Transportation staff show a proposed rail trail map to a resident in Watsonville on Monday night. (Tyler Maldonado – Santa Cruz Local)
Passenger rail meeting in Santa Cruz
- 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 14 at London Nelson Community Center, 301 Center St., Santa Cruz.
- Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission staff plan to discuss passenger rail in Santa Cruz, including updates on Beach Street rail and trail route alternatives and traffic patterns in Beach Flats and Westside grade crossings. A presentation will be followed by an open house where residents can give feedback.
WATSONVILLE >> At a Monday night meeting in Watsonville, transportation authorities presented two locations for a potential downtown Watsonville train station and details of separated bike lanes on West Beach Street as part of the rail trail project.
Packed with about 30 people, Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission staff held the meeting at the Watsonville Civic Plaza Community room. A separate meeting earlier Monday included Watsonville business leaders. Transportation staff asked for feedback on the proposals ahead of a conceptual report due in June.
“We’ll be providing the draft project concept report, the preliminary cost estimates, ridership forecasts and the project next steps” soon, said Riley Gerbrandt, project manager for the Zero Emission Passenger Rail and Trail.
The 32-mile Coastal Rail Trail is in various stages of planning and construction from Davenport to Watsonville. A passenger rail line is being planned separately.
A passenger rail line is proposed on the rail corridor in blue, and a bike path separate from traffic is proposed on West Beach Street in green. (Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission)
Monday’s updates included:
- Two downtown Watsonville train depot options: At the historic depot between Kearney and West Beach Streets, or on Walker Street between West Beach and Second streets.
- A trail route on West Beach Street outside of the rail corridor with connections to downtown and nearby beaches.
- A realignment of the rail and trail lines on Walker Street to improve pedestrian and vehicle mobility.
- A trail bridge over the Pajaro River crossing from either Walker Street or Rodriguez Street.
In the fall, some residents said the trail should be on West Beach Street while others said it should run parallel to the passenger rail line.
“We were looking at some of the challenges of having the rail trail on the rail corridor, coupled with interest in making some connections along West Beach Street to existing trail systems” to the beaches, Gerbrandt said. “So there was more work to be done fleshing that out.”
The train depot location is important in part because it could be developed with new housing. State housing production targets mean that nearly 4,000 new homes could be built in downtown Watsonville in the coming years, and a new train station could be a “key component” of that, said Watsonville’s Interim Community Development Director Justin Meek.
Meek said he and other city officials were working with the regional transportation commission to align its goals with the city’s housing targets.
Separately, Monterey County transit authorities are planning a rail station and transit center at Railroad Avenue in Pajaro. The project proposes passenger rail from Salinas to Gilroy, connecting with Amtrak and CalTrain services.
A rendering shows a potential rail station at a historic depot between West Beach and Kearney streets in downtown Watsonville. (Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission)
A downtown Watsonville trail station also could be on Walker Street. (Tyler Maldonado – Santa Cruz Local)
Residents’ feedback
Watsonville resident Yesenia Jimenez said many Watsonville teens commute to Santa Cruz for work because many jobs are in North County.
“We spend way too much space in cars,” said Jimenez. She said she was excited about passenger rail. Though she lives and works in Watsonville, she said she used to commute to UC Santa Cruz from Watsonville.
“It shouldn’t take me an hour to get to Santa Cruz. The rail line would cut that,” Jimenez said.
Gregory Becker, another Watsonville resident, said he opposed passenger rail in part because of the cost.
“We see [Santa Cruz] Metro here that’s struggling to provide the service that people want, and to think that we’re going to try to do a train service” that would cost billions was a fantasy, he said.
Becker added that he disagreed with the way some Capitola residents handled a recent rail trail decision in Capitola that contributed to the resignation of Capitola Vice Mayor Alexander Pedersen.
Grace Blakeslee, transportation manager of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, discusses the rail trail project at a meeting in Watsonville on Monday. (Tyler Maldonado — Santa Cruz Local)
Passenger rail funding concerns
Future funding sources for the passenger rail were not discussed at Monday’s meeting.
Repairing or replacing a dozen bridges to accommodate rail service were estimated at about $1 billion in March. About 80% of that was expected to come from the Federal Railroad Administration, in which the Biden Administration invested $66 billion from 2022 to 2026.
Preliminary environmental analysis for passenger rail was expected in 2027, but uncertainty stemming from the ongoing rescission of federal funding has cast doubt on the state grant the commission was pursuing to pay for it. Sarah Christensen, executive director of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, has said another possible source of funding is “not likely to come to fruition until 2027 — if we get prioritized.”
Christensen said these funding challenges did not necessarily mean an end to the passenger rail project in Santa Cruz County. She said it “could take a whole lot longer than we originally envisioned when we started this process.”
Rail trail funding is separate from the passenger rail project, as is environmental analysis for the trail.
More information about that trail funding in Watsonville is expected in the fall, said Grace Blakeslee, a transportation planner and rail trail project manager for the regional transportation commission.
A two-way bike path next to three or four lanes of vehicle traffic could be built on Beach Street near Rodriguez Street in Watsonville. (Tyler Maldonado – Santa Cruz Local)
A map shows a proposed passenger rail line on the rail corridor near Walker and West Beach streets in Watsonville. (Tyler Maldonado – Santa Cruz Local)
An old plan shows passenger rail on the railroad tracks in the middle lane of Walker Street in Watsonville. New plans show passenger rail on the side of Walker Street. (Tyler Maldonado – Santa Cruz Local)
A new proposal shows passenger rail on the side of Walker Street rather than the middle of the road. (Tyler Maldonado – Santa Cruz Local)
A Class I bike lane could be separated from traffic on Beach Road in Watsonville. Residents’ notes are stuck to an RTC map Monday night in Watsonville. (Tyler Maldonado – Santa Cruz Local)
Passenger rail is proposed to split from the rail trail near Buena Vista Drive and Zils Road. (Tyler Maldonado — Santa Cruz Local)
Watsonville resident Gregory Becker, right, and Santa Cruz resident Sally Arnold have different views on potential passenger rail in Santa Cruz County, but both want a civil discussion. (Tyler Maldonado — Santa Cruz Local)
Questions or comments? Email [email protected]. Santa Cruz Local is supported by members, major donors, sponsors and grants for the general support of our newsroom. Our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support. Learn more about Santa Cruz Local and how we are funded.
Tyler Maldonado holds a degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley. He writes about housing, homelessness and the environment. He lives in Santa Cruz County.
