From: Paul Schoellhamer

Subject: Ballot for the June 7 Primary Election, 

May 16, 2022 at 8:04:24 PM PDT

I’ve been asked if I have any recommendations for the June 7 election. Most of it seems rather straightforward — unusually uncomplicated for a California ballot. But there is one local initiative that could use some de-mystifying — Measure D, which is a question posed to the voters of Santa Cruz County.

Upfront, my recommendation is NO on Measure D. You can read below as much of the explanation as you can tolerate.

Like many voters, I have two objectives I’m trying to accomplish on this issue. First, I want more trail built sooner. And second, I don’t want transit rail now, but I think it irresponsible to take the transit rail option away from those who will be living in our community 10, 20, 30 years in the future.

The campaigning on this issue has been confusing on its best days and outright deceptive most days. The train-haters want to yammer endlessly about the train, and the train-lovers want to do the same. But guess what? There is no train on the ballot. There is no train proposal to love or hate. The question is simply whether to build the trail in a way that preserves the option of electric light rail transit for the future, or in a way that forever forecloses that option. And which of those choices gets us more trail sooner.

So let’s start with getting more trail built sooner. The first thing to understand is that in the modern world (roughly the last 50 years) the actual constructing of a project is the fast part — it’s all the planning, environmental review, possible litigation, interagency coordination, etc. that precedes actual construction that eats up the years. That’s true of Highway One, it’s true of the trail project, it’s true of the Highway 17 wildlife crossing project, it’s true of any significant project by a public entity.

In the case of the trail, it took several years to create the Master Plan for the trail, and to create the environmental review of that Plan. That environmental review (called a programmatic EIR) was not legally challenged within the legally allowed period and therefore is now litigation-proof. Individual segments of trail either have gone thru or are now going thru their own more detailed planning and environmental review (called a project EIR). This is the same process the Highway One widening project has been going thru for more than twice as long — and the highway project is nowhere near actual construction but several segments of the trail (in Santa Cruz and in Watsonville) have already been built.

If Measure D passes, much of those years of work will have to be redone. The trail proposed in Measure D is substantially different, so it’s environmental impacts will be different. For example, the rails and ties would have to be removed before any trail could be built. The creosote-soaked ties are a particular environmental problem because they would require special disposal. That change, and many more, would take a lot of time. (See, for example, the discussion below about the drawn-out process of trying to get abandonment/railbanking approved.) In addition, once that new Plan and programmatic EIR are adopted, there is a new opportunity for litigation — anyone with a beef and a lawyer can throw the entire project into a court proceeding that typically takes years.

Proponents of Measure D try to minimize these additional delays by a dismissive wave of the hand and a lot of obfuscation and magical thinking. But in the real world these additional delays would be brutally long. Progress on getting trail built has already been frustratingly slow — Measure D would make it a whole lot slower. The first effect of Measure D passing would be to put a stop to all construction planned for any part of the line governed by Measure D. That alone makes Measure D a really terrible idea. Let’s defeat it and then up the pressure on RTC and local governments to increase the pace on getting trail built.

But whether we can speed them up or not, the reality is that the Measure D approach will take a lot longer than the current approach, simply because it adds a lot of additional process at the early pre-construction end of the project, making the slowest part of it even slower, pushing actual construction many years into the future.

Now let’s look at the question of keeping the option open for the community to decide, at some point in the future, that it wants electric light rail transit from Watsonville to Santa Cruz. Since none of us are expert when it comes to predicting the future, keeping the option open is widely recognized as a pretty good idea. Both sides of the Measure D question therefore claim that they would keep that option open. Are either of them telling the truth?

For the existing plan of building trail adjacent to the tracks, that’s a very easy case to make. That plan would build trail adjacent to the tracks, leaving the tracks (and more importantly the space where the tracks are) for possible future electric light rail transit, if the community were to decide in the future to do that.

For the Greenway plan, however, there are multiple problems.

