The NCRA will meet Wednesday, August 12, at 10:30 am at the Humboldt County Courthouse in the Supervisor's Chambers.  Likely topics will include Rail with Trail Guidelines, and the DEIR for freight operations on the south end.

The train isn't coming, just the NCRA Board.  The meeting will take place Wednesday, 10:30am at the Supervisors Chambers in the Humboldt County Courthouse.

One notable action item on the agenda is setting the hearing date for April 15th the Draft Enivronmental Impact Report on reopening operations on the South End from Willits south.  This means the DEIR will have to be released within 6 days.

No word on what ahs happened with the trail in Healdsburg, but the NCRA has apparently backed down on selling off property in Ukiah to raise money to keep itself solvent.

From the Press Democrat:

Now that the NCRA's draft Rail-with-Trail Guidelines have been summarily sent back to the drawing board by trail advocates located along the entire NCRA corridor from Marin to Humboldt, impending trail development is facing stiff opposition fom railroad operator NWP, owned by John Williams.

A trail segment that is part of an affordable housing development project in Healdsburg, has been blocked by the operator, even though it is part of the approved Environmental Impact Report for teh Sonoma Marin Rail Transit (SMART) project for which voters in Sonoma and marin Counties approved a 1/4 cent sales tax in November.

The City of Healdsburg appears to be pissed off enough, that staff put forward as one alternative for its City Council to consider:

"Make life difficult for the NCRA/NWP by starting a grassroots/local agency effort calling for the elimination of all state and federal funding for NCRA activities."

So if you are a little annoyed at stymying of trail development up here in Humboldt, be advised that other trail advocates are too.

Addendum: Link to staff report.

We got an extension because we needed it.  But now our comments (available in html or as a pdf) are in to Caltrans and cc'd to other relevant decision makers.  Let's hope they heed them.  The comment period was too short (17 days) to inform more of the public on the issues for non-motorized users, but with the ext

Also available as a pdf.

January 13, 2008

Kim Floyd

Project Manager

California Department of Transportation

P. O. Box 3700

Eureka, CA 95502 – 3700

Dear Ms. Floyd,

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the new modified alternatives for the 101 Eureka Arcata Corridor Project. While the less expensive Alternative 1A provides an option that is somewhat more affordable, Caltrans has failed thus far to adequately justify the project or to address the impacts this project would have on non-motorized users of the corridor.

In a recent piece in the Times Standard, freight rail advocate Dan Hauser claims that the process of railbanking, i.e., preserving a railroad right-of-way by putting it to another use like trail development, results in the loss of easements over private property that then have to be re-acquired.  He suggests that this would make a railbanked trail between Arcata and Eureka near-impossible due to the many privately held easements in that stretch.  He's dead wrong, of course, and here is our letter that just ran in the Times Standard setting the record straight: