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A Scenic California Rail Line Sits on an Eroding Cliff. Where Should the Tracks Go?
Perched atop craggy bluffs in a beachside city north of San Diego, a railroad line offers passengers a sweeping view of the Pacific Coast. But the ground beneath it is crumbling.
No one denies the problem, but a fight over how to solve it highlights a broader challenge, and a worrisome reality, for California residents: how to adapt to climate change that threatens coastal living, a way of life that has long defined the state’s identity, from its economy to its culture.
The segment of track on the bluffs in Del Mar, Calif., connects San Diego to the rest of the state and the country, and is part of one of the busiest intercity passenger rail corridors in the nation. But the bluffs are eroding rapidly, and the track in some places is now only a few yards from the cliff edge.
Officials and residents in Del Mar and nearby communities broadly agree that the tracks need to be moved, but argue over where they should go. The debate has slowed progress, even as climate change accelerates the risks to the bluffs and the rail line.
On Friday, local representatives on the board of the county’s regional planning agency — the San Diego Association of Governments — voted to narrow the potential alternatives to four options, down from more than a dozen that were assessed in a recent report. But a final decision remains far off.
“It’s at a dangerous point, and with all the bureaucracy involved, it makes us wonder whether it will even be in our lifetime before it’s solved,” Barbara Myers, a former Del Mar school board member, said of the problem. She lives near the proposed location of a tunnel entrance to relocate the rail line, and she worries about toxic fumes or the possibility of street collapses.
With sea levels rising and stronger waves battering their shores, many other communities like Del Mar see a need to adapt, but are finding the options difficult.
Cliffside homes and apartment buildings teeter on the edge, some of them abandoned or demolished preemptively because of the threat of collapse from erosion. Infrastructure has taken a beating up and down the California coast: Sections of scenic Highway 1 have closed repeatedly because of landslides, and the Santa Cruz Wharf, a popular tourist attraction, was torn apart by towering waves in December. Communities are racing to protect shrinking beaches, reinforcing them with barriers and dredging sand from other areas in an effort to maintain and replenish them.
“The situation in Del Mar is a microcosm of a larger battle that’s unfolding,” said Charles Lester, a former official with the California Coastal Commission, a state agency that manages development along the coastline. He now directs the Ocean and Coastal Policy Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “What are we going to prioritize and try to maintain as these environmental changes happen?”
The Del Mar track is part of a 351-mile coastal rail corridor stretching from San Luis Obispo to San Diego. It is used by passenger, freight and military trains, including Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner, whose name evokes the way sections of the route hug the coast. Millions of trips are taken along the route each year.
But the same coastal proximity that gives passengers scenic ocean views also makes the track vulnerable to erosion. Construction crews are now working on the fifth project since the early 2000s to stabilize the Del Mar bluffs, a $90 million effort that will, among other things, install additional support columns and retaining walls.
These projects are not a long-term solution. The rising ocean and erosion continue to pound the bluffs, leading to costly emergency repairs and repeated service disruptions. On average, the bluffs retreat a few inches a year, but there can be sudden collapses that chew away more than 20 feet at once. And not just in Del Mar: Erosion is also destabilizing parts of the rail corridor farther north, in San Clemente.
“Realistically, time is not on our side, with the acceleration of climate change,” said Fred Jung, who chairs the rail corridor’s board of directors. “We are forced to act right now.
City officials in Del Mar — a community of about 4,000 residents in an area of less than two square miles — have been talking for decades about moving the tracks off the crumbling bluffs. In 2017, the county planning agency completed a study outlining five possible new routes.
The idea gained momentum in 2022 when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a state budget that allocated $300 million for relocating the tracks. In June 2024, the association of local governments announced that it had narrowed the options down to three, all involving inland tunnels.
The reaction was swift. Del Mar residents raised concerns about tunnel construction and operations beneath their homes, citing risks from vibration and pollution. People who lived near the entrance and exit points of the proposed tunnels worried that homes would be demolished.
A proposed route running through a lagoon was opposed by environmentalists because of how it might affect sensitive habitats. A route that would tunnel under the San Diego County Fair grounds and into neighboring Solana Beach met resistance from that city and from fair organizers.