Greenway says that it would railbank the rail line, and that would mean that the community could, in the future, rip up trail and restore the tracks. Railbanking is a real thing: it’s been in federal statute for 39 years, and it has generally been a success. By success I mean it has succeeded at what it set out to do, which is solve a weakness in many rail property titles that stood in the way of local government acquisition of abandoned rail lines. However, it has almost never resulted in a railbanked rail line reverting back to any form of rail use, and it has ABSOLUTELY NEVER resulted in what Greenway says could happen here, which is that the tracks could be ripped up and covered over with a paved trail, and then later the paved trail could be ripped up and replaced with rail tracks. Betting against all that real world experience would be a very bad bet.

But there is also serious question as to whether our rail line could ever be railbanked in the first place. Under federal law, railbanking is the second half of a two-part decision. The first decision is whether to legally declare the line abandoned, and the second decision is whether to approve railbanking. Both decisions are made by the Surface Transportation Board (STB), the federal agency that is the successor of the old ICC. Unless the STB approves abandonment (after a long process), you don’t even get to the question of whether to approve railbanking. The STB’s approach to abandonment issues is long-standing: it is pro-rail. If the rail operator wants out, and if all other rail interests (other railroads, actual or potential rail shippers, etc.) are OK with it, the STB will usually approve an abandonment. But otherwise, no. In this case, an existing railroad (Roaring Camp) has asserted a very real interest in no abandonment on the Santa Cruz branch line. Approval of abandonment is therefore unlikely, which would mean no railbanking.

How then does Greenway claim that its version of this project would keep open a future rail transit option? Simple: they say so because a lot of people would like there to continue to be an option and it is therefore politically advantageous to say something that is not true. And in the current state of American political life there is no disadvantage — there is in fact an advantage — in making stuff up. Even if you don’t always convince people of your falsehood, you can create confusion around a question that would otherwise play to your disadvantage. The Very Rich Guy behind Greenway long ago made it clear that his purpose was to make it impossible for our community to EVER choose rail transit. Why would we be surprised that his proposal would, despite the advertising for it, further his long-standing purpose?

That brings us to the larger subject that not only permeates the campaign for Measure D, but more broadly characterizes our national discourse on many issues, and that is the rising tide and power of misinformation.

Let me begin with a specific example. Segment 7b is the portion of the trail that would run from California St. to Pacific Ave. This is a segment that has long had an unusually steep embankment, and in order to put the trail next to the tracks a retaining wall is necessary to secure that embankment. One person tells another “OMG, to build the present plan they have to build a retaining wall that is 30 feet tall! That’s proof that the existing plan is crazy!!!” And the person hearing that passes it along to all their friends. Nobody says “Wait, I need to look into that.” So let’s look into it.

About other segments partisans have a pretty free hand to make things up, but about this particular segment there is no excuse for making anything up. This segment is ready to go to construction, and we have very detailed and final construction drawings for the entire segment, down to the inch. And that complete set of construction drawings is available to the public.

Those drawings show a lot of retaining wall — this segment is 8/10ths of a mile long, and a majority of that would have some retaining wall. However, NONE of it is 30 feet tall. For that matter, NONE of it is 20 feet tall. The tallest portion of it is 19 feet tall. How much of it is 19 feet tall? Out of more than a half mile of retaining wall, 8 feet of it is 19 feet tall, and the majority of it is 10 feet or less. That’s still a significant amount of retaining wall, but nowhere near what is being passed around on social media.

And here’s the thing about that retaining wall: if Measure D were to be adopted, it would include that same retaining wall. Why? Because RTC has a contractual obligation to Roaring Camp to allow it to use the tracks from just east of California St. to just west of the San Lorenzo River. So, a trail in that stretch will have to be built next to the tracks whether Greenway prevails or not. This retaining wall has zero to do with how to vote on Measure D. You get the same retaining wall either way.

For other segments the misinformation campaign runs even more rampant. Greenway has done none of the actual planning that exists in varying degrees for the existing plan, so they can and do claim anything. Costs less AND you can build the transit rail later (which actually will be the most expensive way imaginable to get transit rail). Build multiple and wider trails AND cut down no trees! Less filling AND tastes great! Say whatever it takes to get people to do what you want them to do — reality is something they will have to deal with later.

This is not just a Measure D problem, it is a national problem. Our national discourse thru the megaphones of social media and cable TV has become unconstrained by mere reality. In the hype of the moment we forget that reality bats last. But it’s sad to watch even our community slide into this sinkhole.

This syndrome of reality-denial afflicts other aspects of the Measure D discussion in addition to those I have mentioned above. I’ll limit myself to mentioning just two:

• Cost. All kinds of cost numbers are thrown around: cost estimates that were made at very different times, based on very different degrees of inflation, for all different versions of each concept, with large inconsistencies about what types of costs are included or not. Let’s simplify all that and just stick to basic realities. Highway One is today the only realistic way to travel between South County and Mid-County, and it carries a huge volume of vehicles. It is also a huge problem, because congestion imposes a very high inefficiency cost on us all. Anything we do about this problem will be very expensive and will only have a modest benefit at best, simply because the existing problem is so large. Based on my career in transportation issues, I can offer a rough rule of thumb for costs in our situation: the cost to build electric light rail transit on a rail line we already own would be roughly half the cost of building the Auxiliary Lanes project on Highway One, which would in turn be roughly half the cost of building an additional thru lane in each direction on Highway One. And the least benefit achieved of those three options would be the Auxiliary Lanes project — the only one the County is committed to moving forward on. (It provides the least benefit because it offers no additional thru lane capacity — the auxiliary lanes would end just before each interchange and then restart at the far end of that interchange.) But here’s the cost difference that matters the most to those of us who live in this county: Highway One is a state highway, and the state has made it crystal clear that they will not put any state money, nor will they direct any federal money, into any widening of the Highway One freeway. In contrast, a light rail project will either be substantially funded by state and/or federal dollars (a reasonable chance, but by no means a guarantee), or it won’t get built. For us as local taxpayers, that is a cost fact of huge significance. (The thru lanes option is completely off table because there is no chance we could locally ever raise anything close to that kind of money, whereas for the Auxiliary Lanes project there is a slight chance we could. And the highest cost option is doing nothing. Highway One inefficiencies will continue to climb higher and higher, but those costs will show up mostly on each of our own private budgets — wasted time and gas, higher costs of all the goods and services we consume, etc. — and comparatively little will show up on the public books.)

• Equity. Let’s face it, the ever-growing inefficiencies of Highway One weigh most heavily on those who live in South County and do the jobs we all rely on in Mid-County. While we all bear the cost of these inefficiencies, it’s one thing to bear them indirectly and another to bear them directly, every working day. These are disproportionately the people who do the service sector jobs that the rest of us could not live without, but too often take for granted. Let’s all try to bring to these issues some consideration for those in different circumstances than our own.

So, I’ve based my decision on wanting trail built sooner, and on wanting to retain the option for the community to decide, at some point in the future, whether to build electric light rail transit. But maybe your motivations are a little different than mine. If so, how should you vote? Here’s a quick spreadsheet on the permutations:

1.  If, like me, you want more trail built sooner and you want the option of rail transit not to be eliminated now, vote NO.

2.  If you want more trail built sooner, but you really don’t want transit rail ever, vote NO. That way you get the trail sooner, and IF there is ever an actual proposal for transit rail you can oppose it then, which was probably the appropriate time to oppose it all along. After all, you can be much more effective and focused in your opposition when there is an actual proposal on the table to oppose. You won’t have to make things up to argue against — there will be all those specifics to work with. And if you prevail in that effort, then you can tear up the tracks and build the Greenway of your dreams, without having delayed the construction of the first half of your dream trail. Cool!

3.  If you don’t care if or when the trail ever gets built, but you want the option of rail transit not to be eliminated now, Vote NO. The trail will get built sooner, but you didn’t care about that one way or the other, and you will at least preserve the option of rail transit, which you did want.

4.  If you don’t care if or when trail ever gets built, you just want to assure that no transit rail is ever proposed or built no matter what future circumstances may be, then vote yes. Greenway was written by people who agree with you and were smart enough to never say so in public.

— Paul Schoellhamer