| Are We On Track For The Rail Trail? |
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There is lots of action on the construction of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail, or Rail Trail. This summer, the City of Santa Cruz will be breaking ground on the first segment of the trail. Known as Segment 7, the trail on the westside of Santa Cruz will be an important first step in the long-sought vision of the 32-mile trail, paralleling the rail line. The Environmental Impact Report for the five miles on the North Coast is almost completed and with funding already secured, construction should start in late 2019, or early 2020. Grant funding has been acquired for Segment 9 which connects the Seabright area with Live Oak. Design work should start in 2019/20 and the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) just approved funding for the design work on the next segment that goes from 17th
Avenue to Jade Street. Additional construction will take place on a small segment in the City of Watsonville in 2019. So, in a few years over 25% of the trail will be completed or under construction. To see details click
HERE
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On June 14, the RTC will be voting on a new rail operator for the rail line. The current operator, Iowa Pacific, has asked to be relieved of their contract and the RTC will be considering a two-phase contract with a new operator, Progressive Rail. The first phase will cover the short-term freight needs of customers until the RTC completes its Unified Corridor Investment Study (UCIS). That study is looking at the three main travel corridors in the county - Soquel Drive, Highway One and the rail corridor. After consideration of the UCIS, the RTC will be making some important decisions about the future of rail on the corridor. If they choose to consider studying rail, then the second phase of the contract with Progressive Rail will be enacted for a ten-year period. Contrary to some information on social media, freight and passenger service can co-exist on our tracks as they do on other single-track lines. If you want to read about the Progressive Rail contract, click HERE.
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| Considering Future Development |
Recently the Board approved the application for a new Nissan dealership on the corner of 41
st Avenue and Soquel Drive. I want you to know that I thought long and hard before making a decision on this development application. I consulted the Soquel Village Plan, reviewed the decisions that resulted in the Honda dealership approval and consulted with both County legal staff about the issues raised by constituents and our Public Works staff about the traffic impacts and mitigations. I want to encourage you to listen to my remarks at the Board meeting on May 22, that provide a fuller context for my thinking. I share this with you knowing and respecting that you may have a different opinion on what was the right decision, but I want to at least share with you that I did not consider this a trivial decision and thoughtfully considered all points of view before coming to my decision, please click
HERE.
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We recently met with Rep. Panetta, and received this update from his office:
"The Full Working Group (FWG) met on May 8 to begin initial design of a new Optimized Profile Descent (OPD) Standard Arrival Route (STAR) that would overlay the flight track of the BSR (Big Sur) conventional STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Route). The FWG designed the new STAR but ran into criteria challenges, especially when considering the Select Committee's 9 sub-recommendations. These recommendations were evaluated with respect to FAA's satellite-based navigation design criteria and safety/operational requirement. Based on the outcome of these evaluations, work is on-going to find acceptable solutions to the criteria challenges. We anticipate having an associated timeline for that work in the next few weeks and look forward to sharing it with you when it becomes available. The FWG consisted of management and bargaining unit experts from the local Air Traffic Control facilitates (NOCAL TRACON, Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center), FAA ATO Headquarters, ATO Western Service Center and industry technical subject matter
experts."
I'm glad to read the FAA is working on returning the flight path to its historic path that was well accepted for decades. They are designing the path to be as quiet as feasible which is what the Select Committee recommended. I will continue to monitor and advocate with our Representatives for implementation as soon as possible.
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| Don't Miss Our Next Movie Night in Soquel |
We had a great kickoff of the free movie series in May. El Chipotle restaurant provided free samples of their burritos, the Santa Cruz Warriors provided free bobbleheads for all who came and the screening of
Coco
was well loved by everybody. Don't miss our next movie night on June 21
,
when we will feature
The Goonies
! Star of Siam will be providing free food samples and there will be more surprises. Hope to see you there! Food samples will start at 6:30 pm. The show will begin as soon as the sun goes down. Click HERE for more information.
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