And looming above the debate is the question of money. The project is expected to cost billions of dollars, and county voters rejected a half-cent sales tax increase in November that would have raised money for regional transportation and infrastructure projects, including the Del Mar track relocation.
In light of all that, the agency re-examined the issue, ultimately leading to the vote on Friday. Three of the options now on the table would move the line off the bluffs; a fourth would keep the track where it is, reinforce the bluffs and add a second track next to the existing one.
As required by state and federal law, the agency would also study a fifth option: no project at all.
The meeting, with two hours of discussion, grew emotional at times, as officials and residents voiced concerns about the proposed options. Mayor Terry Gaasterland of Del Mar abstained from voting.
The mayor said in an interview before the meeting that none of the remaining options is likely to satisfy everyone.
“We’re going to need to step back and minimize the sum total of the unhappiness,” she said. “And also spread it out.”
That debate was on display on a recent Saturday in Del Mar, as construction crews were working to stabilize a section of the bluffs supporting the tracks. Near the top, workers used excavators, a giant drill and other heavy equipment. In several areas, chunks of the bluffs had eroded and crumbled, sending dirt, rocks and vegetation tumbling down onto the beach.
Officials acknowledge that neither the current stabilization project nor emergency repairs offer a long-term solution to the challenges of the rising ocean and coastal erosion.
Jim Hindman, 64, a financial consultant, lives with his family just one house away from the bluff-top tracks. His voice was sometimes drowned out by the construction trucks that kicked up dust as they pulled in and out of his street, which ends at the tracks.
Mr. Hindman said the option to add a second track to the existing rail line would alter the character of his neighborhood and the bluff. He said the bluffs were a beloved community space where people gather to watch sunsets, spot whales and dolphins, and even celebrate weddings.
“Tranquillity by the sea? Not happening for the next couple of years,” he said, referring to the stabilization work and the potential for a tunnel project to follow.
Richard Sfeir, 66, has lived for three decades in Del Mar Heights, a San Diego neighborhood bordering the city of Del Mar. Many houses in the Heights perch high above downtown Del Mar along narrow, winding streets. One relocation proposal would route the tracks through a tunnel under the neighborhood, an idea that he called “crazy” because of its cost, timeline and impact on a protected environmental area.
But Mr. Sfeir, a businessman, said that something needed to be done.
“No solution is not an answer,” he said, “unless you get rid of the train, period.”
President Trump’s vision for his National Garden of American Heroes is growing larger and most likely more expensive than his initial estimates, with the latest plans calling for reflecting pools, dining facilities and an amphitheater alongside 250 life-size statues of notable Americans.
The plans have expanded to the point that they could require significant redevelopment of West Potomac Park, an area of mostly sports fields near the National Mall, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. The statues alone could cost more than the $40 million approved for the project by Congress, according to the Trump administration’s estimate.
Based on the latest renderings, the Garden of Heroes could rank among the more expensive and time-consuming projects Mr. Trump has undertaken as he works to remake the nation’s capital in his own style.
Construction has yet to begin, raising questions about whether Mr. Trump will run out of time — and money — to deliver on his ambitions before the end of his second term. If Mr. Trump were to solicit donor funds, as he has done with his ballroom project, it could renew ethical concerns about attempts to court favor with the White House.
The latest drawings depict a “Heroes Walk,” connecting themed areas dedicated to categories of American figures, including politicians, soldiers, scientists, activists, artists and athletes. The set of honorees is eclectic: George Washington, Ronald Reagan and Amelia Earhart are on a list circulated by the administration, along with Elvis Presley, Kobe Bryant, Alfred Hitchcock, Dr. Seuss and others.
Accompanying the statues would be formal gardens, reflecting pools and plazas arranged in a style reminiscent of classical European planning traditions, according to renderings reviewed by The Times. The Trump administration has yet to settle on a final plan or submit it to any oversight board.
One of the most prominent features in the plans would be a large amphitheater carved into the landscape at the water’s edge, suggesting the space is intended to function both as a performance venue and as a ceremonial gathering place.
The plans also include cafes and open recreational spaces.
“President Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes will be built to reflect the awesome splendor of our country’s timeless exceptionalism,” said Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman. “President Trump continues to beautify and honor our nation’s capital during America’s historic semiquincentennial celebration.”
