Santa Cruz has been struggling to complete the rail trail Segment 7B, connecting Bay Street to the beach, .08 of a mile. Sometime back the City Council increased funding by 400% from $3 million to $12 million; it will be higher by completion due to construction issues: cave-ins from the loss of tree cover on the Bay Street side, hill slough-offs and previously undiscovered utility issues on the railroad track/wastewater plant side.
This trail adjacent to the tracks is set to be 12-16 feet wide. However, we just learned in the ongoing rail feasibility study that with 12-foot setbacks required for a train, less than 8 feet is left for this trail, too narrow to accommodate lanes for e-bikes and pedestrians.
Did it make sense to spend so much on a trail simply to preserve 100+ year-old tracks that will have to be replaced for any future train? What about continuing to build that trail which we now learn will also have to be rebuilt for any future train? The City Council is silent.
— Nadene Thorne, Santa Cruz
The Sentinel welcomes your letters to the editor. Letters should be short, no more than 175 words. We do not accept anonymous letters. Letter-writers should include their full name as well as a street address and telephone number. We don’t publish those details in the newspaper, but need the information for verification purposes. Occasionally, we reject letters simply because we’ve had so many on the same subject. Submit your letters online at www.santacruzsentinel.com/submit-letters.
