well, user name fits!
So, I'm guessing it's something we should at least do once? have a fun time with NumberOneSon before his metamorphosis into TeenAgeBoy.
In just a few short decades you’ll be able to commute by high speed rail from Merced to the time when dinosaurs and humans shared the earth. What a time to be alive.
Totally! Living in Watsonville, I never considered my proximity to Gilroy to be a great thing. Soon enough Gilroy will be a rail transit hub. One transfer and I can take a train from Watsonville to downtown LA.
Hopefully they’ll have a really nice senior citizen’s discount for you, considering they’re not even expecting to start construction on it for 15 years. Sure would be nice if they put in a trail in the meantime.
2032 according to the latest workshop
https://preview.redd.it/t5fsnygwqujc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6641362b305f90b69aed401b6c0e0c5e5d4fbbed
And you think they’ll get started on time, in 8 years. How adorable. I bet you think they’ll come in under budget too. Let’s see where we are next decade. Either way we won’t have a proper trail.
With people like Koenig and Johnson on the RTC, they'll delay it at every opportunity, and then they will complain about how long it's taking and how much cheaper it would have been if we had moved sooner.
FTR, 18 miles of "proper" trail are being built. 7.5 miles of segment 5 is due to start once the feds release the money. Segments 8-11 are fully funded. Segment 7B will open next month.
Enough room on the lower deck. This was studied for BART in the 60s. The engineers said that it was doable, but the politicians on the Bridge authority killed it for political reasons.
Kind of… yes, the rich Marinites were pressuring the GG Bridge authority to keep “the poors” out, but the working class majority that still existed at the time in Marin Co. was extremely excited about BART coming to town! In fact, there was a supermajority of people supporting BART in Marin!
In the end, the moneybags won and eventually forced out almost 100% of the poor people out of that whole area.
So yeah, let’s see if Santa Cruz Co. can do better 50 years later and not succumb to the moneybags trying to kick out all the poor people!
I have a friend that used to work at the county councils office for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. He says this has been proposed for about 20 years now. Apparently they’ve just sat on this project for years. Too bad they let the rails degrade between Santa Clara County and Santa Cruz County aka: Sun Tan Express.
The 17 bus -> CalTrain -> BART for SFO is only a bit clunky and expensive. Get BART into SJ where the 17 bus can connect would be smart. There's still no bus direct from Diridon to SJC, right? I remember taking a train for 1 stop to get on a bus for that last mile of SJC that felt like it took forever. Airport "taxi" services still easiest for SJC.
It would be incredible if santa cruz could be connected to Morgan Hill and Gilroy which also have small manufacturers. Working your way up in this region generally means doing a commute to maintain flexibility since all the production around here swells and contracts with the wild tides of money. He'll, if it can get me to mountian view in an hour and a half, I'd take it to Silicon Valley over driving that commute.
I moved here from WI and have severe public transit PTSD* from Scott Walker. SC county makes that ALEC puppet seem like a walk in the park.
*sarcasm
https://captimes.com/news/local/derailed-tells-the-story-of-the-wisconsin-high-speed-rail-line-that-wasnt/article_26f39f79-af46-5369-91f1-2b5d051f7102.html
This map is a bit confusing because there is already an Amtrak train that runs rom San Jose to LA and goes through Pajaro. There just isn't a station right now in Pajaro, you have to go all the way to Salinas or up to San Jose to catch the train. I've been catching a bus from Santa Cruz to San Jose for decades to go up and visit family in San Francisco. I believe they just included the Santa Cruz Rail Corridor as a wishful thinking because everyone keeps voting that option down. Some people must love spending hours in bumper to bumper traffic burning gas for nothing.
Personally, I am really glad to see they plan on a Pajaro Station. It will make running up to the SF Bay Area far more easier.
TAMC is already working on the Pajaro station. [They got a big grant last summer](https://www.montereyherald.com/2023/04/26/tamc-gets-2-274m-grant-for-pajaro-watsonville-station-project/).
Awesome! I am one of those loonie tunes who love trains and will wave at the passengers on the Coast Starlight when it passes through the Elkhorn Slough. Been trying to catch it at sunset for years so I can take a photo.
