Zero Emission Passenger Rail & Trail Project

Project Overview

The Zero Emission Passenger Rail and Trail (ZEPRT) Project proposes a new high-capacity passenger rail service and stations on approximately 22 miles of the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line (Branch Line) from the city of Santa Cruz in the north to Pajaro, just south of Watsonville. The project also proposes 12 miles of Coastal Rail Trail Segments 13-20 from Rio Del Mar Boulevard through the community of La Selva Beach and the City of Watsonville, as well as the Capitola Trestle portion (Segment 11, Phase 2).

The project aims to take advantage of the publicly owned rail right-of-way to provide passenger rail service to connect the most populated areas of Santa Cruz County to each other and to the greater region as well as provide integrated intercity travel options for riders on the Central Coast. Passengers will be able to bypass Highway 1 and local arterials that are highly congested, providing high-quality connections to key destinations within the county.

In addition to the 22 miles of rail transit service, the new trail would nearly complete the 32-mile Coastal Rail Trail providing a dedicated bicycle/pedestrian travel facility serving the proposed rail stations through development of 12 more miles of trail that are currently not constructed or in progress. Read the project’s Preliminary Purpose and Need Statement here (or in Spanish here).

In October 2023, the RTC began work on the ZEPRT Project Concept Report that defines, evaluates and develops a project rail and trail build concept to be advanced into subsequent project tasks. A Draft Project Concept Report was released for public review and comment in July 2025, and the Final Project Concept Report was released for public review in mid-October 2025.

Project Benefits

The potential ZEPRT benefits shown below will be further analyzed and quantified during future project development phases.

• Providing a new safe, high-capacity and environmentally friendly zero-emission transportation option that reduces travel times, improves transit system reliability and enables residents and visitors to travel without a car, supporting a potential shift toward zero-emission passenger rail and active transportation modes.
• Connecting Santa Cruz County’s major communities to the California State Rail network at Pajaro, as envisioned in the 2024 California State Rail Plan and other planning initiatives, linking to Gilroy, the Bay Area, Sacramento and other destinations across the state.
• Increasing overall mobility and improving access to essential destinations – including schools, jobs, healthcare, and community activity centers – by linking rail, trail, and active transportation networks into a convenient, integrated system that allows multimodal travel throughout Santa Cruz County and the region.
• Enhancing safety and connectivity for bicyclists and pedestrians by providing 12 miles of new multi-use Coastal Rail Trail as a dedicated transportation alternative.
• Reducing vehicle travel, congestion and greenhouse gas emissions in Santa Cruz County, helping advance state, regional and local climate goals.
• Supporting equitable and affordable mobility choices — especially for those without access to a car and disadvantaged transit-dependent community members — by lowering transportation barriers and reducing household transportation costs.
• Encouraging transit-oriented development and investment near stations, thus promoting walkable communities and local economic vitality.
• Improving community resilience and emergency response capability by providing an alternative, redundant travel corridor and evacuation route.

Project Schedule

Current Project Phase

Through meaningful, proactive, and focused public and stakeholder outreach, this phase of work progressed through four key milestones, as shown in the schedule below, and included the following tasks:

• Developing a Project Description, and the Preliminary Purpose and Need Statement
• Analyzing alternatives and conducting environmental screening of preliminary rail and trail conceptual alignments
• Refining conceptual alignments into one proposed concept
• Preparing the Draft Project Concept Report (released in July 2025) and the Final Project Concept Report (released in mid-October 2025), which documents key project understandings, and outcomes of the analysis, study and outreach conducted thus far

With the RTC Commission’s approval, and subject to available funding, the ZEPRT project can advance to preliminary engineering and environmental review in future phases, including stand-alone projects of independent utility.

Potential Project Next Steps

Below are several potential next steps that will help inform and progress future ZEPRT project activities, provide further clarity on how the project can serve Santa Cruz County, and provide additional information for the RTC Commission to make future decisions about project funding and implementation alternatives.

• Conduct a peer review of the ZEPRT Final Project Concept Report – anticipated to be completed in late 2025
• Continue stakeholder engagement and coordination to catalyze consensus and maintain momentum
• Undertake additional conceptual engineering and operations planning to refine rail network infrastructure improvements and confirm end-to-end travel times required to support a reliable and competitive transportation option
• Develop an optimized ZEPRT travel demand (ridership) forecast that incorporates opportunities for transit-oriented development and intensifications of uses along the corridor
• Develop a refined rail alignment alternative that addresses long-term partner and stakeholder objectives in the Santa Cruz Beach Flats Area
• Continue coordination with Downtown Watsonville partners and stakeholders
• Initiate early environmental activities to advance towards National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) analysis
• Continue resiliency planning for both rail and trail along the Branch Line (building on efforts recently started via a Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant)
• Identify and pursue potential funding opportunities at federal, state and local levels as well as options for phased advancement