Rail Project on Track After 2 Cities’ Votes : Transit: A coastal commuter rail system is closer to reality after Del Mar abandoned a potential station site and Solana Beach embraced one.

Two North Coast cities with similar goals have taken divergent actions that put the proposed Oceanside-San Diego rail commuter system back on track.

In Del Mar, City Council members voted unanimously Monday night against putting a commuter station in their city--even at the northernmost boundary with Solana Beach--which led Solana Beach City Council members to drop the border site early Tuesday and vote 4 to 1 to place the controversial station in the middle of their town and wrap a commercial center around it.

Solana Beach Councilwoman Margaret Schlesinger, an advocate of the mid-city site at Lomas Santa Fe Drive and Cedros Avenue, said the Solana Beach action came after council members learned that Del Mar had turned down the Via de la Valle site at the western edge of the Del Mar Fairgrounds, which is at the boundary between the two cities.

“The Del Mar vote killed it (the Via de la Valle plan) for most of us,” Schlesinger said, “although the most recent plan was much more acceptable than some of the previous ones.”

The decision on the Solana Beach-Del Mar site completes a 43-mile-long line of nine stations from the Oceanside Transit Center to the Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego and virtually assures that the morning-evening commuter trains will be up and running by the end of 1992.

Traffic during commuting peak hours along Interstates 5 and 805 will reach gridlock by early in the 21st Century, experts say, unless alternate means of travel are found. About 85% of North County coastal residents responded favorably to the idea of commuter rail service along the existing Santa Fe tracks for their use or as a way to reduce traffic on I-5.

Although there was considerable opposition to the Lomas Santa Fe site by nearby residents and some business owners who fear that the commuter station will attract an overload of traffic to the city and that the trains will block the main intersection of the town at its busiest hours, only Councilwoman Marion Dodson voted against the central site.

Dodson earlier said she was concerned that the station’s impact on the newly incorporated city will be more negative than positive unless the railroad tracks are lowered below street level to prevent blockage of the intersection of Lomas Santa Fe and Old Highway 101. The lowering of the tracks would cost an estimated $30 million, an amount that transit agencies involved in the commuter line said would not be available in the $70-million commuter-rail budget.

Mike Zdon, commuter-rail project manager for the San Diego Assn. of Governments, hailed the Solana Beach decision, which approved the commuter station site in concept, as the last major obstacle to be overcome. Conceptual site approval has now been given for the nine station sites: one in Oceanside, two in Carlsbad, one in Encinitas, one in Solana Beach and four in San Diego.

“It’s a done deal,” Zdon said. “Now we can turn it back to the transit districts to develop specific plans.”

The Metropolitan Transit Development Board and the North County Transit Board are the transit agencies involved in the project.

Plans for the Solana Beach station will have to meet with the approval of the Solana Beach City Council and Amtrak officials, Zdon said, and will probably be developed in conjunction with owners of the property along the tracks north of Lomas Santa Fe.

Two property owner groups made presentations to the Solana Beach council proposing separate plans to develop a joint public-private center incorporating the commuter station with a mix of commercial uses.

Tom McCabe, an architect representing one group, said the partnership plans a movie theater, restaurant and retail stores, plus underground parking for 760 cars.

Joe Silstrop, a local redeveloper and one of the owners of the remaining 4 acres along the railroad, has presented a proposal to the council that would use 2 acres from each ownership to develop “a pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use town center” along with the commuter depot.

At Solana Beach’s marathon session, council members requested that the two groups collaborate in a plan for joint development of their property. The council also recommended that an additional platform to handle seasonal users be built on the Del Mar Fairgrounds to accommodate visitors to the two-week county fair and the seven-week thoroughbred racing season.

Del Mar Councilwoman Jan McMillan said the Del Mar council rejected the so-called “straddle site” on Via de la Valle next to the fairgrounds because of concerns that providing sufficient parking would harm the fragile bluffs and adversely affect the San Dieguito Lagoon, being developed as a wildlife preserve.

It also voted unanimously to ask Amtrak officials to retain the Del Mar depot as its stop for eight daily San Diego-Los Angeles trains and not move to the new Solana Beach site. Amtrak has indicated that it will close the Del Mar station when the Solana Beach-Del Mar commuter station is opened, but McMillan said discussion with Amtrak officials shows that the final decision has not been made.

Zdon said that “considerable amounts of money” have been spent on trying to find a suitable site for the Del Mar-Solana Beach commuter station. Six sites in both cities have been proposed and debated, he said, and transit officials considered abandoning the search for a suitable site in the area and go directly from Encinitas to San Diego.

A Sandag commuter rail policy board composed of local elected officials along the route is expected to accept the Solana Beach site at its Oct. 27 meeting.