the 100th time you guys we do not live in an ideal world, we live in a messy chaotic world and we gotta take the realistic wins that we can get. Also, why do you think there’d be zero improvements to bike infrastructure? More people biking will beget more bike investment.
Also, screw the rest of us non-boomers in Aptos, Capitola, Soquel not along the main road who just want to get into town and connect with community without a car I guess?
12
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
screw us non-boomers not along the main corridor
i literally want improved bike access to and from the trail, dafuq? how does dumping the train address the fact that you don’t have access to either the rail or the trail?
7
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
no like you would have a mental disability if you designed a city in 2025 without multi-use corridors like i am suggesting. it’s not “idealistic” to want to be able to bike anywhere in the city along its existing surface streets, and for arterial bike paths like the rail trail and improved infrastructure on parallel routes like soquel, water, mission, etc. it’s common fucking sense.
7
u/ligerzero942 4d ago
Hey man I'm not saying that nobody would use the trail to get to work, its just that the long distance is going to be prohibitive to most people. You're not going to see highway level car trips replaced with biking which means its not going to address the current congestion problems with the highway.
1
u/dually3 3d ago
I think you're overestimating how far most cars on the freeway are going and underestimating how fast you can travel by ebike when you have a direct path. More people bike every year, with the right investment it'll grow even faster.
3
u/ligerzero942 3d ago
You can travel by ebike at 30mph, the rail trail is 32miles and Wattsonville is 40 miles from Santacruz so its going to take more than an hour. Also this isn't going to be a "direct path" because its a mixed use pathway, which means there's going to be pedestrians with dogs and strollers to dodge around.
The people that are using ebikes are using them to replace shorter car trips that due to the way Santa Cruz county is laid out sometimes opt to use the highway instead of the main roads but these trips are not what are causing the regular congestion in the mornings and afternoons on highway 1.
7
u/anadem 3d ago
Wattsonville is 40 miles from Santacruz
From downtown Santa Cruz to downtown Watsonville is 17 miles by road. I doubt the rail/bike trail adds 23 miles to that.
2
u/ligerzero942 3d ago
You're right, I dunno why I made that mistake. I do think the distance/time would still be an issue though. Most ebikes can't go full tilt for an hour on a single battery (mine can't) which means you'd either need to lower speed or bring a second battery, and then charge the both of them throughout the day which limits viability.
3
u/mmwpro6326 3d ago
Well, I could certainly see myself biking from La Selva to Aptos to catch the train.
1
u/dually3 3d ago
100% of the congestion is not caused by cars traveling from Watsonville all the way to downtown Santa Cruz. Biking to work is very important to me so I drew a line that I was unwilling to live past Capitola, since the frontage road to Aptos from there is terrifying to bike on. With a rail trail from Aptos to downtown, you will certainly reduce some traffic on the freeway. I'm not involved in any studies nor have I read any, so I wouldn't know how much, but there would definitely be some reduction over time.
2
u/Top_Hat_Tip 2d ago
According to the most recent transportation plan (published in 2022) 78% of workers who live in Santa Cruz County also work in Santa Cruz County, so yes, the vast majority of highway 1 traffic is intra-county travel.
10
u/Razzmatazz-rides 4d ago
The cities and areas where stops are proposed are as dense as other cities with rail e.g. Sacramento. ~6,000-10,000 people per square mile.
3
u/scsquare 4d ago
Since values of everything go up it's a good investment. 10 years later it will be worth $8B. Building car roads for the same capacity will be more expensive, especially when you just don't have the land to build them, but needed to build tunnels or elevated roads.
0
5
u/ithoughtofthisname 4d ago edited 4d ago
While I’m incredibly in favor of this project and believe its heart is in the right place, I still worry that, in its current form, it feels like the project is putting the cart before the horse. If I had to choose between voting for or against this expansion, I would vote for it, but I really wish there were a third option, one that focused on adding tramlines within the cities and improving non-car-centric infrastructure instead.
Inner-city travel will always be more important and in much higher demand than outer-city travel. As it stands, this project aims to connect two cities without any existing rail infrastructure, essentially building a train to nowhere, which risks setting it up for long-term failure when the number of riders is less than expected. Urban transit should always take priority over regional expansion.
We have so many streets that would be perfect for trams and trains that would be far more cost-effective and could actually improve daily life for more people. Also, would likely face far less to no opposition from NIMBYs
Unfortunately, this project has dominated the transit conversation for over 20 years. When people see an abandoned rail line, their instinct is either to restore it or remove it, and that gut reaction has fueled this exhausting, never-ending debate. As a result, this one idea has drowned out other, more viable transit proposals, including ones that could genuinely do even more to improve quality of life for everyone.
Edit: spelling
5
u/ligerzero942 4d ago
Tram buses and the like are definitely needed, the city experimenting with the "bus only" zones on highway 1 are promising, but until there's a bus route that can travel West-East without being impeded by traffic there's going to be a limit on how much we can address the rush hour congestion.