Proposed in his first term, Mr. Trump initially hoped to have the project completed by July 4 of this year, the 250th anniversary of American independence. But administration officials are now hoping to have a few dozen statues ready to unveil in time, with the remainder of the project to be completed by the end of Mr. Trump’s term.
Sanitizing History
Mr. Trump first proposed a Garden of Heroes during his first term, at a time of widespread protesting over the murder of George Floyd in police custody. Protesters had toppled statues of Confederate generals and leaders, and in some instances vandalized monuments to national icons like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. Trump denounced those actions as attempts to “erase our values” and he signed an executive order authorizing the monument garden. The election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president interrupted those plans, but since Mr. Trump took office for a second time, he has taken the project up again in earnest.
Paul M. Farber, the director of Monument Lab, a nonprofit public art, history and design studio based in Philadelphia, noted that the description of the historical figures being honored portrays a sanitized version of American history.
Mr. Trump’s executive order detailed most of the figures to be featured with statues, and a White House task force overseeing festivities for the country’s 250th anniversary also published a list, with biographies of those selected.
The description of Martin Luther King Jr., for instance, praises the civil rights leader for having a “can-do” spirit, but makes no direct mention of the racism that he fought.
“To not name the injustice that made people ‘significant Americans’ is a sanitizing of the history,” Mr. Farber said. “Whether it’s Ida B. Wells-Barnett or Frederick Douglass, when you look at the fine print, you understand the Faustian bargain here, which is representation at the cost of real history.”
Under the “journalists” category, there are two honorees: Edward R. Murrow of CBS, and Alex Trebek, who hosted the game show “Jeopardy!”
The National Endowment for the Humanities has solicited “preliminary concepts” for individual statues from artists who must be American citizens. Mr. Trump has directed that subjects be depicted in a “realistic” manner, with no modernist or abstract designs allowed.
Artists who are selected will receive awards of up to $200,000 per statue, which must be made of marble, granite, bronze, copper or brass. (That price is a relative bargain. Outdoor public sculptures can cost roughly $1 million each to produce in cities like New York.)
Still — even if the statues cost $200,000 each, for a total of $50 million — there is not enough money appropriated by Congress to pay for them. And then there is the matter of the redevelopment of the land, the reflecting pools and all the rest in the latest plan.
Hurdles Ahead
Since the start of his second term, Mr. Trump has embarked on what he has characterized as an effort to beautify the nation’s capital. He has run into hurdles.
The president is in the midst of a legal battle over whether he can unilaterally build a $400 million ballroom at the White House with donor funds, after he abruptly demolished the historic East Wing. He is also in court fighting to close the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which he has renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center, for a major renovation. He has proposed building a 250-foot triumphal arch near Washington’s border with Arlington, Va. Next to his proposed garden is a golf course that Mr. Trump wants to make into a luxury destination.
His plans for the Garden of Heroes have yet to go before any review panel.
Should Mr. Trump leave office without finishing his signature projects, the next administration would be faced with choices about whether to finish them or abandon them.
It’s an issue other countries have faced as well, said Ken Lum, a sculptor, professor and Chair of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design.
“I don’t think it’s like the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, where it was this great project of Gaudi and people said, ‘No, we must finish this,’” Mr. Lum said. “I think there’s going to be a lot of debate in terms of, ‘We don’t need to finish this. Maybe we should even take it down.’”
Mr. Trump has tapped several people closely associated with the National Civic Art Society, a nonprofit that endorses traditional styles of architecture, to oversee the Garden of Heroes, according to three people close to the project.
The garden would most likely need to overcome some legal hurdles, including the possible need for exemption under the Commemorative Works Act, which restricts what can be built around some federal lands in Washington. The site’s proximity to the Potomac also could introduce concerns about ecological disruption.
Mr. Trump appears to have left himself room to make five last-minute nominations; there are only 245 people on a list the administration distributed. The White House did not reply to questions about whom he would choose to fill extra slots.
In an interview with The New York Times in January, Mr. Trump described his plans for the Garden of Heroes as “beautiful.”
