S.D. Trolley Encounters Roadblock to Expansion

The state Transportation Commission approved in late June an intricate, three-way swap of transit money earmarked for San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties that seemed to free up $20 million for construction of the San Diego Trolley East Line extension.

The administrative shell game was hailed by local and state officials as a creative solution to a tangled web of bureaucratic stumbling blocks that had threatened to delay not only the trolley extension, but much-needed highway expansion in the counties to the north. And it was considered especially timely in light of the Reagan Administration’s goal to dramatically reduce federal financing for new transit projects.

But almost as soon as the solution was announced, a problem surfaced that posed still another obstacle to construction on the East Line.

The federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration is being accused by local transit officials and the three San Diego County Republican congressmen (Duncan Hunter of Coronado, Ron Packard of Carlsbad and Bill Lowery of San Diego) of intentionally delaying certification of the federal environmental impact report for the first 8.5 miles of the East Line extension. Without that certification, the $20 million so cleverly garnered in the three-county trade cannot be spent, and the East Line--and the momentum of San Diego’s trolley network--will stall.

The ambitious vision of a network of trolley lines wending their way throughout the county by the turn ot the century has danced before the eyes of city and Metropolitan Transit Development Board officials since the initial downtown-San Ysidro line was declared a transportation and financial success. Local transportation officials have translated their dream into a plan that shows 21st Century trolley lines extending all the way to Escondido and Oceanside.

The trolley’s long-term future has been clouded by the Reagan Administration’s insistence that urban mass transit is a losing proposition and is not the federal government’s business.

“The boss (President Reagan) is saying that there should be no more new mass transit projects,” said Tom Larwin, Metropolitan Transit Development Board general manager. “Essentially, we’ve been told by UMTA, ‘Don’t call back until the federal budget is approved.’ ”

UMTA received the final East Line environmental impact report on May 6. In hopes of pressuring the federal agency to act, Hunter, Lowery and Packard have written to UMTA Administrator Ralph Stanley requesting his “assistance in accelerating . . . the review.”

The congressmen said it was their “understanding that UMTA is hesitant to act . . . until there is a resolution of the federal budget debate regarding funding of new start projects.”

Larwin, accustomed to the myriad catches that can surface before grant money reaches the local transit coffers, is peeved by UMTA’s stance but not surprised by it.

“This kind of thing illustrates how difficult it is to put together projects of this kind now,” he said. “We feel Congress eventually will be on our side (the House- and Senate-approved versions of the federal budget deleted the President’s ban on funding for new transit projects), but now, it’s a waiting game.”

MTDB remains confident that the East Line, with the $20 million from the state and a previously allocated $11 million from Congress available pending UMTA’s approval of the environmental impact report, will be open as far as Grossmont Center by late 1988. It is predicted that by the mid-’90s, 20,000 passengers, almost half of them commuters, will ride the East Line daily along its route south of California 94, then north to the shopping center.

“It won’t solve the traffic problems on Interstate 8 and Highway 94,” Larwin said. “But it will give commuters an alternative if they want to avoid them.”

Convincing Congress to put up the additional $40 million needed to build the East Line out to its destination in El Cajon might prove more difficult, MTDB officials admit.

And given the Reagan Administration’s persistent effort to get the federal government out of the transit business, the future appears clouded for the ambitious trolley projects of the ‘90s, including links to Old Town, San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium and Lindbergh Field. “We still believe the overall picture for the trolley is extremely bright,” Larwin said. “But this is hardly a positive trend.”

In September, MTDB’s board of directors will again look to the future and reevaluate the district’s priorities for construction of the next wave of trolley routes.

Debate likely will center on the priorities set for the remainder of the trolley system, he said. Currently, the Bayside Line ranks behind completion of the East Line on the priority list, and Larwin said that position is unlikely to change. Old Town ranks fourth, just after the first leg of the Bayside Line, followed by the Mission Valley Line to the stadium.

