Study Recommends Anaheim as End for Bistate Super Train

Anaheim has emerged as the recommended terminus for a $4-billion high-speed “super train” between Las Vegas and Southern California because it would yield the highest ridership, according to Canadian consultants hired by a joint California-Nevada commission to study possible routes.

Anaheim offers “uniformly higher traffic potential” than other proposed locations, including San Fernando, Palmdale, Palm Springs and various other points, according to the consultants, the Canadian Institute of Guided Ground Transport and Robert D. Niehaus Inc.

Although a super train would create between 24,000 and 53,000 jobs, up to 47% of them in Southern California, automobile traffic on streets near the area of an Anaheim station would increase by 9,700 trips on most days to as many as 31,000 trips on “peak Sundays,” the consultants say.

The increase in pollution from such street traffic could, the report adds, be offset by commuters’ using the super train to travel between cities. “Development of an SST,” that is, a super-speed train, “would reduce gross energy consumption for inter-city travel in this corridor by 16% to 17%,” thus reducing air pollution, the report says.

Copies of the findings were released Friday by Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth, who is a member of the California-Nevada Super Speed Ground Transportation Commission and a former mayor of Anaheim.

Competition With L.A.

The commission was created 1 1/2 years ago to examine the feasibility of the high-speed train proposal, which has been promoted strongly by Las Vegas officials and Transrapid, a European firm that has developed a magnetically levitated train and test track in West Germany.

Roth and Anaheim officials have vigorously sought the super train project, in competition with some Los Angeles officials, including Mayor Tom Bradley, who favor stops in Palmdale and the San Fernando Valley.

The bistate commission is expected to vote on the consultants’ recommendation at a meeting Oct. 27 at Los Angeles International Airport.

“I’m delighted,” Roth said Friday of the consultants’ findings. “Tourism was obviously an important factor. It appears that we,” in Anaheim, “are way out in front. The private sector is really the one that is going to drive this thing, but I’m excited by the prospect of commuter use between the Inland Empire and Anaheim.”

Roth said that the Ontario City Council on Tuesday adopted a resolution favoring Anaheim as the terminus, as did the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.

Promoted Idea

Roth said he and Anaheim officials were hosts for members of the bistate commission at last week’s Rams game at Anaheim Stadium. At a previous commission meeting in Anaheim Stadium, Roth said, the electronic message board flashed pictures of the high-speed train in motion.

In reference to Bradley’s efforts to have the train route end in Los Angeles County, Roth said: “I did not lay down and play dead.”

Other commission officials could not be reached for comment late Friday.

Bechtel Corp. has signed a joint-venture agreement with Transrapid to develop the the super train should the California-Nevada commission approve the project. Further environmental and financial feasibility studies will be conducted before such a decision is made.

The study released Friday shows that having the route end in Anaheim via Ontario would result in 433,000 round trips a year, in contrast with 418,000 for Palmdale and the San Fernando Valley, 367,000 for Riverside-Anaheim, and 311,000 for Victor Valley-Ontario.

Palm Springs Considered

Palm Springs was also considered, but it was ranked very low, partly because, the report says, there would be no significant use of the train by inter-city commuters.

The train would attract, all told, 5 million to 6.5 million round trips in the year 2000, and the number could increase to as high as 8.8 million trips by 2025, the consultants say.

The round-trip fare anticipated for the Anaheim-to-Las Vegas route would be $104, about two-thirds of what current air fares are, according to the report.

Fares were projected to generate from $492 million to $598 million in the year 2000, and those figures could increase to as much as $809 million by 2025.

Development of a high-speed train “would cause localized concentrations of congestion, auto emissions and noise. Regional auto emissions within Southern California would remain about the same as without the SST,” the report states.