Del Mar Times |

SANDAG narrows possible routes for Del Mar train tunnel to three choices

San Diego County’s regional planning agency released three possible routes this week for the proposed Del Mar train tunnel, narrowing the choices from as many as 20 previously considered.

The San Diego Association of Governments revealed its latest maps in the official notice of preparation issued for the tunnel’s environmental impact report. If built, the new route would move about 1.7 miles of the railroad tracks off the edge of the tall, eroding seaside bluffs.

A new route through Del Mar has been discussed for decades, and preliminary planning has been underway for several years.

Transit officials say time is running out. The bluffs erode at the average rate of six inches annually, creeping ever closer to the tracks. Sea-level rise and climate change add a growing urgency to the project.

“This is the face of adapting to climate change,” said Keith Greer, the agency’s deputy director of regional planning, last week.

SANDAG has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last two decades on projects to keep the railroad tracks safe on the bluffs.

The fifth phase of that work is now underway, installing more seawalls, concrete-and-steel pilings and drainage structures on the face of the cliffs. Despite that work, there have been seven separate emergency repairs in the last 20 years after landslides threatened the tracks.

Two years ago, SANDAG received $300 million in state funding to begin preliminary studies for the tunnel. A year ago, the agency announced it was looking at five possible routes. Then, after extensive public feedback, much of it negative, the agency agreed to consider a “spaghetti map” of about 20 possibilities.

Tuesday’s official notice gives people 45 days, which ends July 19, to submit written comments that SANDAG will include in the draft environmental impact report for the project.

“Del Mar is set to respond to the (notice of preparation) at our Del Mar City Council meeting on July 8,” Mayor Dave Druker said Monday by email. “Based upon our meeting schedule, we will most likely ask that the comment period be extended to 60 days.”

Speaking before the three routes were released, Del Mar officials were unable to comment on SANDAG’s selected alternatives. However, City Council members have said before they want more time to examine the proposal. Many residents have expressed concerns about the tunnel, its possible hazards and the effect on their property values.

“The environmental study will make clear the environmental impacts of each route studied,” said Councilmember Terry Gaasterland. “By definition, that will include impacts on people’s homes. It will be important to know exactly what the impacts are.

“It will be critical that the methodology used in the environmental and geotechnical studies be thorough and produce complete and accurate information,” Gaasterland said.

Each proposed route would have two “portals,” which is the tunnel entrance or exit, depending on whether the train is traveling north or south.

The routes are: Alternative A, which starts from a north portal in Solana Beach at the edge of the Del Mar Fairgrounds, goes under the San Dieguito Lagoon, then along Interstate 5 to a south portal near I-5 at the edge of San Diego; Alternative B, which goes from a north portal at Jimmy Durante Boulevard, under Crest Canyon to the same south portal near I-5; and Alternative C, which also would go from the Jimmy Durante portal, roughly along the line of Camino Del Mar, to a south portal at Torrey Pines Road.

“There is something for everybody to like, and something for everybody to hate,” Greer said of the routes.

All three would be fast enough to meet goals for train travel times and the speed difference between them is negligible, said Danny Veeh, a rail planning program manager for SANDAG.

A majority of Del Mar residents in past community meetings have preferred a route near I-5, which would take it away from most homes. However, that would require the longest tunnel and, as a result, would cost nearly twice as much as either of the other two routes, Veeh said.

Past estimates have placed construction costs at roughly $4 billion, though the amount is likely to be much more. Last month, SANDAG officials said the costs to replace the 80-year-old train trestle across the San Dieguito Lagoon had increased by 27 percent in the previous year.

So far, no money is available to build the tunnel, and nearly all of it would have to come from state and federal grants. If funding becomes available, the project could be completed as early as 2035.

Each of the three possible routes is only a rough outline of where the tracks might go, agency officials said.

“We are not anywhere near the point of determining what properties are affected,” Greer said.

SANDAG has scheduled a public meeting from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on June 18 at the San Diego Marriott Del Mar to review the project, answer questions and accept comments.

Completion of the draft environmental impact report, or EIR, is expected to take about one year and will include the staff’s recommendation for a preferred route, SANDAG officials said.

Completion of the final EIR will take four to six more months. That and the preferred route for the tunnel will be subject to approval by the SANDAG board of directors, which includes mayors, city council members and county supervisors from each of the region’s 19 local governments.

While Del Mar residents clearly have a keen interest in the tunnel, the project is of regional, if not statewide importance.

As part of the 351-mile Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo rail corridor, the coastal route is San Diego’s only railroad connection to the rest of the United States.

A tunnel is essential at Del Mar because the topography there is too steep for any train to climb over. To keep the tracks relatively level, the route will be as deep as 300 feet below ground of some parts of the city.

Another reason for the new route is that the narrow bluff-top right-of-way, owned by the North County Transit District, has no room to add the second set of tracks that NCTD needs to expand passenger and freight service. The tunnel would be built wide enough for two sets of tracks.

Any of the alternative routes would be built using special equipment to bore through the deepest parts of the line. Shallower portions of the route near the portals would be built by the “cut-and-cover” process, which is done by digging a trench instead of boring.

Some properties near the portals may have to be acquired through eminent domain, agency officials have said. All property owners along the chosen route would be contacted and possibly involved at some level, though to varying degrees depending on the depth of the tracks.

Del Mar is just one of several bottlenecks on the LOSSAN corridor. Another is at San Clemente, where about seven miles of the tracks are squeezed between a shrinking beach and crumbling bluffs. Landslides there have interrupted train traffic to San Diego for weeks at a time in recent years.

The Orange County Transportation Authority, which owns the right-of-way there, recently began a study to identify short- and long-term solutions, which could include rerouting the tracks away from the coast.