Other projects, in ranked order, include a connector extending the Mission Valley Line to the East Line; extension of the East Line to Santee, and completion of the Bayside Line from downtown to Lindbergh Field. In the more distant future are plans to expand the trolley as far north as Oceanside along Interstate 5; to Escondido along Interstate 15, and between Escondido and Oceanside along California 78.

“Depending on our funding, we can only complete a certain number of miles of track each year,” Larwin said. “With it tightening up, ranking on that priority ranking list is going to be increasingly important.”

Certainly, the San Diego Trolley, which celebrates its fourth birthday July 26, can hardly be classified with the white elephants of transit that the President is attempting to slay--it has met or exceeded projections for revenue and ridership, operated with a modicum of maintenance and safety problems, and won across-the-board support of local elected officials.

“When money gets tight, those factors will be in our favor,” Larwin said. “We haven’t promised more than we can deliver, which was a mistake made by BART (the Bay Area’s light rail system), among others. Our goals remain modest and attainable.”

La Mesa Mayor Fred Nagel, who is on the MTDB board of directors, said he has been impressed with MTDB’s “conscientious attitude toward the governments and residents involved in the areas where the trolley is being expanded.”

Unlike its East County neighbors of Lemon Grove, El Cajon and Santee, La Mesa emphatically opposed the East Line. In the late ‘70s, the La Mesa City Council unanimously voted to oppose the East Line plan, fearing that the trolley would add to La Mesa’s traffic problems and be “an unsightly mess,” Nagel said.

“The opposition could have amounted to nothing, because MTDB had the power of eminent domain and could have built through here regardless of what we thought,” Nagel noted. “But the city negotiated with the district for two years and won a number of concessions that made the project more appealing to our city.”

Nagel said that unlike other East County cities, La Mesa’s trolley stations will receive “special architectural treatment and decorative lighting similar to that being done on C Street (in San Diego).” La Mesa also successfully lobbied for changes in landscaping and the placement of overhead wires.

“You have to give the trolley people credit,” Nagel said. “They worked with us and got the City Council behind the East Line, even though I don’t think La Mesans will ride it as much as people from Lemon Grove or El Cajon. We just like to drive to work.”

A similar spirit of cooperation will be necessary if the Bayside Line, completing a circular trolley route through the downtown area and encompassing the convention center, Seaport Village and the Santa Fe Depot, is to reach fruition.

The City of San Diego has added one cent to its transient occupancy tax, earmarking $5 million of that money for construction of the $15-million Bayside Line. MTDB is investigating ways to pay for the second third of the line, and the San Diego Unified Port District has been asked to chip in an additional $5 million.

A consultant is studying whether Seaport Village, the convention center and accompanying hotels, and other port properties would benefit from the trolley service, thus justifying the port’s investment. “Essentially, it’s up to us to sell them on the idea that it would be a good investment,” Larwin said.

Port Commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer said he was “confident they’d be able to do that (selling) job.”

“I can’t honestly say I think we’d lose a convention if the trolley didn’t go to the center,” Wolfsheimer said. “But the Bayside Line is very important to the overall picture of our future waterfront and downtown.

“Someday, this land downtown is going to be worth a fortune, and we aren’t going to be setting aside parking spaces so there is one per tourist visitor. They don’t do that on the (San Francisco) Embarcadero Center, and we won’t, either, once our waterfront plans come to be. That’s when the trolley will be a big asset to downtown.”

Proposed Trolley Network 1. Existing South Bay Line 2. Euclid extension: Under construction estimated opening Spring, 1986 3. East Line: MTDB final approval needed; funding by Port District pending. Target completion date: 1988. 4. Bayside Line: MTDB final approval needed; funding by Port District pending. Target completion date: 1988. 5. Old Town Line: Target completion date: 1990-1995. 6. Mission Valley line: Target completion date: 1990-2000. 7. Stadium-East Line: Target completion date: 1995-2000. 8. Santee extension: Target completion date: 1995-2000. 9. Airport link: Target completion date 1995-2000. 10. Interstate 5 to Oceanside: Target completion: After 2000. 11. Interstate 15 to Escondido: Target completion: After 2000. 12. North County corridor: Target completion: After 2000.