Light Rail Lines Merit Another Serious Look

It is too soon to determine whether the old Red Car commuter rail line that was abandoned many years ago in favor of the automobile, and its attendant unwelcome traffic congestion, can ride to the rescue of Orange County residents. But the possibility is certainly worth studying.

For one thing, some rail lines, or at least their rights of way, are still in place. Some of those lines also are in public ownership. Perhaps most encouraging are recent indications that commuting by rail is gaining new acceptance among county residents.

In hindsight, it was a terrible mistake to have abandoned the Red Car service. It would be even more inexcusable to now hastily sell off the last remaining rail rights of way and virtually eliminate the light rail option for good.

In Garden Grove, city officials have been discussing plans to buy a stretch of rail right of way that runs through the city’s redevelopment area and that is now owned by the Orange County Transit District. They wanted to buy 4 miles of the district’s 7-mile right of way so that private developers could move ahead with proposed commercial and industrial projects. To their dismay, the County Transportation Comission has ordered a preliminary study to determine the feasibility of tying Santa Ana and Los Angeles together with a rail system that would include use of that right of way.

Transportation officials had been thinking about selling the right of way that runs from Raitt Street in Santa Ana to Beach Boulevard in Stanton because the future of light rail here seemed dim with the 1984 defeat of a proposed 1-cent sales-tax increase for transportation. But two major developments have now made it mandatory to determine the feasibility of rail routes connecting Orange and Los Angeles counties before pursuing any plans to sell off the right of way.

A public opinion survey released by the Transportation Commission last fall disclosed a change in public attitudes that indicate a majority of residents would now be willing to support a half-cent increase in the local sales tax if they knew some of it would finance a new rail transit system.

That potential for funding, coupled with the indication from the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. that it might be interested in selling the right of way on the northern stretch from Stanton into Los Angeles County, makes the feasibility of light rail service an option that must be explored.

We can understand the Garden Grove City Council’s frustration, but transportation officials (who maintain that their talks with Garden Grove were just that--discussions, not formal negotiations) are obligated to give the possible rail routes the study that the new circumstances demand.

If the rail lines can be developed, all of Orange County has a lot to gain. And it looks as if Garden Grove cannot really lose, no matter how the study turns out. If the rail line is found not to be feasible, Garden Grove could have a clear track to acquiring the right of way that would no longer be in the transit district’s plans. If the line can be developed, it would enhance property values along its route, benefiting the city--and all county residents--in the process.