“That’s going to be most likely right on the Potomac River,” he said, adding: “It’s going to be a beautiful complex. You’re going to have the hall of — you know, it’s — we’ll call it a hall. We call it a lot of things, but the memorials or statues are going to — it’s going to be beautiful.”
Nicole Saphier, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general.
Theo Wargo/Getty Images
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Theo Wargo/Getty Images
President Trump has nominated Dr. Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News Channel contributor, for the role of surgeon general. It’s his third pick for this position, often called “the nation’s doctor,” responsible for promoting health and wellness to the general public in the United States.
Saphier is expected to be more acceptable to Republican lawmakers, than Dr. Casey Means, Trump’s previous choice. His first pick, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, was withdrawn following scrutiny over how she had represented her medical credentials.
Trump described Saphier, who directs breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth, as a “STAR physician” and an “INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR” in his April 30 nomination post on Truth Social.
The same day, Trump blamed Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician, for having “stood in the way” of Means getting confirmed as surgeon general. He accused Cassidy of “intransigence and political games.”
Saphier will be facing scrutiny from the same committee members who were doubtful of Means.
Means told Politico that Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also opposed her nomination, effectively tanking her confirmation.
All three Republican lawmakers serve on the influential Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which Cassidy chairs. The committee holds confirmation hearings for nominated health officials and determines whether to advance them to a full Senate vote.
In response, the Republican members of the Senate HELP Committee wrote, “It’s clear she did not have the votes,” in a post on X.
Does Saphier have a better chance than Means?
While a confirmation hearing has not been scheduled yet, Saphier can expect many questions about her qualifications, views on vaccines and other topics she’s publicly addressed.
David Mansdoerfer, former deputy assistant secretary of health at the Department of Health and Human Services in the first Trump administration, says she likely faces a warm reception from Republicans, saying she’s “extremely strong on some of the core base issues.”
“[She’s great on] the pro-life issue, on chronic disease and prevention. She speaks a lot to the MAHA influence, especially to the suburban moms,” he says, referring to the Make American Healthy Again movement, an interest group that Republicans are trying to win in the midterm elections.
In addition to being a practicing physician, Saphier is also a health influencer and former medical contributor to Fox News from 2018 to this week, a Fox News spokesperson confirmed. She currently sells herbal supplement drops that promote “focus” and “calm” and hosts a podcast called Wellness Unmasked on iHeartRadio. In 2020, she published a book titled Make America Healthy Again — years before the phrase coalesced into a movement led by current Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Saphier is a clear contrast from Means in some key respects. She is an active licensed physician — which Means wasn’t — practicing at a top academic medical center. These credentials make her a “reasonable choice” for surgeon general, says Dr. Georges Benjamin, CEO of the American Public Health Association.
Benjamin had described Trump’s previous pick, Means, to NPR as “less qualified professionally than any other surgeon general in history.”
In February, Saphier addressed Means’ nomination on her podcast, saying the surgeon general’s main role is public health messaging, and for that they need to be “a trusted messenger.”
“They need the respect of not only …the American people that they are communicating to, but they also need the respect of the administration, which they are working together with,” she said, “And also the [respect of] medical professionals, the medical organizations.” In Saphier’s opinion at the time, that’s where Means was falling short.
Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as the 20th surgeon general in the first Trump administration, said in an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition that he expects Saphier to get the respect of the medical community, along with the public and the Administration.
But Saphier’s focus on individual care is just one piece of public health, Adams says. “She tends to see things through a diagnosis and treatment lens because that’s what cancer docs do. It’s clear when you look at the book she wrote that she does not think of things through a public health and societal lens.”
For instance, “she talks about personal responsibility a lot, but you can’t eat healthy if you are having your SNAP benefits cut or if the cost of groceries is going through the roof because of inflation. The broader societal context actually matters,” he says.
Still Adams wrote on X, “Overall, this is a solid pick. I believe she’ll be confirmed and that she has both the clinical background and the temperament to do a good job.”
Views on vaccines and other credentials
The Trump administration has been trying to pivot away from the focus on vaccines ahead of the midterm elections. Secretary Kennedy’s attempts to make sweeping changes to the vaccine schedule have polled poorly with voters, and been blocked by court challenges from leading U.S. health groups.
