SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Bridge replacements or repairs for a proposed commuter rail service in Santa Cruz County could cost almost $1 billion, a consulting firm has determined.
The news site Lookout Santa Cruz reports staff from the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission and engineering firm HDR Inc. told a meeting this week that 28 bridges would likely need replacement and another five would need strengthening for the Zero Emission Passenger Rail and Trail Project. That proposal calls for rail service on 22 miles of a former Southern Pacific branch line between Santa Cruz and Pajaro, Calif., just south of Watsonville, as well as 12 miles of a parallel trail.
Sixteen wood bridges are among those that would need replacement; total cost for replacement or repairs is estimated at $980 million. Commission staff had previously recommended replacement of 23 bridges.
The bridge estimate is part of ongoing work on a report to fully define the rail project, known as a project concept report, that the commission agreed to fully fund in summer 2023 [see “Santa Cruz commission approves …,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 16, 2023]. That report was originally scheduled to be completed this spring, but the commission has pushed back release until the fall, saying it needs more time for engineering work and community engagement.
The rail proposal has long been highly divisive in the Santa Cruz area, with nearly equal support for the rail project or a trail-only alternative.
There is no such thing as “zero emissions” it is that easy as that. Probably never will be anything that is zero emissions.
This is an example of the nationwide problem of wooden RR bridges needing replacement.
Alan – Roughly a quarter of all the railroad bridges in the US are timber railroad bridges, this down from roughly a third when I started in the industry almost 30 years ago. The blanket statement that there is a nationwide problem of “wooden” railroad bridges is simplistic and doesn’t accurately reflect situation at all. Timber railroad bridges, while no longer being built new in appreciable numbers, are still an effective and vital part of our railroad bridge infrastructure. They are simple and can be maintained at a relatively low cost, while still providing sufficient structural capacity. Blindly condemning a timber bridge simply because it is made of timber is excellent way to waste money and direct limited funds towards the wrong priorities.
Timber bridges are fading from the railroad scene, but they are not some sort of “problem.” There are several reasons to replace a bridge, and when bridges are replaced these days they will most likely not be replaced by a timber bridge. So timber bridges are disappearing, but not because on a whole timber bridges are incapable of doing the job,
I have a few more decades before I hang up my hat in this industry, and I am confident that when I do there will still be a significant number of timber railroad bridges in services doing the job they were designed to do.
Yeah 100%
Yes and yeah of course Futures Santa Cruz Rail.
I always want futures Santa Cruz Rail and I always love futures Santa Cruz Rail.
This is a very scenic route but it is single track and while auto traffic in this area is not great I doubt ridership fares would cover much of the costs. Of course if local tax payers want to pay for it then ok.
Kansas City’s free streetcar line between the riverfront and Union Station has been a success with spinoff developments. Construction is underway on an extension south to the Country Club Plaza area and the University of Missouri Kansas City campus.
If the project didn’t call for zero emissions (in and of itself a pipe dream), how many of the bridges would need replaced?
Presumably the same amount. I don’t think ZE passenger rail vehicles are significantly heavier than diesel ones. And I suspect they’ll want the bridges strong enough to support potential freight operations too (remember that the Roaring Camp’s Santa Cruz Big Trees & Pacific connects to this line in Santa Cruz).
It might be “zero emission” but it sure ain’t zero dollars. Who is going to ride this to cover the even the tiniest fraction of capital cost and operational expenditures? (And by the way, the construction equipment to build this billion dollars of capital infrastructure also is far from zero emissions.
Seeing the big trouble the Chicago METRA is in, who in their right mind thinks these low-density start-ups can make a go of it? METRA with its frequent four car, six car, seven car trains carrying hundreds of passengers sits just this side of BK.
There’s a lesson in Milwaukee’s moronic trolley. The only way to get anyone to ride these “feel-good”, “virtue signaling” transit services, is to give away rides for free, no fare. Farebox recovery of zero.