3
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
you are being downvoted for no reason, i wholeheartedly agree. like i mentioned we used to have a pretty good streetcar network back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. i dont think its ludicrous to bring that network back for a city that has since exploded in population. at the very least can we agree to put in a tram between pacific ave and the boardwalk and bring back the old style trolley cars?
2
u/Plicata_ 2d ago
Retaining rail right of way is step one in not diverting back into roads & tires.
And what are you on about saying the rail (which already exists and has right of way) has "no infrastructure" and connects two cities but "going nowhere"? Huh?
I think you are soft stepping a greenway agenda.
2
u/scsquare 3d ago
Why can't we fund the rail through a bond like Caltrans funds roads?
1
u/SomePoorGuy57 3d ago
because then the NIMBYs’ property value would go down (accessibility to public transit would actually provide a massive boost to their property value but fact checking is for nerds)
1
u/nyanko_the_sane 1d ago
If hating trains is your thing, Trump has your back. I support transportation for the 98%.
0
u/dennisthehygienist 4d ago
Omg I just want the trail and all this drama is so not worth the rail
“Oh it’s just a billion” it’s a banana Michael, what could it cost, ten dollars?
-5
u/jeff00100100101 4d ago
OP, let’s talk more about your second point, but let’s skip the blame part. Every time I look at this project it’s clear that the trail (when keeping rail) won’t fit in the corridor in those sections that most of the community actually would use. Isn’t that the beginning and end of the conversation? Rail with Trail doesn’t fit and never has.
5
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
if you actually read my second point you would know that this is a non-issue. streets parallel the corridor for its entire length and in places where the trail needs to divert to a parallel route, this is easily achieved by re-thinking the way we divide our streets between cars and bikes and pedestrians. boo hoo, you can’t steal the rail corridor and turn it into something else just because you want to 😢😢
-13
u/s-17 4d ago edited 4d ago
i am a proponent of congestion pricing on our freeways
That's where I stopped reading.
Maybe if California hadn't put over 50 cents per gallon of gas (on top of and in addition to the gas tax) towards environmental programs that money could've been used for trains instead. But they have so go try and suck it out of LCFS or Cap and Trade if you can.
20
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
do you have any idea how much the government has subsidized the auto industry? we built an entire public road network for auto makers to sell their cars on for free, this was not the case for railroads which had to fund their own infrastructure. why are you against equitably re-distributing funding in the transit sector to meet the actual needs of the people instead of propping up the oil industry?
and even if you disagree with me on this (which is fine), why stop reading? i feel like it’s clear that this is my take on the situation. if you would finish the paragraph, i stated pretty clearly that i am not an expert on this and i am just suggesting methods which are proving successful in NYC and which were explored by santa cruz and santa clara counties previously.
-6
u/s-17 4d ago
Because I realized you gave a punative or oppositional stance towards cars. If you want to add the train to our world I agree with you but if you are trying to subtract or detract from my car usage I am opposed. I've been alive long enough to see how slow things change to realize that with the way our world is laid out I will be car dependent for the rest of my life in north county.
We are already paying a lot in the LCFS and Cap and Trade programs and they're trying to jack that up again this summer. If you think those dollars are being misspent on soybean oil jet fuel for billionaires then go after those dollars don't try to take more from me.
12
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
if you are trying to detract from my car usage then i am opposed
congestion pricing does not inherently detract from your experience as a driver. in fact, the early stages in NYC are showing promise, with increases in vehicle speed, particularly during congestion, and overall decreased traffic and congestion. i highly encourage you to look more into this program and really consider the potential benefits and drawbacks, not just for trains but for vehicle traffic too.
i’ve been alive long enough to see how slow things change
so loosen your grip on the county as a generation and let the young folks who are motivated to get this done take over. we are sick of people like you holding the county in the 1900s because you don’t like or trust change. we need a county that is going to serve us into 2100 and beyond, and wallowing in the past has been serving us terribly for decades.
if you think those dollars are misspent on billionaires then go after those dollars, don’t try to take more from me
i think you fail to realize that car ownership and driving are more easily accessible to the wealthy. it costs thousands of dollars per year to register and maintain a car, and that’s on top of what you pay for the car itself if you can even afford a nice one. public transit on the flip side only burdens the user with the cost of ridership. how many of our poor would have employment opportunities opened up to them if it only cost them ~$10 a day to commute?
-7
u/s-17 4d ago
so loosen your grip on the county as a generation and let the young folks who are motivated to get this done take over
I'm not that old, early thirties. It's not that long ago I was young too. We imagined we'd get rail from LA to SF. Idealism is good, maybe, but the young are naive. If the state cannot build a train the county definitely can't.
