Handcar Tours in Marina will end, unless the city inks a new lease for train tracks.

Long-empty train tracks west of Highway 1 offer a spectacular view of the dunes and the Monterey Bay. Since 2021, people who signed up for handcar rides have enjoyed it while feeling the breeze. 

Museum Handcar Technology, known as Handcar Tours, began operations in 2021 on 3.5 miles of train track in Marina, stretching from Del Monte Boulevard to Fort Ord Dunes State Park. The future of this attraction is in jeopardy since it runs on the route of the SURF! busway project, approved in September by the California Coastal Commission. 

The Transportation Agency for Monterey County leases the track to the City of Marina, which subleases it to the handcar operator. That two-year lease is set to end on Oct. 31 and TAMC plans not to renew it.

“The terms of the lease agreement from its inception have been conditional due to the construction of the SURF! project,” TAMC spokesperson Theresa Wright says. 

Since the lease is set to expire, Marina officials gave Handcar Tours 30 days to vacate. But Marina City Manager Layne Long is asking TAMC for month-to-month extensions. “This little handcar has brought thousands of tourists to our city as well as the Monterey region,” Long wrote in an Oct. 9 letter to TAMC. He added the lease generates revenue for TAMC—more than $170,000 since 2022. 

On Wednesday, Oct. 23, the TAMC board of directors is set to discuss the lease agreement in closed session. 

Todd and Mason Clark, owners of Handcar Tours, are working on alternatives with Marina and TAMC officials to relocate operations and move the route 2.3 miles north. (Wright says TAMC is open to moving the route to another segment of track.)

If a month-to-month lease is approved, handcar tours would continue to operate at its existing site for now while working on the alternative route, rather than closing down. 

Marina Mayor Bruce Delgado notes the SURF! project is complex and it still requires permits before breaking ground. While that settles, “We could be having something beautiful happening in Marina,” he says. “They could be making enough money to hopefully move north.”

Delgado says preparing the new handcar route could cost up to $1 million. The proposed new route would require permitting from various agencies, improving the tracks and installing railroad lights.