San Jose Trolley Line Hits Some Bumps

In an age of space shuttles and supersonic jets, trolleys are making a comeback in America as part of a multibillion-dollar effort to reduce traffic, boost business and make cities more civilized.

San Jose, in the high-tech world of Silicon Valley, is the latest city to install an electric trolley system and endure the discomfort of digging up streets to lay track.

Similar light-rail systems are rolling through Buffalo, N.Y., Sacramento, Portland, Ore., and San Diego. Other systems are planned in Ft. Worth, Tex., Seattle and being built in Los Angeles.

Although they lack the history of streetcars in New Orleans, Philadelphia and Newark, N.J., the quaint cable cars in San Francisco or the defunct systems in New York, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, the new trolleys are quiet and reliable.

San Jose’s system revives an old idea. Trolleys ran along 126 miles of track throughout the Santa Clara Valley from the 1880s until the late 1930s.

Part of System Operating

Half of Santa Clara County’s new $552-million light-rail line began operating 15 months ago in San Jose and Santa Clara. The other half, which will reach bedroom communities and International Business Machines Corp. offices in South San Jose, is expected to be completed in August, 1991, cutting a 20-mile swath through the county.

So far, the sleek, steel-wheeled white cars, which draw electrical power from overhead wires via antenna-like poles, have performed well and generally pleased riders. Ticket machines, with instructions in English, Vietnamese and Spanish, are easy to use and the fare is as low as 25 cents during lunchtime and 75 cents at other hours.

“I just ride for the fun of it,” said Art Esparza, 33, who cruises the city between downtown San Jose and the Great America amusement park in Santa Clara after getting off his early morning job. “It’s like a Sunday drive.”

The problems that have plagued the system, however, could serve as a warning to other cities considering trolleys.

A $140-million cost overrun, accidents, business disruptions, traffic jams, lawsuits and accusations of mismanagement, bribery and embezzlement all were part of the trauma of building the light-rail line and transit mall.

The transit mall contractor and his wife face federal tax-evasion charges stemming from alleged misuse of mall funds from a $29.7-million contract with the county. The defendants have denied the charges.

Some of light rail’s problems were unique to San Jose, a city founded in 1777 but searching for an identity after changing from the center of an agricultural community to a part of high-powered Silicon Valley. The population is closing in fast on San Francisco’s 740,000, but San Jose still lacks the glamour, prestige and fame of its neighbor 50 miles north.

Downtown San Jose deteriorated as the city grew in different directions with new companies and housing tracts. Most of the orchards are gone and the roads are clogged with cars.

Voters repeatedly told pollsters over the last 10 years that traffic was the area’s worst problem. So light rail supporters sold it to the public on the promise that it would reduce congestion, attract shoppers and tourists and help the area gain a reputation as progressive, livable community with a fine climate.

The only promise kept so far has been the good weather.

Critics Disappointed

The light-rail line is criticized by those disappointed in the lack of quick improvement in downtown business and those who would rather have used transportation funds for highway improvements.

“The bitterest pill of all is the delay of constructing the freeways for a year or two after the light rail (system) is finished,” said Dave Fadness, a critic of the line and chairman of the Santa Clara County Transportation Commission. “If the general public knew what the politicians were doing, there would be a real hue and cry.”

Ernest Glave, president of the Greater San Jose Business Assn. and a jeweler in the city for 41 years, also has been a persistent critic of the light rail system because he thinks it does little to solve downtown problems.

“We’ve still got no attraction, nothing to draw people,” he said. He argues that the system is making traffic congestion worse and is discouraging shoppers from driving into the city.

Some shopkeepers, however, are doing very well. “We’ve been swamped,” said Mario Chaidez, manager of the year-old Cobbler’s Bench, a shoe repair shop. “At lunchtime, we’ve got people waiting in line.”

Rod Diridon, a county supervisors who has been dubbed the “father of the light rail,” calls the line “a resounding success,” even though it cost more than three times the $176 million spent on the 18-mile system that opened in Sacramento two years ago.

The 6,300 fares per day on the Santa Clara County system over the last six months, he said, are more than double the volume transit engineers predicted for the first half of the line.

“The only complaints are from the people who run red lights and run into it,” Diridon said.