Open the Murray Street Rail Bridge

In Santa Cruz, the Murray Street Bridge closure has cut off a critical cross-harbor route—leaving residents, cyclists, and small businesses without safe, direct access. Read and sign the petition.

Carmageddon, aka Murray Street Bridge Closure

Update September 23, 2025:

Hi everyone — Patrice Boyle here, owner of La Posta and organizer of this petition.

We’ve just received a formal update from the City of Santa Cruz about the Murray Street rail bridge. Here’s the situation:

  • The City and RTC are delaying action until November. The RTC won’t consider a revised plan until Nov. 6, and the City Council won’t take it up until Nov. 18.

  • In the meantime, Progressive Rail has not responded at all to the City or RTC.

  • Roaring Camp, which actually runs the small freight operation in Watsonville, continues to side with Progressive in blocking public use.

This means that local businesses, already down 25–40%, are being told to hold on for at least two more months while out-of-state and local rail operators drag their feet. That is unacceptable.

The rail bridge belongs to the public. The rail operators don’t depend on it for business north of Watsonville, yet they are holding our community hostage in a moment of real crisis.

Here’s what you can do today:

  1. Email the decision-makers now. Tell them businesses cannot wait until November. Demand immediate action to open the rail bridge for pedestrians and cyclists.

    • Santa Cruz City Council: citycouncil@cityofsantacruz.com
    • RTC Commissioners & Staff: info@sccrtc.org
    • Roaring Camp Railroads: info@roaringcamp.com
    • Progressive Rail: info@progressiverail.com

  2. Keep spreading the word: Sign & Share the Petition. We’re over 2,000 signatures strong, but every name helps build pressure.

This is an emergency. Time is of the essence. The perfect plan can come later — right now, something safe and functional must be done to keep our businesses and neighborhoods alive.

With determination,

Patrice Boyle
Owner, La Posta
Organizer, Murray Street Rail Bridge Petition

Update September 21, 2025:

Hi everyone — Patrice Boyle here, owner of La Posta and organizer of this petition.

I want to share with you a powerful new story in SFGate about the Murray Street Bridge closure and its devastating impact on Seabright and Harbor businesses:

'Nightmare': Project cutting off Calif. tourist town businesses may take years

The article lays it out clearly:

  • Seabright Social has already shut its doors — the first closure directly tied to the bridge.

  • Brady’s Yacht Club sales are down 40%, Java Junction down 25%, and my own La Posta lost nearly 25% of reservations on what should have been our busiest weekend of the year.

  • The project won’t fully finish until 2028.

The City’s answer so far? Surveys, loans, and waiting. That’s not enough. Time is of the essence. We don’t need the perfect solution — we need something now. The rail bridge is sitting there, unused. A temporary path for walking and biking could restore at least part of the lost access.

Here’s how you can help today:

  1. Read the article to understand what we’re up against.

  2. Email City Council, RTC commissioners, and Roaring Camp/Progressive Rail. Tell them that three years of paralysis is unacceptable. We need immediate, practical action to reconnect our neighborhoods and save our small businesses.

Email contacts (copy/paste into your email app):

  • Santa Cruz City Council: citycouncil@cityofsantacruz.com

  • RTC Commissioners & Staff: info@sccrtc.org

  • Roaring Camp Railroads: info@roaringcamp.com

  • Progressive Rail: info@progressiverail.com

This is an emergency, and the longer nothing is done, the more businesses we will lose. Please make your voice heard.

With gratitude,

Patrice Boyle
Owner, La Posta
Organizer, Murray Street Rail Bridge Petition

Update August 23, 2025:

Hi everyone — Patrice Boyle here, owner of La Posta and organizer of the Murray Street Rail Bridge Petition.

Last week’s City Council meeting showed again just how badly our City government misunderstands the crisis they helped create. Businesses in Seabright and the Harbor are hanging by a thread — yet City staff keep offering half-measures, surveys, and loan proposals that don’t come close to addressing the real problem.

Seabright Social has already announced it will close its doors — the first casualty of this closure.

Owners of The Crow’s Nest, Betty Burgers, Java Junction, and many others spoke about revenue drops of 20–30% or more. Some said this summer is worse than during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, City staff dismissed the rail bridge option as too hard, citing a $1.7 million estimate (in contrast, community members got an estimate of $350k), liability worries, and a letter from Progressive Rail — an out-of-state company that runs almost no freight here.

What small business owners see is simple: sales down, payrolls at risk, customers cut off. What City Hall talks about is: surveys, free parking at 13 meters, and maybe a shuttle in “2–3 months.” That’s the disconnect. Government is moving at bureaucratic speed while real businesses operate at survival speed.

This is an emergency. Emergency measures exist for a reason. Instead of punching down on local businesses, the City should be bold enough to stand up to the rail operators and use the corridor they already own.

