Back in November I wrote about Santa Cruz County’s “wrong way” proposal to pass a tax measure to spend $600 million on widening the Highway 1 freeway but would have delivered virtually nothing for local passenger rail, despite the fact that the infrastructure to provide rail already exists.

Happily, wiser heads appear to have prevailed. The county’s Regional Transportation Commission voted to kill the plan yesterday, meaning it won’t go to the ballot in November as originally intended. Erosion of public support was cited as the reason for the decision. The county’s Business Council withdrew its support and, more importantly, its promise to fund the plan’s campaign; bicycle and transit supporters objected to the inadequate rail funding; the Sierra Club criticized the road’s effect on climate change; and local Republicans demanded that the freeway widening alone be funded.

I predicted that the plan would have failed at the ballot box, and I’m not surprised that it didn’t even make it that far. The tide is beginning to turn against using freeways to solve our transportation problems. Last November Seattle voters rejected a plan that would have added 160 miles of new freeway lanes, even though they have some of the nation’s worst traffic (outside of California, of course). And this week the Coastal Commission rejected a toll road through San Onofre State Beach, rightly choosing to protect the environment over continuing our outdated reliance on highway transportation.

Awareness is growing that climate change means we need to move away from global warming emissions that highway projects produce. Combined with peak oil and high gas prices, Californians are beginning to realize that alternatives are necessary for a 21st century transportation system – Amtrak California continues to set ridership records every month.

By refusing to waste precious tax dollars on freeway lanes, Santa Cruz County has taken the first step toward solving its transportation issues in a sustainable and responsible way. This gives county leaders and activists time to educate the public about the need for passenger rail, and come back to voters in a few years with a plan that will actually provide for the county’s needs, instead of foolishly trying to pretend that the methods of the 20th century can continue.

Hopefully we in Monterey County will follow Santa Cruz’ lead – transportation officials here are proposing a similar roads-focused tax plan, having stripped $90 million to bring Caltrain to Salinas. Public hearings are going on next week, so if you’re in Monterey County, speak out in favor of sustainable transportation, and against sticking our heads in the sand on climate change and peak oil!

As anyone who’s had the misfortune to be stuck in a traffic jam on Highway 1 in Santa Cruz County knows, there’s a major traffic problem on the northern end of Monterey Bay. High housing costs in Santa Cruz have spurred growth over in Watsonville, where homes are (relatively) more affordable. When combined with the job engine of Silicon Valley just over the hill, this means there’s a LOT of traffic on Highway 1.

So what should be done? Widen the freeway? Take advantage of the rail line that connects Watsonville to Santa Cruz to provide commuter rail and take the pressure off of Highway 1?

Highway 1 widening has been very contentious – a 2004 plan to widen the freeway was shot down by voters – and so it is somewhat surprising to see that a Santa Cruz County transportation tax force has suggested trying again in November 2008, with another 1/2 cent sales tax that would largely go toward an additional freeway lane and only a pittance for rail.

Environmentalists and transit advocates, led by Friends of the Rail Trail and former Santa Cruz mayor and Democratic candidate for AD-27 (should Prop 93 fail) Emily Reilly, have denounced the proposal and vowed to fight for transportation alternatives.

What I want to do here is explain why they are right, why Santa Cruz needs to seize this opportunity to lead the state into a more sustainable and effective transportation future. Instead of trying in vain to keep the 20th century alive, we need to realize our limits and embrace a more sensible vision for the 21st century.

flickr photo by richardmasoner

In November 2004 a 1/2 cent sales tax was put to voters that would have provided some funding for public transit, but was largely about widening Highway 1 with an additional lane between Watsonville and Santa Cruz. The measure only got 43% support, as a combination of anti-tax, anti-development, and anti-roads voters rejected it. Although the county transportation commission believes voters will support this, it’s not clear this will fare any better now than it did in 2004.

This isn’t just bad politics. It’s an example of completely misplaced priorities. Santa Cruz has been trying to develop a commuter rail line to connect to Watsonville, paralleling Highway 1 and potentially clearing up the traffic problem without adding new freeway lanes. To do this, the county needs to buy out the Union Pacific line that runs alongside Highway 1, an effort that has been stalled in negotiations for several years, as the county believes UP is asking too high a price given the renovations that will be needed to make the route viable for passenger rail.

