South Coast Plaza Is Cool About Idea to Link Mall, Airport With Monorail
It’s a nice idea but a little premature. At least that’s how C.J. Segerstrom & Sons’ chief planner describes a plan to put a monorail between John Wayne Airport and South Coast Plaza.
Transportation Group Inc. of Denver is the construction company behind a half-mile monorail approved by the Board of Supervisors that would link the airport and a nearby office building.
The rapid transit company was planning that monorail anyway, said Thomas J. Stone, Transportation Group president, so why not plan an extension to link up with the famed mega-mall too?
Why not indeed? “We were the outfit selected by McDonnell Douglas Realty Co. to provide them with the monorail system from the Douglas Plaza project into the John Wayne Airport terminal,” Stone said. “These two systems could be interconnected: McDonnell Douglas to the airport and some sort of system to the South Coast Plaza. That was our idea, not the South Coast Plaza people’s.”
The South Coast Plaza people are interested but a bit lukewarm about the idea, said Malcolm Ross, director of planning and design for C.J. Segerstrom & Sons.
“We’re not saying don’t do that,” Ross said. “We’re saying bring us something and we’ll take a look at it.”
So far, the proposed mall monorail has yet to reach the map and money stage; no budget or route discussions have occurred. And even if such a monorail is built, Ross said, it probably would not solve traffic problems.
“What we really would like to do is find ways to reduce traffic impact,” Ross said. “I don’t believe the monorail would do that except in a minor way. You still have to drive your car to get to it--or fly an airplane. It doesn’t take cars off the street.”