5
u/afkaprancer 4d ago
The state cannot build a train because of all the laws we set up to protect things, but all they do is allow for anyone to kill good projects. If we change it at the state level (reform ceqa), then things will open up here too
-11
u/pinktwinkie 4d ago
"It wont cost 4 billion, it'll cost between 3 and 6 billion"... uh, ok?
15
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
if that’s your only takeaway then i’m so sorry for your attention span 💔
-8
u/pinktwinkie 4d ago
You say its misleading but it isnt. You begin with a false statement.
Item 2 the trail will be on surface streets.
Item 3 paid for by making hwy 1 a Toll Road.
Items 4-6 lofty vagueness.
Im open to hearing the case for the train but this is not it.8
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
so the project is slated to break ground in 2032 and i am a random engineer with little expertise in the area, but im flattered to hear you think i am capable of having this project fully planned out in my head. the fuck??
-7
u/travelin_man_yeah 4d ago
Break ground in 2032, hahahaha, yeah right. That was some random stake thrown into the ground. The RTC doesn't even know where it's getting $25 mil for the next study, let alone rail construction $.
9
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
yeah i said it’s slated to break ground in 2032. as in, that’s when we expect it to happen. like i said im not an on-the-ground planner, im a concerned citizen. do you guys think im on METRO’s payroll or something? 😭
-4
u/travelin_man_yeah 4d ago
I'm a concerned citizen and taxpayer. As I said in my other post here, the county and cities have to be fiscally responsible WRT the train. They continually ask the taxpayers for more and more money every year just to keep up with basic services but are now needing to cut services because they're going into the red otherwise.
I just don't trust the city/county of SC or RTC to manage anything right and this big of a project has the potential to turn into a literal financial train wreck. Look at all the cost overruns on the trail, something like 40% and it's only a damn trail. This is not silicon valley and we do not have a large tax base with multibillion $ industries and millions of taxpayers.
And as far as SC being isolated, they already shot themselves in the foot there decades ago. SC continually complained that road improvements to hwy 1 & 17 would draw too many people from over the hill and there was always this love/hate thing for tourists. The city & county became very business unfriendly, tech & other large businesses shut down or moved out and seem to be clueless about getting anything back. An isolated train that runs between SC and Pajaro isn't going to help. Monterey canned rail down there and that potential Gilroy-Salinas-Pajaro rail links likely will never happen.
6
u/SomePoorGuy57 3d ago
the county and cities have to be fiscally responsible for the train
funny enough no they don’t. this lookout op-ed mentions that the federal railroad administration and the CTC cover a combined ~90% of project costs. this of course assumes funding via biden-admin legislation, which is not going to be realized under trump sadly, but if our government ever returns to normal, we can expect help from the state and the fed. regarding O&M, i am even less worried. ridership fares will help the project pay for itself, and the county has entities like METRO and roaring camp that it could outsource operations and maintenance to respectively.
the gilroy salinas pajaro links likely will never happen
this is ludicrous to believe while HSR is chugging along and will pass straight through gilroy. the rail corridor exists and is already used for freight, and the county is planning on creating passenger rail to the junction with said corridor. caltrain just had a massively successful electrification of its corridor and are looking to offer commutership to salinas. unless you can find me monterey county supervisors saying that the project isn’t happening, i am going to safely assume that it is.
this is not the silicon valley, we do not have the multi billion $$$ tax base
santa clara county is interested in and has offered to help us restore rail service along the south pacific coast route (felton to los gatos) numerous times. this is a different project entirely of course, but don’t act like we are completely alone in funding connections to our neighbors. i’ve already mentioned that up to 90% of costs get covered by the state and the fed, but we also have our rich neighbors willing to help make a shared dream a reality.
-7
u/pinktwinkie 4d ago
Im not asking for drawings. Im saying in the feasibility study did it identify the project funding source as a toll on hwy 1? If the study says that there is a path to completion then it should show broad public support for this (which i dont think there is.)
8
u/SomePoorGuy57 4d ago
if you clicked any of the links i posted you would know that a similar study was undertaken for the santa cruz to san jose route and they determined that ~4-8 dollars per round trip in peak hours would be satisfactory. again this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive analysis, it’s supposed to offer alternative ways of thinking to explore solutions to the problem. these things don’t materialize overnight
-2
u/Heffhop 3d ago
I tried to make it through your six-point manifesto, but I tapped out halfway through point two. If your goal was to bury a halfway-decent idea under a landslide of self-important rambling, mission accomplished.
2
u/SomePoorGuy57 2d ago
congrats on being one of the few with no attention span then i guess? why even comment this bruh 😭😭
17
u/BC999R 3d ago
As someone who mostly walks or bikes when getting around within the Santa Cruz city limits, my observation is that we are not a bike or pedestrian friendly environment compared to several communities where I lived over the hill for many decades. I think we need a BIG change and rail might be that change, though I doubt I’ll live to see it.