Santa Cruz County seems very excited by the prospect of purchasing the 32-mile Union Pacific rail line from Davenport to Watsonville, and is willing to use state funding to buy it. “Not so fast,” says the California Transportation Commission. There are still preconditions that have to be met, and the county has until November to meet them. One of these preconditions actually seems quite obvious. The Commission wants the County to make a greater commitment to actually running trains on the rail line. This means that the County has until Nov. 3 to sign a contract with Sierra Northern Railway to run its touristy dinner train and other passenger lines.
The county plans to move quickly. Only after it gets the Transportation Commission money will it be eligible for additional state funding necessary to complete the project. Luis Mendez, Deputy Director of the County Regional Transportation Commission, says that he hopes to get the deal inked by November, or very possibly by September.
Meanwhile, critics continue to complain that there is no assurance that the line will actually make money for the county, and that its planners are simply throwing money into a black hole. That’s hardly something anyone wants to do, especially when funding in California is so hard to come by. Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