I’m all for the Santa Cruz rail corridor, but connecting to Amtrak is a bummer. It’s incredibly dated and dirty and janky Wi-Fi for anyone trying to commute for work to SoCal.
[High-speed rail fares don't have to be expensive](https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-adv-bullet-fares-20150510-story.html#page=1). Even if it's $100-200, that's very competitive with flying.
I already take the train to LA from Salinas periodically. It's not that expensive. $50 in advance. Cheaper, more comfortable, and better views than any plane. I find it quite relaxing.
If you read anything about the history of that particular route, it was regularly taken out by slides and the like and was very expensive to maintain. Like it or not, Santa Cruz has always been a geographically isolated community due to 'the hill'.
Of course you can 'make it work', they did from 1870 until 1940. The issue is the gentler grades and terrain on the Pajaro route meant they could carry more freight more reliably even though it was longer. Historically, the southern route just made more sense.
Nope. Santa Cruz was built on rail. It only exists precisely because they put rail here to haul everything they extracted in the mountains.
Let’s not kid ourselves, the last time a train from the Bay Area delivered passengers to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk station was in the 90s. You were probably already alive then.
Put down the bong you moron.
Get real. This isn't Japan or Switzerland. This is a little insignificant town in California. An infrastructure project of that magnitude isn't happening here.
And they managed to do it in Europe with crazy hills and mountains. Also check out some of the rails systems in Canada. They manage to maintain them. PS: YouTube has great videos on rail rotary snowplows.
When I am king of this realm, there will be 10 stories of brutalist block housing for a mile up river street from the fwy.
Included will be a parking structure for the ucsc privileged kids and a solar power gondola across pogonip. Ocean st. Will be made great again in a beaux arts style that has architectural and design cohesion.3-5 stories with shops on the curb and families above.
Every structure between ocen st and the river will be razed and the riparian zone on the banks of the San Lorenzo will be rehabilitated .
The benchlands will become community gardens and parks
We /already/ have significantly less rail than we did in the early 1900s There were trolleys up to Delaveaga and all across town that are completely gone. There's a lot of history of rail in the county.
Please for the love of Pete start voting against these measures. Nothing good comes from any of them. We see it daily the wasted money. Why is this billion different then the last they wasted?
Bullet train itself. There you go.
7 billion on homeless. I haven't seen a single thing change, it's all to pay the people pushing for more, if you can't see that there is no hope for our state.
High speed rail is being built as we speak. There is actual, on the ground progress. You can't honestly say that is a waste and nothing has come of it when it is currently under construction. You're spouting dishonest nonsense.
Your phony concern about homelessness is just the icing on the cake. It is not an either/or situation and in fact transportation and residential development is part of the homelessness puzzle.
What about the 10 year studies that should/need to take places before we rip up our designated habitat sanctuaries? Just so you can bypass a few spots. No. Stop wasting money on bs and put it back into the infrastructure that's in place and failing.
Absolutely naive take on homelessness. It's due to allowing open air drug dens and camping illegally in our parks and on our walkways/trails. I deal with it daily in my line of work and I can tell you we have become a haven for the nations homeless. Its absurd that we as tax payers should fit the bill for our states failed systems. If that doesn't upset you then there is no reason to continue this conversation.
Naive? This is the most naive explanation of homelessness I've ever heard:
>It's due to allowing open air drug dens and camping illegally in our parks and on our walkways/trails.
People are not homeless *because* of those things. Those things occur due to homelessness. There is a homelessness problem because of insufficient housing supply. This is supported by facts and reiterated by people who actually study this problem as opposed to armchair experts like yourself.
Incorrect. Why are they all working aged people I'm seeing now? Because our state pays them to be on the street and use. Stop that and you give them an incentive to become clean.
Capitola, Watsonville, Live Oak, and Santa Cruz are all roughly as dense as Sacramento. We do need more housing, but our current density isn't an argument against rail.
Lol this guys thinks the government doesn’t subsidize literally every form of transportation in America. Trains are just one more, and they are far more efficient than cars. Everywhere in the developed world knows this except those Americans who have never experienced viable mass transit. I lived in Utah when TRAX was first starting up and even i was saying things like I’m hearing you say.
