If you care about rail or trail in Santa Cruz, this is an important read.

I've always supported the idea that a trail should be built asap without permanently abandoning the idea of a passenger rail. But the polarizing stances of Trail Now/SCCGreenway and Friends of the Rail and Trail made it difficult (in the vacuum of a robust REgional Transportation Committee vision as is nicely detailed in this report) for this option to gain popularity. I suspect this is the opinion of a majority of folks who want a bike path and hopefully a rail someday (hence the overwhelming rejection by voters to permanently remove language on passenger rail from the transportation plan).

I was also skeptical about the relatively new $4 billion estimate to implement full passenger rail service until reading this grand jury report. It's bad news, but we all need to be cognizant of the true cost of such projects in this day and age.

I hope the RTC implements a number of the suggestions. I think they've actually done a decent job of threading the needle on "public" opinion (i.e. end member lobbying groups), but that's gotten them stuck. A familiar story in Santa Cruz politics.

Read the report, come to your own conclusions based on the evidence presented, and I'd be interested to hear other takes.