Local News in Brief : Countywide : Transit District Takes Ownership of Rail Land
With the ceremonial removal of a crossing gate, the Orange County Transit District on Wednesday took ownership of railroad tracks and the right of way next to the Santa Ana Freeway from Anaheim to Santa Ana. The district plans to build a transit way reserved for buses and car pools in that strip of land.
But closing the tracks to rail traffic is expected to ease rush-hour automobile congestion at the Main Street and 17th Street rail crossings in Santa Ana.
To obtain the land, the transit district paid about $13 million to the Southern Pacific railroad. The land will be used to widen the freeway to make room in the median for the special transit way, which will be similar to the El Monte busway on the San Bernardino Freeway in the San Gabriel Valley.
The transit way will have special ramps to carry buses and car pools over the interchange of the Santa Ana Freeway and the Costa Mesa Freeway in Tustin.
Removal of the Southern Pacific tracks from service means that two Southern Pacific freight trains will be diverted to tracks used by Amtrak passenger trains, tracks that are owned by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway. The Orange County Transit District is paying for $800,000 worth of track improvements on the Santa Fe line.
The transit way is part of a massive, $1-billion, 10-year widening of the Santa Ana Freeway, on which major work is to begin in March.
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