Sand City officials ask Transportation Agency to waive all charges for a pedestrian/bicycling path project on an old rail line.

The Transportation Agency for Monterey County acquired the 100-foot-wide right of way on the old Union Pacific railroad line with the idea of preserving it for a potential future transit use. The return of the train seems like a distant dream – takeoff pads for eVTOLs manufactured by Joby or Archer could come sooner, Marina Mayor/TAMC board member Bruce Delgado noted during a board meeting on Monday, Aug. 31.

But there are some real-life projects in the works. Monterey-Salinas Transit’s SURF! busway is under construction. To the south, Sand City officials are hoping to ink a deal with TAMC to utilize its right of way to construct a one-mile, paved recreation path parallel to Del Monte Boulevard.

“The project is closing the gap in an 18-mile, Class-1 bike trail that runs from Castroville to Pacific Grove,” City Manager Vibeke Norgaard told the TAMC board on Aug. 31.

It was the first public presentation on a project that has been contemplated since 1982, and now has public grant funds in the pipeline to build the $12 million project. Sand City has already worked out a settlement with the City of Seaside – the path would cross through the latter briefly – and with three car dealerships that park vehicles on TAMC’s right of way. The dealers have agreed to move to the edges, and to help pay for ongoing landscaping costs. (Combined, the three will pay $14,833 a year, about 5 percent of the total annual maintenance cost, Norgaard said.)

As the project has advanced in design and funding, TAMC officials started meeting in closed session about a lease. A draft agreement showed TAMC would give the city free use of the property for the actual trail, but would charge fair market value for the portions that are not technically transit – adjacent landscaping and parking.

“We are offering to build the project, clean up the blight, put in trees and bushes, make it pretty, and maintain that,” Norgaard said. “We are asking that Sand City not be charged for its efforts to beautify the corridor. If you charge us for the landscaped areas, it would make the project infeasible.”

Sand City also wants to build parking spaces at no cost, part of the design that Norgaard said would increase access for people with mobility challenges. By her calculation, combined fair market rent would be $266,352 to $399,528 per year. (One option to offset the rent for parking, if TAMC does not waive that cost, is to offer paid parking, rather than free parking.)

“I don’t think Sand City should pay for landscaped areas,” Delgado said. “That’s good for everybody. The parking, I’m on the fence about.”

MST does not pay TAMC for its use of the area for SURF!, a comparison that came up repeatedly. “Nobody is saying we don’t love the trail,” said TAMC Chair Chaps Poduri, a member of P.G. City Council. “The point is, why is this board at odds with Sand City on this, when we have a precedent with MST doing the same thing?”

After Norgaard spoke, the board met again in closed session to discuss the lease, with no action reported.