Countywide : Bids for Monorail to Be Sought in July

Officials from five Orange County cities have agreed to seek bids in July for the private construction and operation of an 18-mile, central county monorail system.

A contract would be awarded to the finalist in February, 1991.

“We’re definitely on our way,” Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young said Tuesday. “We will emphasize first that we are interested in a privately owned and operated system, although we will identify incentives, such as (monorail) station development rights.”

Young said a work schedule was adopted Monday during a private, closed-door meeting of mayors from Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Orange and Santa Ana and with city staff from Irvine. Other cities expressing some interest in joining the monorail project--Huntington Beach, Buena Park and Fullerton--sent observers.

Young said participants at the meeting, which was held in Santa Ana, made some minor modifications to a previously published route map and decided to prepare a 10- to 12-page prospectus that will have to be approved by each of the five city councils before it is mailed to monorail companies, such as the HSST Corp. of Japan and Bombardier Inc. of Canada.

The five-city system would start in Irvine and go over to an area near South Coast Plaza, north on Main Street to a site near MainPlace/Santa Ana being developed by Japanese investors. From MainPlace it would head north with a possible branch extending to Orange and a branch ending in Anaheim. The firm developing the site near MainPlace has offered to include a monorail station in that area.

The monorail line would end at a facility near Anaheim Stadium, where Amtrak trains, local commuter trains and the monorail would connect with the planned Anaheim-Las Vegas high-speed train.

Critics are doubtful, however, that these plans could be carried out without increasing commercial and residential density along the route, adding traffic congestion near transit stations and using some public funds.

But Young has insisted that companies are “knocking down the doors” for a chance to build and operate a private system.

Young said that a prospectus would be released with invitations for bids on July 1.