Encinitas will receive $33.6 million in federal grant funding to add new crossing points and improve public safety along much of its six-mile railroad corridor between Cardiff and Leucadia, the city manager announced Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at return on investment, we spent $77,000 (on consulting work to obtain the grant money) \u2026 and that yielded $33.6 million. \u2026 I\u2019ve never really seen a return on investment that large,\u201d City Manager Jennifer Campbell said. She thanked a host of people who helped with the grant process, ranging from council members and federal elected officials to city staff and consultants.<\/p>\n
Encinitas sought money for three projects from the Federal Railroad Administration\u2019s National Railroad Partnership Program, and it won funding for all three. They are:<\/p>\n
A pedestrian crossing tunnel under the railroad tracks at Verdi Avenue in Cardiff. The total estimated construction cost is $16 million.
\nTwo new pedestrian, at-grade crossing points at Grandview and Phoebe streets in Leucadia. The city estimates it needs $6 million for that project.
\nA new train-horn quiet zone stretching from downtown\u2019s E Street to Leucadia Boulevard. This project will include improvements to the existing crossing points at E Street, D Street and Leucadia Boulevard. Construction cost is estimated to be $13.4 million.<\/p>\n
These projects are \u201cbasically spanning our whole entire rail corridor,\u201d Campbell declared as she described their current status during Wednesday night\u2019s City Council meeting.<\/p>\n
Campbell said the final design work for the Verdi under-crossing project already is done and the next step will be gaining California Public Utilities Commission approval for the plans. She added that city employees \u201cdefinitely feel we will get (that approval) in time\u201d to meet the new federal grant spending deadlines.<\/p>\n
Design work on the two, proposed at-grade crossings at Grandview and Phoebe streets is about 70% completed, Campbell said.<\/p>\n
When it comes to the train-horn quiet zone project, Encinitas already has started coordinating with the state utilities commission and the Federal Railroad Administration to obtain waivers that will allow Encinitas to install a new warning system along the tracks, similar to what\u2019s currently used in San Clemente, Campbell said. After the new system is installed, trains will no longer be required to sound their horns as they pass the crossing points between E Street and Leucadia Boulevard.<\/p>\n
This will be the city\u2019s second train-horn quiet zone. One was established in Cardiff in the Chesterfield Drive area in 2019.<\/p>\n
Encinitas already has aside some money for railroad corridor improvements. It will be required to provide a 20% match in order to receive this new federal grant money, a city press release states.<\/p>\n
For updates on the three railroad corridor projects, visit: https:\/\/www.encinitasca.gov\/government\/city-projects-initiatives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Encinitas will receive $33.6 million in federal grant funding to add new crossing points and improve public safety…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,4601,23,3054,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-438714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-encinitas","tag-local-news","tag-north-county","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}