S.D. Trolley Will Roll East Into La Mesa Today

The curtain is rising--halfway--on the San Diego Trolley’s East Line today, with speeches and fanfare throughout the weekend. But the real test will come Monday, when regular trolley schedules take effect in an effort to ease the traffic crunch on freeways serving the county’s heartland.

The opening of a section of the East Line from Southeast San Diego into La Mesa is expected to ease congestion on California 94 and Interstate 8, the two east-west freeways into and out of downtown San Diego. The full effect of the mass-transit alternative is not expected until the line is extended into El Cajon in late June.

It would have been nice if the start-up date could have coincided with the 100-year anniversary of the opening of the San Diego, Cuyamaca & Eastern Railway, which plyed essentially the same route on which the bright red trolley cars will roll. But then, that first big promotional trip April 30, 1889, ended in a breakdown when the crowd of more than 5,000 celebrants proved too much for the steam engine, preventing the excursion crowd from making the grade out of San Diego to its destination, a resort hotel in Lakeside.

Those first trains serving the East County were noisy, smoky coal burners that left a trail of pollution as they chuffed up the hill to Lemon Grove, Allison (now La Mesa) and Cajon Heights, then down to Hawley, Cowles, Riverview, Lakeside and Foster’s Place. A monthly pass from San Diego to Foster’s was $9.50 for unlimited rides in those days. Today’s price for a monthly trolley pass is $40, rising to $45 on July 1.

The modern San Diego Trolley cars are silent-running, heated, air-conditioned, pollution-less vehicles operating on electrical power. They will run at 15-minute intervals during daytime hours, contrasted with the once-a-day, round-trip schedule of yesteryear when a pot-bellied stove at the end of the lone passenger car was all the heating or air conditioning that passengers could expect.

Series of Ribbon-Cuttings

Today’s East Line festivities begin with a series of ribbon-cuttings starting at 9:30 a.m. at the Euclid station, proceeding eastward to Encanto 62nd Street, Lemon Grove Massachusetts Avenue, Lemon Grove Broadway and finally to the La Mesa Spring Street station, where the 11 a.m. kick-off ceremony for the 5.5-mile extension will be held.

Free rides on the new section will be available from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, and entertainment will be offered at each of the four new stations. On Sunday, free rides anywhere on the trolley system will be available to mothers, Sunday being Mother’s Day.

Langley Powell, general manager of San Diego Trolley, said the full 11.1-mile East Line to El Cajon will go into service June 25, along a completely rebuilt roadbed with concrete replacements for the old wooden ties. The cost of the entire East Line, including the new air-conditioned trolleys, is about $108 million, he said.

Problems Expected

Some traffic problems are expected during the start-up days of the East Line, Powell acknowledges, but the kinks should be ironed out within a month or so.

One concern of residents along the line, the clanging of warning signals at street crossings, has prompted the Metropolitan Transit Development Board and the San Diego Trolley to petition the state Public Utilities Commission to limit the signal bell operation to the period when crossing gates are in motion, cutting the clangor in half, he said. Flashing lights will operate in advance of the trolley’s approach at street crossings to give motorists fair warning.

Traffic tie-ups are expected in Lemon Grove and other trolley crossing points, Powell said, until traffic signal lights can be placed in proper sequences and until automobile drivers learn to detour traffic tie-ups caused by the trolley route.

Free Parking

In an attempt to lure drivers out of their cars and into the trolleys, most stations along the East Line will provide free parking. Six stations along the route to El Cajon will have a total of 1,940 off-street parking spaces. Only the Lemon Grove and La Mesa Boulevard stations are without park-and-ride lots.

Area bus lines also will be altered to act as feeder lines to the trolley when it goes into full operation in June. By mid-1990, transit analysts predict that the East Line will be carrying 15,000 passengers a day--enough to ease the commuter congestion on I-8 and California 94. By the turn of the century, the number of daily riders is expected to grow to between 20,000 and 25,000.

Next in line for trolley system expansion is the Bayside Line, which will loop around downtown San Diego and serve the new bayside convention center. It is scheduled to begin operations in June, 1990.

After that, the East Line will be extended from El Cajon to Santee, a distance of 3.3 miles, and the North Line, from the Santa Fe Depot to Old Town, also a 3.3-mile stretch, will be built.