Supporters of the plan point out that Santa Cruz County is well positioned for rail:

“Half of the population in Santa Cruz County live within a mile of the rail corridor,” says Micah Posner, co-founder and board member of Friends of the Rail Trail.

“Two thirds of all trips in Santa Cruz are under five miles and one-third are under three miles,” Posner continues. “It’s amazing just in terms of global warming alone that a rail trail has the potential to solve all our problems.”

Friends of the Rail Trail have produced letters of support from private rail operators that suggest a passenger rail line would be profitable. One of them, Sierra Railroad Company, is led by Mike Hart, who further explained why Santa Cruz County is so well suited for rail:

Hart summed up Santa Cruz County’s readiness for public rail with three Cs: “concentration, combination and culture.”

He argued that the concentration of the county’s 250,000 residents around the rail corridor overcomes the overall population number, which is regarded by opponents of passenger service as too low for a viable service. “Combination” stood for his company’s proposal to continue freight service – mostly for the Cemex plant in Davenport – by creating a system that wouldn’t necessitate running freight only at night. “The overhead, logistics, insurance and planning all need one organization running it to be efficient enough,” Hart said.

Hart’s final key, culture, proved he knew his audience. Having already received applause for his statement that Sierra Railroad operates its trains only with biodiesel, he said, “The Santa Cruz County mindset is, if we can help the environment by using a train, we will. When you figure the overall cost benefit, you can’t just figure the people riding the train instead of their cars. You also need to take into account the thousands of people who will walk or ride their bikes to get where they need to go.”

Left unsaid is the historical connection. Both Monterey and Santa Cruz were products of passenger railroads. As anyone who’s been to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk knows, it is situated right alongside the rail line, which carried weekend visitors down from San Francisco and provided the transportation lifeline that made Santa Cruz viable. Same for us in Monterey – the Del Monte Express was critical in bringing visitors to one of the state’s first tourist destinations, as well as bringing supplies to town and providing regional business access to market.

For most Californians, rail stopped being a vital part of life after World War II, when cheap oil made us all believe that personal automobiles and freeways, not trains, would solve our needs. We let our excellent rail transportation network fall apart – from the Pacific Electric cars in SoCal to the end of the Del Monte Express in 1971. The 20th century California Dream emphasized cars and cars alone; the Beach Boys never sang about trains.

As I’ve explained before, that 20th century dream is dying, and it is time to redefine the California Dream for the 21st century. One reason that dream is dying is because the era of cheap oil that made the 20th century dream possible is drawing to a close. Peak oil and sky-high gas prices mean that driving will no longer be able to be the basis of our transportation system. Already Californians have started buying less gas, and Amtrak California ridership sets records every month.

Clearly the desire for new kinds of transportation is there. So is the awareness of climate change and the need to move away from global warming emissions that highway projects produce, as explained by Seattle’s Sightline Institute.

But roads supporters in Santa Cruz County prefer to ignore all of this. When the transportation task force approved the Highway 1 widening tax proposal, they also rejected a resolution that would have required an overall reduction in carbon emissions and that each project funded had to be carbon neutral – a rejection Emily Reilly rightly found to be “shocking.”

A small but vocal group of residents in Capitola and Aptos, which lie along the rail line, also oppose the passenger rail plan, concerned that it would hurt their property values. Friends of the Rail Trail believe that in fact, a combined rail line and bike/walk trail would help property values, as well as keeping local economies afloat and easing traffic congestion.

Ultimately, the opposition of these few homeowners and the transportation task force to a rail solution is a sign that they still believe, against all evidence, that the 20th century can continue. Maybe Highway 1 widening would have made sense in the 1980s or 1990s. Not now. With scarce public revenues, soaring gas prices, and the need to get serious about climate change, spending $300 million to widen a freeway is an insane waste of money. Santa Cruz County needs to instead embrace a more sensible future – a passenger rail future.

And in any case, the 1/2 cent sales tax for a freeway project is doomed to fail. Santa Cruz saw this in 2004. Earlier this month Seattle rejected a massive roads and transit project when anti-tax activists and those opposed to 180 miles of new roads combined to sink the plan. In 2004 Denver voters approved a massive rail and transit only plan, FasTracks, and this year Charlotte voters gave 70% approval to a light rail plan. Will Santa Cruz be left behind?