Del Mar bluffs project in final phase, but big changes for the railway in the works

SANDAG’s stabilization of the Del Mar bluffs is part of the LOSSAN Corridor, a 60-mile stretch of railway through San Diego. The agency tells NBC 7 they are about one month into its fifth and final phase to keep erosion along the coast in Del Mar from impacting railway transportation and beyond.

“Because of various climate changes, sea-level rise, more intense storms, we’re seeing a lot of erosion at the bluffs, so we’re here to stabilize these tracks in the near term, so we can maintain operations at these tracks,” Omar Atayee, director of engineering and construction for SANDAG, told NBC 7.

The train tracks that line the Del Mar coastline have been the agency's focus for years. Atayee says the more than $80 million project will continue for three years.

“The near-term project is to put seawalls at the base of the bluffs, about six seawalls that we’re placing,” Atayee said. “What that does is that as the waves get larger and more intense at the bottom of the slopes, the seawalls will help mitigate and protect the slopes.”

But that’s just a part of the project.

“We will be doing work along the tracks, putting some structures under the tracks to make sure they’re stable and they’re also not being affected by the impacts that are happening, and then we’ll also be doing some storm drain improvements so that we can collect runoff and safely bring that out to the ocean,” according to Atayee.

He expects construction of the seawall and beams to work around train schedules. However, there could be delays at times.

“We do have to work around the trains, so we have really limited windows. The seawalls that are happening at the toe-end of the bluffs are going to happen first, but whatever opportunities we have to work on the train tracks, we’ll be doing that over the course of the next couple years,” Atayee said.

He says there will be no major beach closures.

“The public will see some heavy equipment. We’ll have flaggers there so that we’re moving safely. We’ll have areas corded off, so people know where the construction is happening," he said.

Atayee says the longevity of the tracks is still at risk. What is along the coast today could look very different several years from now.

“There’s a bigger vision to get the railroad tracks off of the bluffs,” Atayee said.

It's a vision that he says will take the tracks inland.

“One of the benefits of moving the tracks off the bluff is that we’ll have a straighter alignment, it’ll be more efficient," he said. "We’ll also have double tracks. In this area, there’s only one track, so giving us two lines of track gives us more operation, more service and more reliability.”

Atayee says that the project is years off, and before any work can be done, an environmental report will begin in June, which will take anywhere from 18-24 months to complete.

“The next phase of the project, which is what we’re currently studying alignments on, we’re about to start the environmental process on looking at taking these tracks off the bluffs, moving them inland so it’s a lot safer, and we know it doesn’t have the effects of erosion that’s happening off the coastline," Atayee said.

Back to the coast at Del Mar, when this fifth phase of the project is complete, the agency says the public can also expect a coastal connection to provide safe beach access.