ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Full Throttle for Monorail Idea

A coalition of visionary city officials wrestling with Orange County’s growing traffic congestion seems to have a one-track mind. Fortunately, it is the same track, an idea for a monorail network that keeps spreading quite satisfactorily.

Although any such monorail system is still very much in the talking and planning stage, what started more than a year ago as a plan for a half-mile, privately funded monorail connecting two proposed office buildings near the airport in Irvine to the new John Wayne Airport terminal has grown to a network of about 20 miles running through six cities.

Within the last two weeks, Fullerton city officials expressed their interest in joining talks this month on the proposed monorail system now envisioned to run as a main line through Costa Mesa, Santa Ana and Orange, ending in Anaheim. There would be branches off the main line, possibly to Irvine’s Spectrum office and industrial area and new Amtrak station, the airport, South Coast Plaza and Metro area, the MainPlace/Santa Ana shopping mall, the Santa Ana Civic Center area, Disneyland, Anaheim Stadium, Cal State Fullerton and Fullerton’s Amtrak depot.

What makes the proposal so exciting, aside from its potential as the first commercial monorail system in the nation to serve the public, is the enthusiasm and cooperative attitudes of the cities. Just as there is no single solution to the county’s growing traffic congestion, there is no single transportation facility capable of solving the traffic woes. And just as it will take a variety of options, monorail being one that may work well, it will take the kind of joint approach the six cities are pursuing to turn traffic alternatives into realities. Looks to us as if they are on the right track.