Executive Director addresses “Save the Tracks” Rally

Statement from Sarah Christensen, Executive Director of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, addressing the “Save the Tracks” Rally held on May 20, 2026:

The RTC shares the community’s vision for both passenger rail and a multiuse trail along the Santa Cruz Branch Line. Zero-emission passenger rail and a multi-use coastal trail along this 22-mile corridor from Santa Cruz to Pajaro is our adopted long-term plan as described in the Project Concept Report.

The existing tracks, while symbolic of this corridor’s potential, were built for occasional slow-moving freight and cannot support passenger rail without complete reconstruction. Saving the current tracks does not mean saving a ready-to-use passenger rail corridor – it means preserving a right-of-way that would need to be entirely rebuilt. The corridor’s value lies in the right-of-way itself — the land, the alignment, the connection between our communities — and that is precisely what the RTC is committed to preserving.

To build passenger rail, we need to complete the next critical phase: preliminary engineering and environmental analysis. That work carries a price tag of approximately $15 million, and we do not yet have it funded. This is the real barrier between where we are today and the path to construction. The project is on hold until this funding gap is filled.

This is where your voices matter most. We are actively seeking funding to close this gap and keep the project moving. If you want to see passenger rail on this corridor, the most powerful thing you can do right now is advocate alongside us to your state legislators, to your congressional representatives, to the funding agencies that hold the keys to the next phase. That is where your advocacy will make the biggest difference.

The RTC will continue to be transparent about the timelines and costs, because this community deserves honesty, not false hope. This is not a project that can begin tomorrow – it is a generational infrastructure investment. And we will continue to pursue every available opportunity to advance both rail and trail on this corridor.