Local News in Brief : Countywide : Sierra Club Opposes Sale of Old Trolley Site

The Sierra Club has urged the Orange County Transit District to drop its plans to sell part of an old, weedy trolley car right of way in Garden Grove, transit officials said Monday.

The line was used 35 years ago by the fabled Pacific Electric “Red Cars” that brought people into Orange County from Los Angeles.

“The closure of this corridor and the investment of more funds in Orange County’s freeways will, inevitably, condemn the citizens of Orange County and the metropolitan Los Angeles area to more dependence on the automobile,” a Sierra Club letter states. Dated Sept. 25 but released Monday by the transit district, the letter claims that an environmental impact report should be prepared before any sale takes place.

Transit officials, however, said they intend to proceed with the sale. They said it will have no adverse environmental impact because the county has already decided to build special busways and car-pool lanes on freeways, instead of a light rail system.

Brian Pearson, the transit district’s chief planner, said the Pacific Electric land--if left vacant--”would be a blight in the city of Garden Grove.”

The strip extends 7 miles from Beach Boulevard near Katella Avenue to Raitt Street in Santa Ana. The transit district plans to sell the section north of the Garden Grove Freeway. The district purchased the entire strip for $15 million in 1982, before the June, 1984, defeat of Proposition A, a 1-cent sales tax proposal that would have funded both light rail and highway improvements.