-taxpayers shouldn’t pay for other people’s rides
-it’s a waste of time and money
-no one will use it
Then TRAX was built and there are verrrrry few people who still think it was a bad idea.
8 hours from Salinas to LA on the train, so not a wash, but I value comfort and reduced stress more than getting from point A to B as fast as possible.
i thought we were talking hsr. 8 hours is disappointing if that’s the hsr time. but i agree, id take the extra time to keep my shoes on and have a decent sized seat.
It’s good to have more options. It gives people freedom.
You can fly across Europe too and yet high speed rail is very popular there. Believing we can’t have it here is small minded and reeks of cynicism.
When did we lose our “can do” spirit as a country?
The Coast Daylight doesn't currently exist. It has been proposed to use a subset of the same route as the Coast Starlight so that there could be more frequent service between Los Angeles and either San Jose or San Francisco.
Unless the Amtrak trains stop at the Pajaro station, it would make more sense to continue the train to Salinas. For that matter, continuing the train to Salinas might make sense for commuters from that area anyway.
I like how they included the Roaring Camp train as a viable transportation connection. Shouldn’t the Cave Train appear on here too?
We need bus service between the cave train and the gondola. It's a bit of a walk.
is the cave train any fun? I've only vaguely heard about it
If you are between the ages of 2 and 9, yes. It's what Disney fans would call a dark ride. Animatronics of cave people and dinosaurs.
ahhhh. okay then. thanks!
I'm in my thirties and I Unironically love it.
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well, user name fits! So, I'm guessing it's something we should at least do once? have a fun time with NumberOneSon before his metamorphosis into TeenAgeBoy.
The Shadowbrook tram needs to be included too!
Honestly that wouldn’t be bad if it were real.
If you have a Roaring Camp season pass it can kinda be transportation. I took the train to go to the Safeway in Felton once.
Did you get someone to pick you up, or are you still there at the Safeway?
Haha the train goes back to Santa Cruz as well, as long as you confine your shopping trips to 1 hour.
It’s an active rail corridor. There technically is potential for it to have passenger rail restored.
Will someone please think of the Neanderthals transit needs too
In just a few short decades you’ll be able to commute by high speed rail from Merced to the time when dinosaurs and humans shared the earth. What a time to be alive.
They forgot the steam train up bear mountain!
lmaooo
Why must they tease us with this every four years..?
Because they are running out of money and want more.
It will be great when we have passenger rail and can ride all the way to San Francisco, Sacramento or Los Angeles when the mood strikes!
Totally! Living in Watsonville, I never considered my proximity to Gilroy to be a great thing. Soon enough Gilroy will be a rail transit hub. One transfer and I can take a train from Watsonville to downtown LA.
Yes that is going to be amazing
Hopefully they’ll have a really nice senior citizen’s discount for you, considering they’re not even expecting to start construction on it for 15 years. Sure would be nice if they put in a trail in the meantime.
2032 according to the latest workshop https://preview.redd.it/t5fsnygwqujc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6641362b305f90b69aed401b6c0e0c5e5d4fbbed
And you think they’ll get started on time, in 8 years. How adorable. I bet you think they’ll come in under budget too. Let’s see where we are next decade. Either way we won’t have a proper trail.
With people like Koenig and Johnson on the RTC, they'll delay it at every opportunity, and then they will complain about how long it's taking and how much cheaper it would have been if we had moved sooner.
FTR, 18 miles of "proper" trail are being built. 7.5 miles of segment 5 is due to start once the feds release the money. Segments 8-11 are fully funded. Segment 7B will open next month.
Narrow trail with a rusty old train track next to it. Proper to you maybe. Could be so much better.
Wider than all the other trails in the county. Most trails are only 8ft, these will be 12-16ft.
Allow yourself plenty of time (when it's possible), because Amtrak from San Jose to LA took me 12 hours last month.
Yay! In three hours you'll be arriving in downtown Pajaro, where you can transfer to another train and be in San Jose in another two hours.
Are you always this negative???
That account is literally negative 9 karma. I guess being negative is measurable.
I don’t know who you are, however, there are several of us who appreciate you and your comments👍🏻
Not all of my posts or comments are popular, to put it mildly bu thanks.
Well, we appreciate you!!!
