The North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA) Board meets this Wednesday in Healdsburg. On the agenda is the issue of the Foss Creek Pathway, a partially-built rail with trail along the NCRA right of way in Healdsburg that may be about to have one more section filled in, depending on the backbone rigidity of our public representatives.  The direction the Board takes on this issue will signal what to expect when it comes to Rail with Trail development up here in Humboldt County.

The trail is part of a 70 mile-long Sonoma and Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) passenger rail and trail project, sales tax funding for which was approved by well over 2/3 in the two counties in November. The project has been reviewed by all relevant agencies as part of its environmental impact report process. It received approval from the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which oversees railroad safety, and by the NCRA. This particular segment in question is proposed to be constructed in conjunction with and affordable housing project.

Despite all this, trail opponent John Williams, the NCRA’s private operator, has invoked his right to veto anything he doesn’t like, and decided he doesn’t like this trail. In fact, at a February 4 NCRA property committee meeting, he threatened to go to his friends at the PUC and complain that the entire proposed 70-mile SMART trail was unacceptable to him.

It will be interesting to see how new Humboldt County NCRA representatives handle this rogue operator. Railroad booster Charles Olivier, a former Humboldt Bay Commissioner who was unseated in 2007 by trail proponent Pat Higgins in a landslide election, is serving out a term on the NCRA Board that ends June 30 of this year. In his failed re-election bid to the Bay Commission, he ran on the platform promising that we could have it all, rails, trails and sails, presumably meaning that he viewed trail development as compatible with port/rail development. This situation will be an interesting test of that stand.

Clif Clendenen is Humboldt’s new representative to the NCRA Board, and has promised to take a pragmatic approach to railroad issues.

How the NCRA handles the operator’s resistance to Healdsburg’s Foss Creek Rail-with-Trail project will help clarify whether Humboldt trail proponents should focus on continued work with the NCRA to find rail with trail opportunities in Humboldt, or focus on the huge unlikelihood of railroad reconstruction and push harder for railbanking to preserve the right of way for future railroad development, getting trail development built without the railroad for now.

What say you, readers?