The March closure of the Murray Street bridge at Santa Cruz Harbor for seismic retrofitting has impacted nearby businesses because of the reduced vehicle traffic. A belated effort is now underway to improve pedestrian and bike access via the adjacent railroad bridge.
Santa Cruz Local reports that:
"Thursday, the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission unanimously voted to allow the City of Santa Cruz access to the Santa Cruz Rail Line Bridge across the harbor for a potential temporary walking and biking path. The city would need permission from Progressive Rail, which [has a contract of freight operations on] the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, but does not use it north of Watsonville. The Santa Cruz City Council is set to consider pursuing a temporary path on the rail bridge at its Tuesday meeting."
The photo above (looking toward Santa Cruz) shows the rail bridge to the right of the vehicle bridge. I took a walk across the bridge last week, passing a number of other walkers and bike walkers (riding a bike under current conditions is difficult). It's not a problem for pedestrians, but it seems to me that providing a safe and usable bike path on that bridge would be difficult (and probably expensive), even though it would only be temporary.
The idea is that allowing and/or restoring pedestrian/bike usage of the rail bridge would help to offset the loss of vehicle traffic. I'm skeptical that it would make much difference - there wasn't very much pedestrian/bike traffic over the vehicle bridge before its closure. That stretch of Murray Street has always been a scary place to walk or ride, and improving those unsafe conditions is a secondary goal of the bridge work that's happening now. Since completion of the Arana Gulch ped/bike bridge, safety-minded pedestrians and bicyclists can now take the Broadway-Arana Gulch Open Space-Brommer Street route. Normally, there's easy walk/bike access from the Open Space to both sides of Santa Cruz Harbor, but the bridge work means those paths will sometimes be closed.
It might seem better and simpler to accelerate the Rail Trail improvements already planned for that section, which is in the middle of Segment 8. Unfortunately, the existing rail bridge is not wide enough to accomodate addition of a ped/bike trail, so the schematic plans published to date envision an entirely new bridge parallel to the rail bridge. It's unlikely that a new Rail Trail bridge could be built faster than the work on the existing vehicle bridge that's already underway.
Still, I think temporary pedestrian/bike improvements to the rail line from Seabright Avenue to 7th Avenue are worth consideration. The Santa Cruz City Council meeting is at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 12 at 809 Center St., Santa Cruz and online.
