End of the Line for Trolley Cars : Monterey Park: After a four-year experiment, the city sees the folly of its trolleys. They’re just too impractical and too expensive.

The city’s bright red and green “trolley cars,” now classified as an experiment that failed, will soon give way to carpeted transit buses.

For four years, the trolleys-on-wheels have rolled up and down city streets five days a week, 12 hours a day, each month taking 15,000 passengers to places Rapid Transit District buses don’t go, for just a quarter a ride.

But although the novelty of the trolleys hasn’t worn off, city officials say the vehicles are impractical. They guzzle gas, break down on steep climbs and are expensive to repair, Parks and Recreation Director Susan Hunt said.

Brian Navis, the city’s transit consultant, said Wednesday that the trolley cars probably were a mistake, but “hindsight’s 20-20. . . . The city didn’t have any experience in transportation at the time. The trolleys were not doing what they were expected to do, but how do you know that (in advance)?”

The City Council on Monday decided to scrap the trolleys and replace them with ordinary 23-passenger transit buses similar to the kind used by automobile rental agencies. The buses, to be in service by June, 1991, will come equipped with wheelchair ramps, which the trolleys do not have.

Instead of paying a transportation company $450,000 a year to run five trolley routes, Monterey Park will use Proposition A sales tax money to buy five buses for about $110,000 each under a lease-purchase agreement with an as-yet undetermined operator.

Although the city will pay more at first under the lease-purchase arrangement, it will save money in maintenance and repairs over time, Navis said. Rides will still cost 25 cents, he said.

“The trolley just eats up all the money,” Hunt said. “While they’re pretty to look at, they don’t have a heavyweight body. Their useful life is over.”

The city’s hilly terrain has taken its toll on the trolleys, which weigh only 12,000 pounds, compared with the sturdier 22,000-pound transit buses. Hunt said trolleys have broken down, sometimes leaving riders stranded.

Councilman Fred Balderrama, who cast the lone vote against the plan to purchase buses, said the city instead should pay a transit company to run the bus routes to avoid liability when the buses are old and in need of repair. “Monterey Park has a lot of hills,” he said. “There’ll be a lot of wear and tear on those buses.”

Navis, who recommended switching to buses, said the trolleys “served a purpose in attracting riders. It was unique and different and fun--it was a novelty.” But the transit system needs to be more reliable than the trolleys, he said.

Covina, meanwhile, began running its own trolley routes last month, promoting the new system as “the return of the Red Cars.”

“We have had a few breakdowns since we’ve started, but we’re hoping those are just inconsistencies,” said Paul Hogan, administrative analyst in charge of transportation programs. The city owns two trolleys and pays a private company $174,000 a year to run the lines.