Still, the topic will likely be front and center in an upcoming confirmation hearing for the role of surgeon general.
Saphier’s views on the topic are not completely aligned with Kennedy. She criticized his attempts to link vaccines with autism in an op-ed last year in the Wall Street Journal. “When it comes to autism, we can’t afford to chase ghosts,” she wrote, advocating for more research into genetic and environmental causes.
But she disagrees with some public health recommendations on the childhood vaccine schedule. While vaccines “really can save lives,” Saphier said in a February 2025 Fox News Digital video, “I do think that the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics need to be less stringent on these schedules,” she said, specifically mentioning the hepatitis B and COVID-19 vaccines for children.
Based on what Saphier has said publicly, “she’s been opposed to vaccine mandates, but she’s not anti-vaccine,” says Benjamin from APHA.
At her confirmation hearing in February, former surgeon general pick Dr. Casey Means articulated a similar position, which served as a sticking point for some senators.
Role of surgeon general
Getting confirmed in this role is high stakes, says Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the 17th surgeon general in the George W. Bush administration. Of all the competencies required for the role, political affiliation or experience as a television commentator are not high on his list.
The job is “to protect, promote and advance the health, safety and security of the nation” and to represent the U.S. government when disasters and public health emergencies strike in the U.S. and abroad, he says.
The surgeon general commands the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, one of the eight uniformed services of the United States, with thousands of members that have earned their ranks in a career of service, Carmona says. The surgeon general’s rank is three-star vice admiral.
For this role, Carmona would prioritize experience in leadership and public health. The surgeon general should have “the credibility to sit at the table with foreign ministers and carry the message of the United States and work with our allies.”
As surgeon general, Carmona fielded questions from lawmakers and the media about a wide range of public health topics, from cancer to emergency preparedness for biological and nuclear hazards.
For someone being considered for the role, “I want to know that you have expertise in public health besides clinical medicine,” he says, “Have you dealt with vaccination issues? Have you dealt with clean water and sanitation? How about air pollution? … That’s what a surgeon general does.”
Pentagon officials said on Friday that they were pulling 5,000 troops from Germany and would redeploy them to the United States and other posts overseas.
The Defense Department is also canceling a plan developed under the Biden administration to place a missile-equipped artillery unit in Europe.
The moves will return U.S. forces in Europe to the level they were in 2022, before Russia began its war in Ukraine, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the planning process. Last year, the Pentagon redeployed a brigade in Romania and did not send replacement forces.
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that the withdrawal would be completed over the next six to 12 months.
“This decision follows a thorough review of the department’s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground,” he said.
The Defense Department — particularly during both of President Trump’s terms — has for several years considered decreasing the military presence in Germany. But senior defense officials privately made it clear that they wanted the move to be seen as a punishment for Germany, whose recent comments about the U.S. war in Iran have annoyed Mr. Trump.
Earlier this week, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Iran had “humiliated” the United States, and he questioned how Mr. Trump planned to end the conflict.
“The Americans obviously have no strategy,” Mr. Merz said.
Mr. Trump then took to Truth Social, his social media site, to vent.
“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” he wrote on Thursday.
Later, he added: “The Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!”
On Friday, while announcing the decision, a senior Pentagon official said that Germany’s failure to contribute to the Iran war effort had frustrated the United States, and that the country’s rhetoric was inappropriate and unhelpful.
The announcement, and the criticism of Germany, represents a shift for Pentagon officials, who recently had praised Germany’s efforts to increase military spending and take over more of the burden of supporting Ukraine.
Even if the Pentagon pulls 5,000 troops out of Germany, the country would still host the second-largest U.S. troop presence in the world, at more than 30,000, behind only Japan.
Defense officials say the United States depends on its bases in Germany to stage many of its operations in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
The Iran war has made that clear. Many U.S. troops evacuated from bases in the Middle East that were targeted by Iran were moved to Germany. And many of the U.S. troops wounded in the war have been taken to Germany — to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near Ramstein Air Base — for treatment.
The U.S. military’s Africa Command and European Command are also headquartered in Germany.
Defense officials said the reduction would not directly affect Landstuhl or other medical facilities in Germany where U.S. troops receive care.
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