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Photograph by Paul Myers
The Union Pacific Railroad corridor in Saratoga is used by some as a trail for walking, jogging and bicycling.
Railroad trail remains on cities, back burner
By Oakley Brooks
Saratoga officials are working to keep viable a plan for a trail along the Union Pacific Railroad corridor, although the railroad will not release needed land without selling it at market value.
The 8.7-mile trail would link Rancho San Antonio County Park in Cupertino with the Los Gatos Creek trail, running through Saratoga and Campbell along the way. Already under unsanctioned use by dog-walkers and joggers, local officials and trail enthusiasts have eyed the corridor for expanded recreation and commuting in the West Valley. Historical activists say it roughly approximates the path of the 18th- century De Anza exploration party.
Officials in the four West Valley cities involved with the trail had hoped to gain a lease from Union Pacific to construct the pathway and a fence to separate it from the active rail line in the corridor.
But according to Saratoga Councilwoman Ann Waltonsmith and Cary Bloomquist, the city's staff liaison to the trail project, Union Pacific will not relinquish any use of the corridor without selling the land. That's something the cities and the Valley Transit Authority, which has earmarked $7.36 million for the project, are unwilling to do.
Union Pacific has consistently cited safety as its concern for not allowing a lease for part of the corridor to be used for the trail.
The company's railcars carry coal into the Hansen Cement Company plant in Cupertino three times a week.
Despite a detailed feasibility study and potential trail layout completed this fall by Alta Transportation, the railroad's stance has put the project on the back burner in the cities' priority list.
But VTA and the cities are working to keep the project warm. VTA has added the trail into its master plan for Santa Clara County. And in Saratoga, Waltonsmith is trying to put the pieces in place to allow the trail to go forward if the railroad land becomes available.
She recently asked the planning commission to designate the railroad corridor in Saratoga as open space, to ensure the land will not be sold to housing developers.
She will also explore the purchase of a right-of-way along the PG&E towers that run next to the rail line for roughly a mile in Saratoga.
Waltonsmith says that the limestone quarry that supports the Hansen cement plant will be completely mined 20 years from now. At that time, Union Pacific will not have a use for the rails and may become a willing negotiator. Waltonsmith says there is a precedence for rail right-of-ways transferring into public use: The Southern Pacific rail company sold its line, running from Santa Cruz through Los Gatos, to the San Jose Water Company in 1940. The land eventually became part of the Lexington Reservoir watershed.
In the meantime, Waltonsmith said, it is up to individual cities to figure out how much public support there is for the trail. She noted that VTA's offer to fund 80 percent of the $9.2 million trail still stands, so "it's not going to cost us millions."
"Wouldn't it be great?" she said of the trail. "It'd be a great place to run and walk your dog."
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
