Panel To Study Public Ownership of L.A.-to-San Diego Rail Line

A new committee formed to discuss the future of 133 miles of railroad track between Los Angeles and San Diego will consider public ownership of the line and ways to improve high-speed service for commuters.

The committee’s meeting Wednesday in Santa Ana marks the first time that people from all the affected jurisdictions have met to discuss the future of the track, which state officials say could still be a crucial Southern California transportation link in future decades.

7 Passenger Trains a Day

The Santa Fe Railroad track, which currently carries seven Amtrak passenger trains a day, runs parallel to Interstate 5, which links Southern California’s three largest urban centers. The railway could provide an important relief valve as congestion worsens, state transportation director Leo Trombatore said.

“It’s obvious that with the traffic we have on this corridor and the air traffic, the train-handling capacity is very, very important,” Trombatore said.

The committee’s study is an outgrowth of the ill-fated proposal to construct a $3.1-billion bullet train between the two cities.

“We may not need a 160-m.p.h. bullet train, but some improvement in speed is necessary to effectively compete with the automobile,” Trombatore said. “We think even the motorists will thank us if we’re successful at attracting more people to the train,” he added.

State Sen. William A. Craven (R-Oceanside), whose legislation established the Los Angeles-San Diego State Rail Corridor Study Group, said it was a direct result of demands from constituents for a more environmentally conscious alternative to the bullet train, which cities along the route had vigorously opposed.

“The issue had lit the fire of interest for cost-effective rail service in the Los Angeles-to-San Diego corridor,” Craven said Wednesday. “We feel it (the new study) represents a very sensible approach to rail planning. We need to maintain our interest in upgrading the Amtrak system, which quite frankly should have been upgraded years ago.”

The study, due to be completed in the next two years, comes at a time when ridership on the Amtrak route--the second busiest rail corridor in the nation--is increasing 15% a month over the same period last year, representing a total of 1.3 million riders a year.

It also comes at a time when cities along the route, particularly in Orange County, are demanding additional stops and more opportunities for commuter train service into Los Angeles.

The Santa Fe Railroad, owners of the track which Amtrak shares with Santa Fe’s freight trains, recently agreed to add a new stop at Irvine as early as next year to the six existing stops along the route. The approval was for off-peak-hour service only and responded in part to city officials’ claims that a stop in Irvine’s rapidly growing industrial centers could boost ridership by up to 25%.

But Santa Fe has vigorously resisted any attempts to redefine Amtrak’s mission as an intercity rather than commuter service in Southern California, fearing further disruptions to its freight train schedule.

Santa Fe Vice President Robert Welk said Wednesday, however, that the company plans to be “open-minded” about a range of options to be looked at during the study, including public acquisition of the rail corridor and significant increases in passenger train service, potentially to as many as 12 round-trip trains a day in the near future.

“In the past, during previous administrations, there was such a rush attitude and a lot of fragmented studies which we never thought addressed the whole corridor,” Welk said of Santa Fe’s refusal to join past studies. “We saw here an opportunity to address the entire corridor in its total concept of future use in both the near and long-term,” he added.

With increases in Amtrak service, from three trains a day to seven during the past several years, “we thought perhaps it might be appropriate to give a review to whether we should be the tenant or the landlord,” Welk said of the potentially controversial issue of public acquisition. “I don’t know the answers to those questions right now.”

The committee Wednesday also agreed to consider ways to speed service between San Diego and Los Angeles, to minimize friction between freight and passenger schedules, the acquisition of possible new train stations, and ways to increase passenger comfort and safety on the line.

To Offer Priority List

The committee’s final report will offer the Legislature a priority list and ways to pay for the improvements.

Included on the committee are representatives of Caltrans, Santa Fe, Amtrak, the Orange and Los Angeles county transportation commissions, the Southern California and San Diego Assn. of Governments, the state Legislature and the California Labor Federation.

Tustin Councilman Richard Edgar is Orange County’s representative on the panel.