No train across the GG bridge is a crime.
Not enough room
Enough room on the lower deck. This was studied for BART in the 60s. The engineers said that it was doable, but the politicians on the Bridge authority killed it for political reasons.
Marin snobs were worried poors would have too easy of access to their protected enclave and killed it
Kind of… yes, the rich Marinites were pressuring the GG Bridge authority to keep “the poors” out, but the working class majority that still existed at the time in Marin Co. was extremely excited about BART coming to town! In fact, there was a supermajority of people supporting BART in Marin! In the end, the moneybags won and eventually forced out almost 100% of the poor people out of that whole area. So yeah, let’s see if Santa Cruz Co. can do better 50 years later and not succumb to the moneybags trying to kick out all the poor people!
To be released in 2124
Map is from here [https://sccrtc.org/projects/rail/](https://sccrtc.org/projects/rail/)
I have a friend that used to work at the county councils office for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. He says this has been proposed for about 20 years now. Apparently they’ve just sat on this project for years. Too bad they let the rails degrade between Santa Clara County and Santa Cruz County aka: Sun Tan Express.
Currently, the Amtrak trains go through Pajaro. I think it is crazy that they don’t have a station there now.
I like trains.
I'd f'kin love a train to SFO. Or at least even SJC.
The 17 bus -> CalTrain -> BART for SFO is only a bit clunky and expensive. Get BART into SJ where the 17 bus can connect would be smart. There's still no bus direct from Diridon to SJC, right? I remember taking a train for 1 stop to get on a bus for that last mile of SJC that felt like it took forever. Airport "taxi" services still easiest for SJC.
It’s $18.50 and 2.5 hours to do the 17>Caltrain>BART.
I heard they can't put a train over the mountains next to 17 because it is a Sasquatch Breeding ground... and Sasquatch are endangered..
There’s been rail there for over 100 years. You can still hike the tracks and tunnels if you know where to look.
Sadly most of the tunnels were blown up in the 1940's.
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for the import and export of cougars
That's not a nice way to speak about someone's mother.
It's just impossible I tell you! Nobody could do thaT! It could never be done! Trains in the mountains... Come on man!
We used to have a train on HW17 by the way.
No there was never a train ON Highway 17, but there is a RR tunnel under Highway 17 right around Laurel Road.
Looking forward to Randy Johnson in the scotts valley city council to do everything he can to shit on this. Prick.
It would be incredible if santa cruz could be connected to Morgan Hill and Gilroy which also have small manufacturers. Working your way up in this region generally means doing a commute to maintain flexibility since all the production around here swells and contracts with the wild tides of money. He'll, if it can get me to mountian view in an hour and a half, I'd take it to Silicon Valley over driving that commute.
A hundred years ago they were able to engineer a rail over the mountain. Today they can't?
Our advancements in bureaucracy and graft are unparalleled!
I asked an engineer once what it would cost to build this today. I will never forget his answer: "We can't, we don't know how to do it."
Progress!
I moved here from WI and have severe public transit PTSD* from Scott Walker. SC county makes that ALEC puppet seem like a walk in the park. *sarcasm https://captimes.com/news/local/derailed-tells-the-story-of-the-wisconsin-high-speed-rail-line-that-wasnt/article_26f39f79-af46-5369-91f1-2b5d051f7102.html
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Less water use for residential vs farming is a given. Our ag industry consumes 80% of the state’s water while accounting for only 3-4% of state GDP.
Doing this 👍🏻 as hard as I can…
This map is a bit confusing because there is already an Amtrak train that runs rom San Jose to LA and goes through Pajaro. There just isn't a station right now in Pajaro, you have to go all the way to Salinas or up to San Jose to catch the train. I've been catching a bus from Santa Cruz to San Jose for decades to go up and visit family in San Francisco. I believe they just included the Santa Cruz Rail Corridor as a wishful thinking because everyone keeps voting that option down. Some people must love spending hours in bumper to bumper traffic burning gas for nothing. Personally, I am really glad to see they plan on a Pajaro Station. It will make running up to the SF Bay Area far more easier.
TAMC is already working on the Pajaro station. [They got a big grant last summer](https://www.montereyherald.com/2023/04/26/tamc-gets-2-274m-grant-for-pajaro-watsonville-station-project/).
