No support from board, RTC for fixing Aptos roads

It is unfortunate that Zach Friend (District 2 Supervisor) was not able to get Rio del Mar Boulevard and State Park Drive repaved during his long tenure. These main roads in our area are full of bumps and holes, and are very unpleasant to drive.

When there was an RTC meeting to discuss allocating money to fix these roads, nobody from District 2 spoke up, so most of the money went instead to expanding the Metro services from Watsonville because of its strong lobby.

It is unclear which candidate for supervisor will be successful at fixing our roads. Only one candidate’s website mentions the road maintenance and infrastructure. The other one has been mayor of Capitola, and we all know how bad 41st Avenue and Monterey Avenue have gotten, and she is heavily tied to Metro and the RTC.

If the new supervisor hires a grant writer to obtain funds to repair storm damage instead of using what should be road maintenance money, maybe we will see large improvements?

— Paul Peterson, Aptos

Voters: Educate yourselves about border issues

It was stated on Friday that Democrats have wide-open borders and Republicans close them. The southern border has been an enormous problem for decades, and hasn’t changed much no matter who is president or holds the congressional majority. A bipartisan “partial solution” was hammered out in early 2024 to help solve the situation. Before the final vote, Trump told his party to vote against it so he could maintain the falsehood that many believe about Democratic open borders.

Please educate yourselves, voters, on the southern border before you believe these lies.

— Michael McLaughlin, Santa Cruz

Rail opponents make unsubstantiated claims

The hardcore enemies of rail transit seem to believe they can alter the manifest will of the people by publishing manipulative “opinions” in Letters to the Editor. The standard pattern is to begin with a negative conclusion and make up baseless arguments to support it. (“Rail is unaffordable, impractical for county,” Sentinel, Sept. 3, 2024.)

Our latest math wizard claims he calculated in one minute on the back of an envelope that “there aren’t enough passengers to justify the enormous cost,” and “rail infrastructure will suck away funding for all other transportation.”

Yeah, right. Any middle school math teacher would say, “Show me your work.” Let’s see the envelope. And the supporting data.

The nattering nabobs of negativism go on and on about destroying butterflies and detours onto narrow streets, but this senseless disparagement isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. Two years ago, 73% of voters countywide crushed all the same spurious arguments.

Our public railroad is for public transportation. The rail trail is being built, but rail transit is the sine qua non.

— Jim Weller, Capitola

Capitola Trestle makes rail service a ‘pipe dream’

The single greatest impediment to rail service in Santa Cruz County (aside from funding, insufficient passengers, crumbling coastal cliffs under the tracks, and Harkins Slough) is the Capitola Trestle. Until the trestle is replaced, rail service between Santa Cruz and Watsonville is a pipe dream.

Recognizing this, in 2018 Capitola voters approved Measure L, “in favor of (a) preserving the Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Commission’s Rail Corridor and Trestle over Soquel Creek for bicyclists, foot traffic, and other forms of non-motorized transportation and (b) prohibiting expenditures to reroute pedestrians and bicyclists from the corridor.”

The language of Measure L seems clear to me, but Mayor Kristen Brown, campaigning for District 2 supervisor, believes voters didn’t know what they were voting for and bike lanes through the jam-packed village streets are good enough.

District voters will have to decide if they want a supervisor who has already decided what voters want, and what they’ll get. Or, we can open the trestle for bikes and pedestrians. At least until we get the county bullet train running.

— Nadene Thorne, Santa Cruz

Letters policy

Letters to the Editor should be no more than 175 words and be accompanied by the writer’s home address and a phone number for verification. Letters can be emailed to editorial@santacruzsentinel.com. We do not accept anonymous letters.