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I'm switching over to the make it a rail trail side. That Pebbles guy may have been an annoying bike Nazi but was correct. Rail is dead there. A trail could be done quickly and used by many.
Author: Power to the Pebbles!
Date: 01-30-2024 - 17:41
You claim it takes you "hours" to drive from Live Oak to Watsonville in the evenings. But it is rush hour now and Google says 29 minutes for 19 miles from Twin Lakes beach to the far eastern edge of Watsonville. And that's with traffic and a wreck.
This rail fantasy has gone on long enough. There's no freight business. It ain't coming back to the Socialist NIMBY coastal heart of biz unfriendly California.
There won't be many passengers. You need a mass of jobs as a destination to support rail transit. Tiny Santa Cruz is not a business hub. The rich NIMBY's are not going to let the town create that or build enough dense housing along the line that might support a trolley. What jobs are there worked by commuters are dispersed. Best served by autos. Maybe a few routes with enough poor patrons from Salinas to support a bus route.
It's a tourist area but San Francisco is in the other direction from Watsonville. Running via Watsonville and Gilroy is too slow. Not enough connecting passengers from LA on a future Daylight corrdior to San Jose to be cost effective. Even it was hourly. Won't happen.
The slow, winding, washout prone, built over ROW mountain line to San Jose ain't coming back either.
There's no future for rail in Santa Cruz unless a highly subsidized lightly used loser trolley that would primarily move crazy homeless around. And Vampires don't ride during the day. Surfliners or talgos or rdc's are just silly foamer dreams. Ain't happening. The best you can hope for is a scenic railroad. But that would see fewer users than a bike n hike trail.
Maybe it could be turned into a 13,000 pennies a day handcar ride. Scenic. But exclusionary. Visitors of all demographics from the Oakland or the Central Valley or south LA can afford to bring their bikes or maybe rent one and ride the trail. 39,000 pennies for a single mom and her 2 children is not affordable for most.
Build the bike n hike trail. It's free and can be done quickly. Well in CA terms. A few years vs a few decades. Keep a legal provision that rail can still be added in the future if economic ever warrant. It is feasible to widen a trail in a 50' ROW to accommodate both. path walkways have been added to bridges before. Dual use is not rocket science.
Build the trail. More people will use it. But make it bike and hike and keep the entitle cyclists in their lane.
This rail fantasy has gone on long enough. There's no freight business. It ain't coming back to the Socialist NIMBY coastal heart of biz unfriendly California.
There won't be many passengers. You need a mass of jobs as a destination to support rail transit. Tiny Santa Cruz is not a business hub. The rich NIMBY's are not going to let the town create that or build enough dense housing along the line that might support a trolley. What jobs are there worked by commuters are dispersed. Best served by autos. Maybe a few routes with enough poor patrons from Salinas to support a bus route.
It's a tourist area but San Francisco is in the other direction from Watsonville. Running via Watsonville and Gilroy is too slow. Not enough connecting passengers from LA on a future Daylight corrdior to San Jose to be cost effective. Even it was hourly. Won't happen.
The slow, winding, washout prone, built over ROW mountain line to San Jose ain't coming back either.
There's no future for rail in Santa Cruz unless a highly subsidized lightly used loser trolley that would primarily move crazy homeless around. And Vampires don't ride during the day. Surfliners or talgos or rdc's are just silly foamer dreams. Ain't happening. The best you can hope for is a scenic railroad. But that would see fewer users than a bike n hike trail.
Maybe it could be turned into a 13,000 pennies a day handcar ride. Scenic. But exclusionary. Visitors of all demographics from the Oakland or the Central Valley or south LA can afford to bring their bikes or maybe rent one and ride the trail. 39,000 pennies for a single mom and her 2 children is not affordable for most.
Build the bike n hike trail. It's free and can be done quickly. Well in CA terms. A few years vs a few decades. Keep a legal provision that rail can still be added in the future if economic ever warrant. It is feasible to widen a trail in a 50' ROW to accommodate both. path walkways have been added to bridges before. Dual use is not rocket science.
Build the trail. More people will use it. But make it bike and hike and keep the entitle cyclists in their lane.
