The results of a “value analysis study” will be released in early 2025 for the proposal to reroute the train tracks off the Del Mar coastal bluffs and into an inland tunnel, regional planning officials said.
“We are in the process of finalizing the report, and the findings will be shared with the public and the (San Diego Association of Governments) Board of Directors in early 2025,” a communications official for the agency said Friday.
The new route remains far from settled. The study could recommend changes to the ones considered so far, or it could suggest another possibility.
SANDAG has said for decades an alternate route must be found to take about 1.7 miles of the train tracks off the eroding Del Mar bluffs before they collapse into the ocean. However, the task is politically fraught, enormously complicated and expensive. Construction probably will cost $4 billion or more.
The coastal train route is San Diego’s only rail connection to Orange County, Los Angeles and the rest of the United States. The San Diego segment is used by Coaster commuter trains, Amtrak passenger trains, and BNSF freight trains. It’s also part of the Defense Department’s nationwide Strategic Rail Corridor Network, which consists of 38,800 miles of track serving 193 military installations.
Along with making the tracks safer, the alternate route is intended to reduce travel times and increase how many passengers and how much cargo can be moved along the railway. A tunnel is the only practical solution because of Del Mar’s steep topography.
The value analysis study is a closer look at the three routes suggested in a notice of preparation for the project that SANDAG released in June.
The notice of preparation typically signals the start of an environmental impact report, which would narrow the recommendations to a single choice. Instead, it widened the search and turned up the heat on the slow simmer of opposition the tunnel has faced for years.
Agency officials said in September they needed the value analysis study for a closer look at the more than 1,500 written comments submitted in response to the notice, and that the study would be finished by the end of 2024.
At least 1,400 of the comments submitted were from individuals, many of them residents of Del Mar and Solana Beach who oppose any route that would take trains beneath or near their homes. The rest came from organizations such as the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation and agencies such as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Opposition to the tunnel continues, though the official comment period has ended.
“Del Mar will go bankrupt” from the loss of tourism, property and sales tax revenue if the tunnel goes beneath their homes, said Angelina Neglia of The Coalition for Safer Trains, a group of residents fighting the proposal.
Construction of the tunnel “will destroy the town” by taking an undetermined number of properties through eminent domain and disrupting traffic in the town with construction for a decade, Neglia said in a widely circulated Dec. 19 email.
Neglia and the coalition of mostly Del Mar residents are pushing for the longest and costliest of the possible routes. It would start farther north, closer to Solana Beach, and would take trains around most of Del Mar and deep beneath the Del Mar Fairgrounds along Interstate 5.
Solana Beach and the fairgrounds are none too happy about that route.
Construction on the fairgrounds would force the suspension of the annual San Diego County Fair, the annual horse races and other events there for 10 years or longer, fairgrounds CEO Carlene Moore said in July. The lost revenue would threaten the entire area’s economy and the survival of the fairgrounds, she said.
Fairgrounds board member Lisa Barkett said in July it was “shocking” that SANDAG would “waste all this time and money” to study such an unacceptable alternative.
While most people acknowledge a new route is needed, few agree on where it should be. The effort to finalize a map gained strength when the state allocated $300 million in 2022 to begin the initial design and review work.
Most of the dozens of possibilities considered before the notice was issued in June would take trains through a northern portal in Del Mar, into a tunnel deep below their homes, with a southern portal near the Los Peñasquitos Lagoon.
Any major changes proposed could require SANDAG to issue a new notice of preparation, which would require another comment period and start the process over again.
Before beginning the study, SANDAG said the tunnel was on track to be completed in 2035 if construction funding becomes available. The timeline could be revised next year based on the results.