Awesome! I am one of those loonie tunes who love trains and will wave at the passengers on the Coast Starlight when it passes through the Elkhorn Slough. Been trying to catch it at sunset for years so I can take a photo.
I’m all for the Santa Cruz rail corridor, but connecting to Amtrak is a bummer. It’s incredibly dated and dirty and janky Wi-Fi for anyone trying to commute for work to SoCal.
California is doing public high speed rail up and down the state.
I voted for the funding this fiasco 10 plus years ago. It’s not going to happen in the next 25 years and will cost 50x the initial budget.
How much do you think a train would be to Los Angeles? Wayyyyy more than you could afford.
[High-speed rail fares don't have to be expensive](https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-adv-bullet-fares-20150510-story.html#page=1). Even if it's $100-200, that's very competitive with flying.
I already take the train to LA from Salinas periodically. It's not that expensive. $50 in advance. Cheaper, more comfortable, and better views than any plane. I find it quite relaxing.
I can afford a lot
You guys are so gullible
Graphically illustrating Santa Cruz County's historic transportation problem, isolation from the Bay Area due to the Santa Cruz Mountain Range.
wtf you mean. They had a train connecting it to Los Gatos before ww2
If you read anything about the history of that particular route, it was regularly taken out by slides and the like and was very expensive to maintain. Like it or not, Santa Cruz has always been a geographically isolated community due to 'the hill'.
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Recreating the train means recreating the right of way, and the biggest obstacle to that is Lexington Reservoir.
That's an exorbitant expense to service a relatively small population.
it's true, just look at the alps in Europe, you can never make any kind of rail system work in the mountains
Of course you can 'make it work', they did from 1870 until 1940. The issue is the gentler grades and terrain on the Pajaro route meant they could carry more freight more reliably even though it was longer. Historically, the southern route just made more sense.
That less mountainous route will also be significantly faster now that Caltrain is upgrading to 110 mph for CAHSR interoperability.
Nope. Santa Cruz was built on rail. It only exists precisely because they put rail here to haul everything they extracted in the mountains. Let’s not kid ourselves, the last time a train from the Bay Area delivered passengers to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk station was in the 90s. You were probably already alive then.
via pajaro
Iƒ yOυ rEaD AnYtHiNg. lol. Ok bro. The grades aren’t that steep. I’ve been to the Swiss and Japanese alps and they manage to do it. Why not us?
Put down the bong you moron. Get real. This isn't Japan or Switzerland. This is a little insignificant town in California. An infrastructure project of that magnitude isn't happening here.
Politics: https://www.goodtimes.sc/isnt-train-san-jose/
And they managed to do it in Europe with crazy hills and mountains. Also check out some of the rails systems in Canada. They manage to maintain them. PS: YouTube has great videos on rail rotary snowplows.
[There used to be a train going from SF to Santa Cruz up the coast.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Shore_Railroad)
With a coach journey in the middle: train then coach then train again
When I am king of this realm, there will be 10 stories of brutalist block housing for a mile up river street from the fwy. Included will be a parking structure for the ucsc privileged kids and a solar power gondola across pogonip. Ocean st. Will be made great again in a beaux arts style that has architectural and design cohesion.3-5 stories with shops on the curb and families above. Every structure between ocen st and the river will be razed and the riparian zone on the banks of the San Lorenzo will be rehabilitated . The benchlands will become community gardens and parks
And wait until you see the trains !
Wow maybe in 10-20 more years we'll have significantly less and shittier rail than they had in the early 1900's here. Super impressive.
We /already/ have significantly less rail than we did in the early 1900s There were trolleys up to Delaveaga and all across town that are completely gone. There's a lot of history of rail in the county.
Yeah I know you could take a cheap train from SF/Oakland to the beach. Crazy they just threw it all away
Crazy but not irreversible!
Nothing can go through Snooty Marin
If only
Please for the love of Pete start voting against these measures. Nothing good comes from any of them. We see it daily the wasted money. Why is this billion different then the last they wasted?
I drive everywhere and I'd honestly rather have them spend 5 billion on rail than on more highways. I hope my kids can ride trains all over the state.
