Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury urges RTC to confront realities of its rail line

SANTA CRUZ - It isn't just the heated politics surrounding the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line that has made steady project progress difficult to achieve. A local government watchdog found an absence of realistic assessments of the corridor's physical and financial constraints has prevented the owner of the line, the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, from pursuing a consistent or achievable vision of its use.

That is the central finding contained with "The Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line: Competing Visions, Emerging Realities," the newest report from the Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury.

The 28-page document, released Monday, is both a comprehensive history of one of the county's most high-profile transportation corridors and a thorough analysis of the commission's approach to project delivery since it acquired the line in 2012 for $14.2 million.

"Decision making has suffered from a fundamental flaw: key policy choices were not adequately grounded in a realistic assessment of the corridor's physical constraints, engineering requirements, legal limitations, and financial costs," the jurors wrote. "As a result, the RTC and the public have spent years debating options that, in some cases, were not viable given financial and engineering realities."

The line was established in the 1870s and runs 32 miles primarily along the county's coastline from Davenport to Pajaro Junction. According to the grand jury, the rail corridor is one of only three continuous transportation routes that navigate through the county's populous coastal areas, which makes it a prime location for the agency to focus much of its efforts despite the complex terrain and outdated infrastructure.

The two projects that have emerged in the 14 years since the line was purchased are the Coastal Rail Trail, meant to provide safe and accessible infrastructure for bicycles and pedestrians alike, and the Zero Emission Passenger Rail and Trail Project, a zero-emission passenger train for local commuters and visitors.

Currently, Segment 7 of the trail in Santa Cruz is complete while Segment 5 in Davenport is under construction. All other segments are in various phases of development but have not broken ground. Last year, the commission published its Zero Emission Passenger Rail and Trail study, the most detailed and comprehensive report on passenger rail to date, which yielded a project cost estimate of nearly $4.3 billion. According to the grand jury, the commission received $11 million in California Proposition 116 funding to purchase the line, but the grant came with an agreement that the agency would work to eventually implement rail service or return the funding.

While progress has been made in both efforts to varying degrees, the pace of results and community strife they have evoked warrant a change of approach, the grand jury argued.

The purchase of the line marked the first time the transportation commission became the owner of a transportation asset, which also meant that it had to transition from acting primarily as a planning agency to one capable of delivering major projects. Despite its talent for securing state and federal grants - including the largest California Active Transportation Program grant in state history - this learning curve led to an initial overreliance on expensive consultants while also continuing to insulate the commission from gaining a specific, on-the-ground knowledge of the line's infrastructure. As a result, it focused too much on planning documents and studies that lacked specificity, the grand jury wrote.

The commission has made strides to correct this, including through a major organization restructuring in 2024, but decades of studies dating back to the 1980s contributed to a wealth of ideas with no overarching vision. Instead, political paralysis eventually took root and communication of accurate information to commissioners and the broader public became convoluted. When segments of the rail trail project did break ground, significant cost overruns made difficult decisions even harder.

"These early planning documents relied on 10,000-foot estimates rather than ground level engineering. They assumed passenger rail and a trail could coexist without rigorously analyzing the costs of retaining walls and bridge replacements required by the corridor's topography," the jurors wrote. "The studies focused heavily on the benefits of rail but wildly underestimated the true costs. As one source noted, it might be fair to characterize the plans as relying on hope due to the lack of sufficient engineering rigor."

In response to the grand jury report, the transportation commission wrote in a statement that it viewed the findings as an affirmation of the positive direction in which the agency continues to move as it becomes comfortable with its relatively new identity. The statement highlighted the agency's expanding in-house expertise that has been gained through the establishment of a Capital Projects Department, increased project delivery and engineering staff, and a new real property team.

"This report recognizes how much the RTC has evolved in recent years," said commission Executive Director Sarah Christensen in the statement. "We've made significant investments in strengthening our project delivery and property management expertise. These improvements have strengthened our ability to ground decisions in sound technical analysis, deliver complex projects, and responsibly manage our assets. We see the Grand Jury's recommendations as a constructive roadmap, and we're committed to continuing to build on the progress we've already made."

As the commission continues to construct segments of the Coastal Rail Trail and pursues passenger rail long term, the grand jury included eight recommendations for how it can do so in a more effective way. First and foremost, the jury believes that the agency would benefit from developing a "capital project advancement framework" that would help commissioners and the public receive more detailed information about major projects before any binding actions are taken.

It also believes the agency should adjust its approach to design work, such that the construction contractor is brought in early in that process. In theory, this would save money in the long run because the contractor's familiarity with the design could make for more efficient adjustments during construction.

Other suggestions are development and adoption of a comprehensive strategic planning framework to guide decision-making, continued evaluation of design options for segments 13 through 20 of the rail trail, peer review of its passenger rail and trail project, periodic review and reassessment of the organization's structure by the executive director, development of a more timely and robust public communications strategy, and consideration of options to establish an odd number of commissioners on the agency's board to prevent tie votes and ensuing delays.

The grand jury's full report is online at santacruzcountyca.gov/departments/grandjury.aspx#report.

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