Report from North County: SANDAG’s rail tunnel options cause excitement

Officially, we are left with only three possible route options for the proposed Del Mar Rail Tunnel, and North County officials and stakeholders are making it known which options they prefer and which they hate.

Earlier this month, the San Diego Association of Governments, the region’s transportation authority, better known as SANDAG, released three alternative route proposals for the tunnel, narrowing the choice from more than a dozen options.

The plan calls for moving about 1.7 miles of railroad tracks that run along the edge of the Del Mar cliffs into an underground tunnel. The project is called LOSSAN Rail Realignment.

Currently, the estimated cost of the project is about $4 billion, and that’s just a small part of SANDAG’s larger 40-year, $160 billion regional transportation plan.

Most elected officials agree that SANDAG will have to move the tracks at some point. The bluffs are receding at a rate of six inches a year, and in some places in Del Mar the tracks are only a few feet from the eroding cliff.

But some politicians and many residents apparently cannot agree on the question of where the railway tracks should be relocated.

The following three route options are being considered:

• Alternative A, which begins at a north portal in Solana Beach at the edge of the Del Mar Fairgrounds, runs under the San Dieguito Lagoon and then along Interstate 5 to a south portal near I-5 at the edge of San Diego.

• Alternative B, which runs from a north portal on Jimmy Durante Boulevard under Crest Canyon to the same south portal near I-5.

• Alternative C, which would also run from the Jimmy Durante portal roughly along Camino Del Mar to a south portal on Torrey Pines Road.

Del Mar

Most Del Mar residents and some Del Mar elected officials lean toward Alternative A.

The Del Mar City Council discussed the route alternatives on Monday with some members, including Deputy Mayor Terry Gaasterland and Council Member Tracy Martinez, indicating a preference for Alternative A because it would affect the fewest number of households and may not require a right of expropriation.

In California, the government has the power, through expropriation law, to take land and use it for public purposes even if the owners don’t want to sell it. SANDAG officials have said some land near the portals may have to be acquired through expropriation, the Union-Tribune reported.

“I don’t support expropriation law, I don’t support tunneling in our rock face, I think that would just be devastating,” Martinez said. “Even if it’s not exactly A, an underground portal that doesn’t take houses with it would be beneficial.”

Alternative A is also the preferred choice of most Del Mar residents. It is an option that most residents have proposed in previous town meetings. That’s because it runs close to I-5 and would keep the tunnel away from most homes.

But as Danny Veeh, a rail transit planning program manager at SANDAG, explained to UT, this route would require the longest tunnel and therefore cost almost twice as much as either of the other two routes.

Council member Dan Quirk, who has consistently been the dissenting voice on the rail tunnel and the San Diego rail line, said he opposes all route options and does not believe “any tunnel is justified.”

Solana Beach

North of Del Mar lies another small coastal town that is now being discussed.

After SANDAG announced the three route alternatives, Solana Beach officials were surprised to learn that one of the options would extend all the way to Solana Beach. That option happens to be Alternative A, the favorite option of Del Mar residents.

Solana Beach Mayor Lesa Heebner told Voice of San Diego she was aware this was one of the earlier options, but she did not expect it to be one of the final three alternatives.

“They probably held four or five workshops or council meetings in Del Mar and held office hours in Del Mar, but there was certainly no communication with our community at all,” Heebner said. “I knew this idea was there … the fact that it was taken to this level of study was shocking.”

She said that option could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure investments made years ago and planned and funded for the future, including housing, a bridge and previous rail upgrade projects in Solana Beach.

Heebner sent an email to Solana Beach residents urging them to participate in SANDAG’s 45-day public hearing period to help “stop” this alternate routing.

Del Mar Exhibition Center

There is another facility that could be significantly affected by SANDAG’s Alternative A: the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

The board of the 22nd District Agricultural Association, which operates the Del Mar Fairgrounds, had previously made it clear in a statement that it strongly opposes the idea of ​​a tunnel under the fairgrounds, especially if it would “impact the operational, economic, environmental and planning requirements of the Del Mar Fairgrounds.”

If Alternative A is chosen, there is also the possibility that it could impact the City of Del Mar’s efforts to develop an affordable housing project on the fairgrounds.

Let me explain: The City of Del Mar is relying on a planned public housing project at the Del Mar Fairgrounds to meet the state’s mandated public housing need.

Del Mar must create 113 affordable housing units to meet its Housing Element goals. A Housing Element is a state-mandated plan that lays out how a city can create enough new housing to meet the needs of its population.

The city has been working with the 22nd District Agricultural Association for over a year, and in February the two parties began negotiations to build a public housing project on the fairgrounds that would include 61 units of low-income housing.

But according to a statement from the 22nd District Board of Supervisors, the property “may not be suitable as a site for affordable housing for the City of Del Mar if the plan to run railroad tracks through or over the district property is implemented.”

Tristan Hallman, the fairgrounds’ communications director, told Voice via email that the fairgrounds are entirely dependent on revenue from their events and activities, so it would not be feasible to have two massive construction projects on the site at the same time.

“The San Diego County Fair and other popular events would be radically altered by the construction of a track, which would apparently entail digging huge trenches on a critical portion of the Del Mar Fairgrounds property,” Hallman said. “It would almost certainly deprive the county of any opportunity to plan for the construction of affordable housing, which would already be a complex undertaking without a billion-dollar construction project on the fair’s center grounds.”

In other news

• ICYMI: 75th Assembly candidate Carl DeMaio submitted zero signatures to the Secretary of State on five previous statewide ballot initiatives, automatically disqualifying them from the ballot. (Voice of San Diego)

• Results of a poll of Escondido residents showed that 57 percent of voters would approve of regulated cannabis businesses, including dispensaries, in the city. (Coast News)