MARINA – The California Coastal Commission hearings involving Monterey-Salinas Transit’s proposed SURF Busway and Bus Rapid Transit Project between the cities of Marina and Sand City on Wednesday were postponed until the next meeting Sept. 11-13 at the Portola Plaza Hotel and Spa in Monterey.
“MST requested a postponement after staff published the report recommending denial,” said Joshua Smith California Coastal Commission spokesperson. “Applicants have a right to postpone their item one time.”
The two items on the Coastal Commission’s agenda for this week that were postponed were first, an appeal by Keep Fort Ord Wild and Margaret Davis of the city of Marina decision granting permit with conditions to Monterey-Salinas Transit to construct an approximately 500-foot-long segment of a 30-foot wide two-lane bus road (part of a larger nearly 4.5-mile long bus road project) and associated development within the Monterey Branch Line rail corridor and in the dunes under Highway 1 near the Del Monte Boulevard southbound onramp in Marina.
Second, an application by Monterey-Salinas Transit to construct a nearly 4.5-mile long, 30-foot wide two-lane bus road and associated development (including retaining walls, grading, lighting, and drainage features) within the Monterey Branch Line rail corridor and to construct an approximately 700-foot long extension of Beach Range Road, seaward of Highway 1 and in the dunes between the cities of Marina and Sand City within unincorporated Monterey County.
In a combined staff report on the two related items issued in late July, the California Coastal Commission’s staff recommendation was “substantial issue and denial of both CDPs (Coastal Development Permits).
“MST and (Coastal Commission) staff plan to meet over the next few weeks in hopes of resolving the project’s impacts to rare coastal dune habitat,” said Smith. “This issue is expected to be heard at the commission’s public hearing in September.”
MST describes its project as, “A 5-mile, bus-only roadway parallel to the heavily congested segment of Highway 1, from Marina to Sand City/Seaside. New bus stations and amenities are included with an extension of the popular Beach Range Road trail in Sand City and Marina. The SURF! busway and stations will be built along the publicly owned rail line and within MST property.”
The rail line linked Monterey and San Francisco with passenger service from 1880 to 1971. In 2003, the Transportation Agency for Monterey County purchased the unused line from the Union Pacific to preserve it as a transportation corridor for mass transportation purposes only with a grant from State Proposition 116 funds, according to MST.
Bus service on the bus-only lane will allow passengers using Line 20 Salinas-Monterey (MST’s second most used transit line) and all other bus services traveling between Salinas, Marina, Seaside, Sand City, and Monterey to quickly travel past Highway 1 traffic, says MST. Riders traveling by bus on the new busway and other transit services that connect to Line 20 will have better access to Cal State Monterey Bay, the VA Department of Defense Clinic, beach access to Fort Ord Dunes State Park, the Dunes, and military neighborhoods.
The Coastal Commission staff recommendation summary said in part, “The Coastal Commission fully supports many of the goals and objectives underlying the proposed project, including facilitating less car-centric transportation options, particularly in terms of enhancing transit options for lower-income riders, environmental justice communities, and the general public, but that this particular proposal is not approvable in dune ESHA (environmentally sensitive habitat area) under the law, and alternative projects that avoid dune ESHA need to be pursued instead.”
Monterey-Salinas Transit General Manager and CEO Carl Sedoryk said the option to postpone was suggested to MST by Coastal Commission staff after discussion with the chair of the Coastal Commission as well as some supporters of the project including District 17 State Sen. John Laird and District 30 Assemblymember Dawn Addis.
There was a lot of information that appeared before the staff report was circulated that the Coastal Commission staff were not aware of or did not receive and did not make its way into the staff report, said Sedoryk, including the Proposition 116 issue and whether the project was an allowable use.
“The CTC (California Transportation Commission) sent a letter a week before the report was issued stating that as far as the CTC was concerned, the SURF project was an allowable use,” said Sedoryk.
Coastal Commission staff requested an analysis of alternatives and that information did not make it into the report either, as well as the estimated amount and quality of the habitat to be disturbed, which he said were both overstated. Sedoryk said the staff report contends that 100 acres of ESHA would be impacted and he believes, using the Coastal Commission’s own methodology, that it is 24.3 acres.
Sedoryk said since the decision to postpone, MST has had, and continues to have, numerous meetings with Coastal Commission staff to provide additional information with the intent to agree on a path forward that MST hopes will result in the recommendation for approval at the September meeting in Monterey.
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