The story of activating our rail corridor for the public’s use has two tracks.
The first is boring. Competent public servants diligently doing their jobs, analyzing alternatives and, to the best of their ability, serving the public good. In 2012 our local Santa Cruz County Regional Transit Commission arranged to purchase the rail corridor from Union Pacific, for a bargain price.
They funded the analyses to sketch out the basics of a rail transit system with a greenway alongside it (a common urban solution these days). They got the original Measure D in 2016 before the voters to begin funding this and other projects.
Further studies confirm that, according to actual experts, the best use of this handy, 32 mile strip of land, running from Watsonville to Davenport, is public rail transit and a bicycle/pedestrian greenway. Boring. After all, when government is working well, it should be boring.
The second track is the story of Bud Colligan, big wheel in town. He has made it his mission, using all his connections and no small bit of out-of-pocket expenses, to prevent rail transit. You know the standard tv show stereotype, the businessman who knows everyone, funds reelection campaigns, thrives on off-the-record phone calls and definitely for-sure not quid pro quo? “I heard you were at the lake house.” You know the type. That’s Bud Colligan. Local billionaire. Say his name.
It’s not useful to speculate on his motives (people are endlessly complex) but if you examine his actions, it is clear that, stopping public rail transit is his current and primary endeavor.
Here you’ll find crude and pointed (and do let us admit: occasionally humorous), but fundamentally accurate, tellings of that second track.