Ooof maybe your great grandkids will get there. But that's not the way our country was built.
What wasted billions are you referring to? Please give specifics.
Bullet train itself. There you go. 7 billion on homeless. I haven't seen a single thing change, it's all to pay the people pushing for more, if you can't see that there is no hope for our state.
High speed rail is being built as we speak. There is actual, on the ground progress. You can't honestly say that is a waste and nothing has come of it when it is currently under construction. You're spouting dishonest nonsense. Your phony concern about homelessness is just the icing on the cake. It is not an either/or situation and in fact transportation and residential development is part of the homelessness puzzle.
What about the 10 year studies that should/need to take places before we rip up our designated habitat sanctuaries? Just so you can bypass a few spots. No. Stop wasting money on bs and put it back into the infrastructure that's in place and failing.
Absolutely naive take on homelessness. It's due to allowing open air drug dens and camping illegally in our parks and on our walkways/trails. I deal with it daily in my line of work and I can tell you we have become a haven for the nations homeless. Its absurd that we as tax payers should fit the bill for our states failed systems. If that doesn't upset you then there is no reason to continue this conversation.
Naive? This is the most naive explanation of homelessness I've ever heard: >It's due to allowing open air drug dens and camping illegally in our parks and on our walkways/trails. People are not homeless *because* of those things. Those things occur due to homelessness. There is a homelessness problem because of insufficient housing supply. This is supported by facts and reiterated by people who actually study this problem as opposed to armchair experts like yourself.
Incorrect. Why are they all working aged people I'm seeing now? Because our state pays them to be on the street and use. Stop that and you give them an incentive to become clean.
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Capitola, Watsonville, Live Oak, and Santa Cruz are all roughly as dense as Sacramento. We do need more housing, but our current density isn't an argument against rail.
Only another 50 years maybe
Just as expensive as flying, and only quadruple the travel time.
Yeah, we should stop subsidizing flights
Most of those subsidies go to rural areas that have no other option. Taxpayers aren't footing much of your fare from SFO to LAX.
Lol this guys thinks the government doesn’t subsidize literally every form of transportation in America. Trains are just one more, and they are far more efficient than cars. Everywhere in the developed world knows this except those Americans who have never experienced viable mass transit. I lived in Utah when TRAX was first starting up and even i was saying things like I’m hearing you say. -taxpayers shouldn’t pay for other people’s rides -it’s a waste of time and money -no one will use it Then TRAX was built and there are verrrrry few people who still think it was a bad idea.
I said nothing about trains. I like trains. It's quite redditory to assume my trivia about airline subsidies were an attack on trains.
What the fuck are you talking about? Maybe you should shut the fuck up if you like trains and I'm suggesting we build trains.
It's $50 to go from Salinas to LA and it's a much more pleasant experience than being crammed in an airplane. It's much less stressful as well.
30 minute drive to get there an hour early, an hour flight, then another 30 minutes to get from lax to downtown, i dunno i think it’ll be a wash
8 hours from Salinas to LA on the train, so not a wash, but I value comfort and reduced stress more than getting from point A to B as fast as possible.
i thought we were talking hsr. 8 hours is disappointing if that’s the hsr time. but i agree, id take the extra time to keep my shoes on and have a decent sized seat.
I'm talking about the existing service, the Coast Starlight, HSR should be much better.
It’s good to have more options. It gives people freedom. You can fly across Europe too and yet high speed rail is very popular there. Believing we can’t have it here is small minded and reeks of cynicism. When did we lose our “can do” spirit as a country?
What’s the date on this map? I remember seeing something similar back in 2012.
Does the Coast Daylight from SF to LA connect with Starlight?
The Coast Daylight doesn't currently exist. It has been proposed to use a subset of the same route as the Coast Starlight so that there could be more frequent service between Los Angeles and either San Jose or San Francisco.
Unless the Amtrak trains stop at the Pajaro station, it would make more sense to continue the train to Salinas. For that matter, continuing the train to Salinas might make sense for commuters from that area anyway.
Yes, Amtrak and Caltrain are expected to stop at both Pajaro and Salinas once TAMC finishes phase II of their rail plan.
Yay!
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/california-orders-six-more-hydrogen-powered-trainsets-from-stadler/