SANDAG has been considering several routes for the LOSSAN Rail Realignment Project in Del Mar.
This week they added 13 new routes to their alignment proposals. This was in response to input from the community to improve the original three alignments.
“I’ve taken it from Solana Beach down to a Padres game or whatever, and I've gone north to anywhere from Orange County to as far as Santa Barbara,” said Tom Sullivan, who has ridden along the LOSSAN corridor before and has personally seen coastal erosion along the Del Mar Bluffs.
Sullivan is also familiar with the proposed realignment project.
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“It’s just strange, especially in Southern California, especially San Diego to have major train lines that would run underground,” Sullivan said.
Frank Sherer worried it could impact the Del Mar community he’s lived in for 40 years.
“I just don’t want people’s homes to be impacted, and I think they will be from a tunnel,” Scherer said.
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This week, SANDAG released a value analysis study, on the controversial Del Mar train tunnel. The study adds 13 more alternative alignment proposals to the three already being considered.
Take a closer look at the new rail proposals here
Some of the proposals are entirely new, while others refine original ideas.
Del Mar mayor Terry Gaasterland supports Alignments 10 and 14, because those would not run underneath homes.
“We, as Del Mar residents, will be asking and demanding: Look at these alignments that take the train out from under people’s homes,” Gaasterland said.
The 25 miles of Alignment 10 would cost between $30 billion and $45 billion.
“For the very first time, it’s looking at taking a railroad from Oceanside all the way down to Sorrento Valley right along 1-5,” Gaasterland said.
Alignment 14 would cost between $7 billion and $9 billion. It would take the train deeper into the Solana Beach trench, underneath the fairgrounds, into a tunnel that runs underneath the lagoon, then out to the I-5.
“If that happens, no homes would be impacted in the way that they’re impacted in all of the other alignments,” Gaasterland said.
One Solana Beach resident told NBC 7 that is worried that Alignment 14 would have a detrimental impact on the fairgrounds and waste millions of dollars already spent on investments in the southern part of Solana Beach.
No matter what happens, some people said, they just want to make sure homes are not affected.
SANDAG is expected to hear public comment on the proposed alignments Feb. 28.
