Sacramento Report: San Diego Is Getting $53.9 Million to Fix Its Coastal Rail Line

Local legislators announced more than $53 million in federal funds to fix parts of San Diego’s beleaguered coastal rail line Thursday, in what was originally billed as a rolling press conference. Earlier in the week they invited me and other reporters to join them on a train ride from San Diego’s Santa Fe Depot to Union Station in L.A.

That was before a landslide in San Clemente derailed the multi-city junket, illustrating the exact problem officials are trying to fix.

The San Diego–San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor, the second busiest in the country, was offline much of last year because of earlier bluff collapses in San Clemente. Part of the scenic rail line in San Diego is also threatened by erosion; in 2021 the rail corridor shut down after a century-old retaining wall collapsed in Del Mar.

The $53.9 million will replace the 107-year-old San Dieguito River Railway Bridge in Del Mar, marking the first step in a $3 billion plan to save the Del Mar train tracks by moving the line off crumbling bluffs. 

In the meantime, daily commutes for thousands of riders rest on the vagaries of a shifting shoreline battered by rising seas.

“There’s a certain irony to what happened here today,” state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, said at a scaled back press conference in Oceanside. 

Del Mar and San Clemente are major choke points on the rail line, where unstable cliffs create uncertain train service. In 2019, the line accounted for 8.3 million rides and $1 billion in freight traffic. Ridership dropped by more than half – to 3.9 million – by the end of 2023, following pandemic restrictions and route closures.

The new concrete bridge, funded through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will replace a wooden structure, expand a mile of track from single to double lines and raise it eight feet to adjust to sea level rise and allow it to connect to a planned tunnel. That project has its own detractors. Earlier this week, Voice of San Diego’s Tigist Layne profiled  a Del Mar Councilmember who argues the rail line itself is past its prime. 

Other efforts to shore up the coastal rail line include replacing 1.3 million cubic yards of beach sand in Del Mar, Encinitas and San Clemente, drawing up plans to relocate tracks in Orange County, and designating the corridor as a priority with the Federal Railroad Administration, Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, said.

“These announcements are a long time coming and they’re really just a down payment on what will be needed over the next couple of decades,” he said.

Adapting Water Supply to Atmospheric Rivers 

If Monday’s storm felt like a biblical flood, that’s not far off. The deluge was the fourth biggest on record and dropped 2.73 inches of rain at San Diego International Airport. That’s about a quarter of the annual average, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography said at a presentation on El Niño Tuesday.

The soaking rain came from an atmospheric river during a strong El Niño year, said research meteorologist Marty Ralph, director of Scripps’ Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes. El Niño happens when water warms up near the equator in the central and eastern Pacific, adding energy to global weather systems and driving big storms like the one Monday.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria declared a state of emergency, and homeless organizations scrambled to get people off the streets and into shelter. Residents in southeast San Diego watched as they lost their homes and belongings to the flood.

Storms like this play a part in water planning: While California grapples with the opposite challenges of extreme weather and drought, a new forecasting system built by Scripps Institution of Oceanography could help water managers avoid overflows when winter storms meet California’s aging reservoirs. 

AB30, passed last year by Assemblymember Chris Ward, D-San Diego, requires reservoirs to use real time weather predictions instead of seasonal rainfall averages to decide how much water to release or retain. 

Under the old method, Ralph said, “You release water in winter that would be priceless in summer.”

With the new system, water managers get alerts on upcoming atmospheric rivers, allowing them to store as much water as possible, while releasing enough to keep reservoirs safe. 

Researchers tested it on half a dozen reservoirs and are expanding to others. It’s not one-size fits all, Ralph said, so it will have to be tailored to the structure and hydrology of each site.

Presidential Politics at Play in North County Assembly Race

A Vista billboard ad posted by 74th District Assembly candidate Chris Duncan links his opponent, Assemblywoman Laurie Davies, R-Laguna Niguel, to a local man convicted for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The ad shows Davies speaking into a microphone, as a bearded man in an American flag t-shirt and black hat watches alongside her.

“Laurie Davies stood with a convicted Jan. 6 felon. Literally,” the billboard states.

The man, Duncan said, is Alan Hostetter of San Clemente, a former police chief turned yoga instructor turned Jan. 6 attacker. Hostetter was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison last month for offenses that included disrupting Congress and bringing tactical gear, hatchets, knives, stun batons and pepper spray to the Capitol, federal prosecutors said.

Duncan, a San Clemente council member and federal prosecutor, maintains that Davies’ role in the rally reveals tacit support for Hostetter and other Jan. 6 rioters. He said the billboard points to the danger of extremism, “and the expectation that our elected representatives condemn, not associate with, violent extremists.”

Davies called the billboard “disingenuous” and pointed out that the rally took place in 2020 before the presidential election and the Capitol attack. 

“I don’t know Alan, but no matter what, people who commit violence of any kind should be prosecuted,” she said.

Duncan is betting that Davies’ appearance with Hostetter will work against her in the swing district spanning North San Diego and south Orange County. Voter registration in the 74th Assembly district switched from an overwhelming Republican advantage in the early 2000s to a narrow margin in the last election in 2022, when Davies beat Duncan by about five points. Last year Democrats overtook them with a narrow 1-point lead, leaving both candidates poised for a rematch in November.

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.