Finally, the truth came out.
For the past decade the local Regional Transportation Commission has been working on a plan for train service between Watsonville and Davenport under the direction of local officials and voters.
But all this time, we never had a valid estimate of what it would cost. The first projections when the county spent $14 million to buy the tracks was well under a billion dollars. Then, in 2022 when 75 percent of the county voted to have legislators pursue the idea of a train, it was said to be around $800 million, much of which they told us would be paid by federal and state grants.
Train supporters stood on Highway 1 bridges with signs telling drivers that if they had a train, they’d be home by now,
But something seemed fishy.
First off, the costs, which a consultant hired for a reported $9 million to produce a study now determined would be $4.3 billion to start and up to $43 million a year to maintain and run. That cost is about four times the budget for the entire county.
And how would we pay it, because when the bills come due, we will be the ones paying most of it? An additional sales tax, according to RTC officials, which would raise our current tax of 9.75 percent up to 12.75 percent, making it the highest sales tax in the state.
Commissioner Manu Koenig, who was elected in part because of his opposition to the train, said: “The pressure on our local sales tax capacity…would take all the oxygen out of the room for funding any other kind of service through sales tax pretty much ever again.”
That had several commissioners waking up to the fact that they could choose either to fund the train or a huge list of important services needed by their voters.
The thing I’ve never understood is how they pulled the wool over so many people’s eyes for these years. Basic observation would tell you there aren’t enough people to fill trains between two small cities and the train couldn’t run fast enough to be a solid source of commuting (they are claiming it would be safe to go 60 miles an hour over 45 minutes, on parts of the 22 miles between between Watsonville and Natural Bridges.
We don’t buy it.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t prepare for a train in the future and there’s a way we can do it: We can temporarily cover the tracks, or remove them for a time (they have to go anyway for new rail services) and do what they call “railbanking,” which means, they would make a safe bike and pedestrian trail for now until there is the money and honest demand for a multi-billion dollar train.
It’s happened in other cities and would be the right solution for us now. We need safe places for kids and families to walk and ride and we don’t have them now and the cost of adding a train instead of building a safe path is simply unfeasible.
Are you for or against the train? Let us know what you think at [email protected]
Thanks for reading.
Brad Kava,
Editor and Publisher
