CA: Santa Cruz County RTC keeps development of rail trail segments moving, but long-term future sits in limbo

 By braiding together tax revenue funds and an annual grant program, the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission has kept momentum moving forward on key segments of its flagship Coastal Rail Trail project, but much remains unknown about how the local agency will cobble together enough money to fund the project to completion.

At its Nov. 6 meeting, the commission allocated $8.3 million to fully fund final design components for segments 8 through 11 of its flagship rail trail project. Of that total, $4.7 million went to the city of Santa Cruz, which is the lead agency for segments 8 and 9 and $3.6 million went to Santa Cruz County, which is the lead agency for segments 10 and 11.

The four segments, which stretch 6.4 miles from Santa Cruz to Aptos, were awarded almost $116 million in grant funding from the California Transportation Commission in 2022. Segments 10 and 11 alone received $67.6 million, which was the largest grant ever awarded within the state’s active transportation program category.

But to keep the grants in its pocket, the commission and its collaborators must demonstrate to state authorities that progress is being made without significantly adjusting the scope and public benefits the project is meant to provide. This has become challenging in recent months as the segments continue to face a massive funding gap that won’t be easy to fill.

Commissioner Andy Schiffrin, a strong supporter of setting the trail next to the rail line to preserve a potential passenger rail project — also known as the “ultimate” design — reiterated his support for that configuration at the November meeting, but said the commission will have to be creative and open to exploring alternatives to keep the trail projects alive.

“I think the commission, from my perspective, is in a very difficult point and I think over the next few months the commission is going to have to decide what it’s priorities are in terms of do we want to have a trail at all? Do we want to move forward with rail?” he said. “I think that members of the public hopefully will understand the limits that the commission is having to work under.”

The source of the funding for design was provided through a reconfiguration of long-term spending from Measure D, the 30-year transportation project sales tax passed by voters in 2016, and the annual Consolidated Grants and Regional Transportation Improvement Programs.

The five-year Measure D plan, which gets reviewed annually, was amended to move $4.3 million previously allocated to segments 8 through 11 across multiple years to instead get spent this fiscal year. Then, $2 million of new funding from Measure D active transportation category funds were moved to support project design.

The consolidated grant program awarded $2 million to all four segments, bringing the total to $8.3 million.

The commission took a deep dive into the financials of the four Mid County segments at meetings in September and October, where the funding gap was estimated at $72 million. In October, commission staff shared three options for reducing the length of the project’s segments so that development could move forward with the funding that’s available. But whether that would impact the state’s willingness to maintain its grant awards was an open question.

To try to get to the bottom of that question, Commissioners Fred Keeley, Manu Koenig and Eduardo Montesino recently posed it to leaders and staff from the California Transportation Commission. The main takeaways from the meeting, according to a report from the commissioners, were that the state agency could consider a reduced-scope project but it requires a side-by-side comparison of project benefits, which must be retained. Still, the representatives expressed skepticism the commission could keep all the awarded funds even if that information was provided.

Representatives from the state commission did say that they were open to creative delivery approaches, such as temporarily replacing the rail line with a trail, also known as the “interim trail,” in order to achieve cost savings, but continued by adding that no additional state funds are available to address cost escalation.

To transition to the interim trail would require railbanking, which is an idea that was largely rejected by county voters in 2022 through the Measure D Greenway vote. Railbanking would also require approval from federal authorities, which could take years given the likelihood of stakeholder opposition, members of the commission previously said.

Commission staff, in collaboration with partners at the county and city of Santa Cruz, prepared final design cost estimates for both the interim and ultimate trail design configurations.

While the $8.3 million was needed for the ultimate configuration, the interim design would cost almost $2 million more, according to Rob Tidmore, the project lead at the county. Tidmore explained to the commissioners that the interim option is more expensive because of potential seismic retrofitting that could be required on two bridges within segments 10 and 11 should the trail get placed atop them.

In its five-year Measure D plan, the commission also agreed to set aside $10 million for continued development — likely for use as a local match for potential grants — of rail trail segments 13 through 20 in South County. Commissioner Fabian Leonor, frustrated that the segments could suffer as money for the project dries up, pushed the commission to allocate $30 million instead.

His recommendation was rejected and he was the only commissioner to vote against approving the five-year plan.

Consolidated grants

As the state-designated local transportation planning agency for the county, the commission holds responsibility for evaluating and awarding funds supplied by statewide and national agencies for the consolidated grants program.

This cycle, $15 million of state and federal grant money was available and after soliciting applications, the commission received 26 responses worth $66 million in requested funding from four local cities, the county, Santa Cruz Metro, UC Santa Cruz, Ecology Action and the commission itself.

South County and the city of Watsonville emerged as a big funding winner this cycle by taking in approximately $3.6 million for projects based in those areas. The commission’s staff put forward a recommendation for how the funding should be spread across the eligible projects, but Commissioners Montesino, Koenig, Monica Martinez, Steve Clark, Keeley and Justin Cummings put together their own recommendations that was ultimately approved.

According to a letter from the commissioners, their adjustments were meant to give special emphasis on Watsonville projects in order to foster greater equity while also fully funding all requests from Santa Cruz Metro and powering improvements at high-use arterials along Bear Creek Road, Empire Grade, Freedom Boulevard and Soquel Drive.

Still, some South County representatives on the commission, such as Commissioners Felipe Hernandez and Leonor, pushed for more investment in their areas.

“All these are good projects,” said Hernandez, who noted that no projects in the 4th District — which he represents on the county Board of Supervisors — were awarded funds. “The challenge before us is finding a balance that serves our entire community, that’s equitable not just in certain areas.”

However, amendments were put forward by Keeley that gave $436,000 to a resurfacing project in the unincorporated Interlaken area that sits in the 4th District.

Other projects provided grant funding include $3.8 million for the Soquel Drive Multimodal Project stretching from State Park Drive to Freedom Boulevard, $2.5 million for roadway resurfacing along Empire Grade and Bear Creek Road in North County, $500,000 for Bay Avenue Corridor design work in Capitola, $500,000 for a project at the Granite Creek overcrossing in Scotts Valley and $1.6 million for various Santa Cruz Metro projects.

The full list of projects is on the commission’s website at sccrtc.org.

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