10 Questions in Regards to Good Times Article Regarding the RTC Public Meeting Last Week
It was a pleasure to meet Alesandro Manzella at the public meeting (or as I like to refer to it as a live-action email since they were very aggressive about not having a townhall style meeting), but he has some portions of the article incorrect. Voters did not approve the rail trail project and voters have never directly voted for rail in Santa Cruz County. The vote in 2022 was to change verbiage in the County's General Plan to remove rail and promote railbanking as a faster and much less expensive way to construct the trail as there is no funding whatsoever for a train.
There has been no official estimate published yet by the RTC, or even a scoping estimate, but the last study put the cost at $1.3 Billion (pre-pandemic, inflation) and one consultant for the RTC, Robert Yeates of HDR, blurted out that cost may be higher than $5 Billion (Source: [https://youtu.be/HgpESpdaB6c?si=SwKRys3OC0fMKe9b&t=3382](https://youtu.be/HgpESpdaB6c?si=SwKRys3OC0fMKe9b&t=3382)).
Not only are there issues with mobile home owners being forced out of their homes, business may have to close in Aptos Village with this plan.
It is a horrible idea and people should ask ten very serious questions about the project at the website [zeprt.com](http://zeprt.com/) like
1. How much will the overall project cost?
2. How long will it take to start construction?
3. How long will it take to complete construction?
4. What will be the maximum capacity of a train?
5. How many people could use the train vs. how many people use the highway?
6. How much of the cost will be paid for by local taxpayers?
7. Will it be a sales tax? Will it be a property tax? How much will they go up? For how long?
8. What will be the subsidy taxpayers will be expected to pay per trip? (Metro costs taxpayers $12-$20 per every $0-$2 fare)
9. How many 110db horn blasts will occur for a train going one direction to another? How many times a day? What will the hours be?
10. How much does a quiet zone study cost? How many will be submitted? What will be the cost for the additional infrastructure required to support quiet zones and possible liability for accidents? (38 people were killed by trains in California in 2023)
The RTC has yet to answer these questions (and many more that should be answered) as they are very difficult questions that don't have good answers. However, these are some very fundamental questions that should have been scoped for the project before committing $9 million for this multi-year study that confuse people into thinking that we are much further down the tracks than we actually are.
A collection of essays exploring each of these questions in more detail will be available on the Trail Conservancy website. We encourage you to read these essays, form your own conclusions, and reach out to your County Supervisor.
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