Monorail Idea Must Survive Civic Myopia

When it comes to needed improvements at the county’s John Wayne Airport, the city of Newport Beach suffers from a chronic case of municipal myopia.

Sometimes the city gets so hung up with its obsession against airport growth it abandons sound and reasonable planning and pursues a hypocritical and shortsighted approach. The proposed monorail planned to run between the airport and two office buildings in Irvine near the edge of the airfield is a good case in point.

The estimated $3.5-million monorail system being planned by the McDonnell Douglas Realty Co. proposes monorail service for about a half-mile from the office buildings at Douglas Plaza to the airport. But the system is designed so it can be expanded to serve other commercial and industrial areas and link them to the airport.

It is an exciting proposition that, if built, would be the first privately constructed, owned and operated but publicly used monorail system in the nation.

But Newport Beach has filed an appeal to the initial approval given to the project last October by the County Board of Supervisors. City officials, in seeking to reopen hearings on the plan, are singing the same song they have sung for years every time an airport improvement is proposed: They fear that the project will mean additional airport growth.

The city keeps raising that argument despite the fact that the airport growth issue was resolved more than 3 years ago--in August of 1985, in a 20-year compromise agreement among city, county and community groups.

That agreement, controlling airport noise and growth, sets a ceiling of 4.75 million passengers a year at the county airport for the first 5 years and a maximum of 8.4 million passengers annually for the next 15 years. Those maximums are lower than the county’s original plan. The new airport terminal now under construction was also scaled back to satisfy Newport Beach’s fear of unbridled airport expansion.

Why then should Newport Beach keep challenging improvement plans around the airport?

The proposed McDonnell Douglas monorail system is designed not to increase the passenger load at John Wayne but to decrease the heavy traffic congestion in the airport area. The county board should reject Newport Beach’s appeal and Irvine city officials who must still pass on the project should also reject Newport Beach’s opposition and give the monorail enthusiastic approval.

It makes good sense to seek ways to get passengers--who will be using the terminal anyhow, within the annual maximums already agreed upon--to the airport with as little traffic congestion as possible. The monorail is an innovative alternative, cost-free to the public, that should be pursued.