SAN DIEGO — The effort to relocate the Surf Line rail route through Del Mar, Calif. — or not — is once again soliciting public comment.
The San Diego Association of Governments will host a meeting on the latest set of proposals for line relocation — including one option that would leave the route where it is on the Del Mar Bluffs while adding a second track — on Thursday (May 29) at 6 p.m. at The Sound, a live music venue at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Attendees will have the option of commenting verbally, individually with a court reporter, through an online portal, or by written comment card.
Comments also can be made online at any time through June 30.
SANDAG is in a 45-day comment period after filing a new Notice of Preparation on May 16, a preliminary step before preparing an environmental impact statement on the project. The agency initially filed a Notice of Preparation last year, but retreated from that initial set of three options for a tunnel under Del Mar in the wake of public opposition [see “Comment period on Del Mar tunnel project …,” News Wire, Dec. 16, 2024]. SANDAG then released a study of 16 possible reroute options [see “New study multiplies possible routes …,” News Wire, Feb. 10, 2025], leading to the latest options [see “San Diego agency again narrows options …,” News Wire, March 1, 2025].
As with the earlier set of options, the new set of potential routes has opponents, KPBS-TV reports. Del Mar Mayor Terry Gaasterland favors a route that would include some use of the right-of-way of Interstate 5, a revision of an earlier, more extensive reroute along the highway that was eliminated after the 16-route study because of cost.
“Personally, I believe that this environmental study is going to tell us all the things that are good, all the things that are bad, and we’re going to wind up with a menu of what could possibly be done,” Gassterland told the station.
The study of potential new routes reflects the ongoing erosion of the Del Mar bluffs along the rail line. While SANDAG is currently engaged in an effort to shore up the bluffs, a reroute has been considered necessary in the long term.
Again, a reroute is not necessary if local/state government agencies would bother to look around the world to see if any other situations like this have been dealt with already. In this case, there’s a perfect example of a storm battered coast that was in worse shape than Del Mar, and that would be Dalish in the U.K.. They managed to come up with a plan to shore up and protect the existing route without an expensive rerouting…and this location is battered by North Sea storms, so it was even in a more precarious situation than Del Mar. The bluffs can be shored up permanently, but everyone wants to put there head in the sand because of the CA Coastal Commission.