TROLLEY: East Line Funds Approved : Bill Includes $9.3 Million for S.D. Trolley Extension

A huge federal spending bill signed by President Reagan on Thursday contains $9.3 million for the extension of the San Diego Trolley’s East Line.

The $368-billion spending measure also included a promise of $429 million in federal funds for the first phase of the Los Angeles Metro Rail project.

The money in the bill for San Diego’s eastern line will be added to $11.3 million previously approved by Congress to help pay for the $87.5 million, 11-mile construction project, which will extend the trolley line from Euclid Avenue to the intersection of Main Street and Marshall Avenue in El Cajon.

Construction has already begun on the first segment of the trolley’s East Line extension, a separately funded, four-mile, $33-million project taking the trolley from downtown to Euclid Avenue.

Transit officials hope to have trolleys running down the Euclid Avenue extension by spring.

Originally, the Senate had set aside $18.5 million in 1986 financing for the the eastern extension into El Cajon, while the House had allocated $8 million. The $9.3 million approved Thursday was the result of compromise between a joint Senate and House committee set up to resolve the differences.

Tom Larwin, general manager of the Metropolitan Transit District Development Board, said Thursday he believes the $9.3 million, when added to the rest of the East Line city-county-state financing package, will extend the trolley to El Cajon, but that there’s a chance more money may be needed.

“My preliminary judgment is we can get to El Cajon, but it will be close,” Larwin said. “We will at least make it to La Mesa.” The distance between the tracks in La Mesa and El Cajon is about 1 1/2 miles, Larwin said.

If all goes according to plan, construction on the El Cajon link will begin the middle of next year, with completion set for 1989.

The East Line will run parallel to and just south of California 94, passing through La Mesa and Lemon Grove before turning north to El Cajon.

Transit officials predict that, by the mid-1990s, 20,000 passengers a day, about half of them commuters, will ride the East Line. It’s expected the East Line will help ease traffic woes on Interstate 8 and Highway 94, major thoroughfares connecting East County to downtown San Diego.

While the Los Angeles Metro Rail Project took a major step toward the start of construction, obstacles remain, the most important being the Reagan Administration’s opposition to the huge cost of the project. But Metro Rail supporters hailed the signing of the spending bill as proof the subway is on its way to becoming reality.

A jubilant Mayor Tom Bradley, who has invested considerable personal prestige in the subway project, said: “This is a wonderful holiday gift for the people of Los Angeles.

“If we had a dollar for every time somebody said Metro Rail was dead, we could have built this system. . . .”

Nikolas Patsaouras, president of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, said: “With faith that the project was good, with will power and tenacity, we are today seeing the President signing a project that a year ago looked dead.”

While the bill strongly states Congress’ intent to proceed with the project, possible snags remain. The RTD still must negotiate a complex contract with the Reagan Administration, which has succeeded in delaying release of money for the project in the past.

Specifically, the bill instructs the Urban Mass Transportation Administration to negotiate within 90 days a contract for the full federal share of the funds needed to build the first $1.25-billion, 4.4-mile segment of the line from downtown’s Union Station to Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street.

The measure earmarks $429 million sought by RTD, including $129 million previously approved by Congress but withheld by the Administration, $101 million in 1986 and the rest in subsequent years as funds become available.