We’ve built momentum together — more than 1,900 signatures and growing. Please keep sharing the petition and contacting City Council and RTC commissioners. Tell them: three years of inaction is not acceptable.

Thank you for standing with us,

Patrice Boyle
Owner, La Posta
Organizer, Murray Street Rail Bridge Petition

Read the Santa Cruz Local coverage here

Contact the decision makers:

Update August 19, 2025:

Hi everyone — I’m Patrice Boyle, owner of La Posta and the person who started this petition.

Today is a sad day for Santa Cruz. We’ve heard today, that despite the urgent pleas from businesses and residents, the City and the RTC — which owns the rail corridor — have declined to move forward with temporary pedestrian and bicycle access on the Murray Street rail bridge.

In practice, they have yielded to the rail operators — Progressive Rail (an out-of-state company) and Roaring Camp (a beloved but, in this case, misguided local business). We are especially puzzled by the RTC’s reluctance to use its authority.

Progressive Rail holds the freight agreement, and Roaring Camp runs the small freight operation in Watsonville, but the RTC owns the corridor and has far more power and resources than either of them. Yet the RTC has stepped back, refusing to assert the authority it clearly holds.

We don’t know exactly what the next steps will bring, but we do know this: your voices have already changed the conversation. Please keep speaking up.

If you can, send polite, direct emails today:

City of Santa Cruz (Mayor & Council)

Santa Cruz County RTC (Commissioners & Executive Director)

Roaring Camp / Progressive Rail

All of the above

Tell them why reopening this crossing is urgent, how the closure is harming our community, and that you support a simple, temporary solution on the rail bridge during construction.

Thank you for standing with Seabright and Harbor-area businesses. We’re not giving up.

Update August 11, 2025:

Here’s an update on our petition to open the Murray St Rail Bridge close to la Posta.

We’ve reached almost 1500 signatures!

Thank you - we are so very grateful.

Last March, 3 years of repairs began on a bridge which stopped traffic from reaching lower Seabright Avenue, and we immediately suffered the effects of limited traffic. In June, the closure became complete. La Posta and all the neighboring businesses saw our street become empty and business dry up.

Two neighborhoods, Seabright and the Harbor have been cut off as a result of the bridge work.

I started a petition on Change.org 2 weeks ago asking the City of Santa Cruz to open an adjacent, unused railroad bridge to allow pedestrian and bicycle traffic into the neighborhoods.

This would be a great move to help the 17 small local businesses in lower Seabright a change to survive this closure.

This is an easy, cheap, temporary, solution to a big problem for us businesses.

And they have listened! Tomorrow this issue will be heard at the SC City Council meeting and we hope it will fly right through - after that there will be new hurdles to overcome; so the more signatures to support this, the better!

Please help us by signing this petition now.

We so appreciate your support, so if you have already signed on – please consider sharing this with your friends!

With gratitude,

Patrice and the crew at la Posta

https://chng.it/S4trPPksKR

https://ecm.cityofsantacruz.com/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=2515&doctype=1

Read and sign the petition.

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May 2025:

To our dear friends and customers, to those who come to la Posta and relax, waiting for the tart-oniony, palate-awakening crunch of the Blue Heron salad or the umami-dense cannellini beans and Big Eye tuna, for the garlicky, lemony charred spring peas, for the silky pasta and even silkier Nebbiolo…

We write today to alert you to the big road closure, the carmageddon (we hope not at all hours), the change in direction that is happening in our lower Seabright neighborhood..

As you may know or not, the Murray Street Bridge which links the East with the West (sides of the SC Harbor) will be closed until further notice or for 3 years, whichever comes later. Cars that wish to travel west, into Seabright, may no longer do so. Instead a detour will be necessary, up 7th Ave, over Capitola Road and Soquel Avenue, then south on Seabright to la Posta.

While we could clearly do without this inconvenience, a new bridge has been on the drawing board since ’89. However the bridge will be much safer for pedestrians and cyclists, and it won’t collapse in the next Big One. For this, we are thankful.

For our dear diners however, while this may be something of a challenge, we hope not too challenging, just enough to make your arrival at la Posta that much more satisfying and sweet. Perhaps after a bike ride or walk over Arana Gulch, or sometimes, the actual bridge. 

We are hoping the ferry service across the harbor will be revived and sustained, for pedestrians and cyclists. 

We hope the City of Santa Cruz will not only repair but actually supply bicycles to the existing B Cycle bike stand that does not function and takes up street parking space.

We commit now to sharing any special info that might help with navigating the new maze, or any special events that may be happening here in lower Seabright. We commit to keeping our food fantastic and fresh, and our service prompt and friendly. 

This will be a significant challenge to this little restaurant and we will survive with your continued support. 

Thank you, drive carefully!

The brigade at la Posta