Study Begun in Push for Electric Trolleys : Transportation: $750,000 project to look at impact of changeover. Proponents say such vehicles are quieter and less polluting.

Los Angeles County transportation officials announced on Monday the start of a $750,000, six-month study to replace the county’s smoke-belching, diesel-propelled public transit buses with cleaner, quieter electrified trolleys before 2010.

Officials acknowledged that considerable public education will be needed to win support of the electric trolley bus system--long used in a few major U.S. cities such as Seattle and San Francisco and abandoned in Los Angeles in the early 1960s--largely because of concerns over the potential unsightliness of the overhead wires needed to power the vehicles.

They are pinning their hopes on public willingness “to have clean, noiseless buses and live with the overhead wires,” said Nick Patsaouras, president of the Southern California Rapid Transit District board, which is conducting the study for the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

The electric trolley bus system was one of several sweeping changes ordered last year in a comprehensive clean air plan by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Local transit authorities believe they can beat AQMD’s deadlines, which require substantially reducing the number of diesel buses by 1998 and replacing all such vehicles with ones that are electric-powered or use lower-emitting fuels, such as methanol and natural gas, by 2010.

The study, which will explore environmental impacts, costs, routes and other operation aspects, will be “as close to an action plan as you can get,” said Neil Peterson, executive director of the county transportation commission.

“The basic message of today is that the transit community is dead serious about looking at electric bus technology to see how we can bring it to the public a lot sooner than originally anticipated,” he said.

Design and environmental analysis could begin in June on five trolley lines to be operated in heavy usage areas, such as the Wilshire Corridor or along the El Monte busway, RTD spokeswoman Andrea Greene said.

Electric trolley cars are more expensive than diesel buses but more cost-effective in the long run, according to local transit officials. An electric bus costs about $400,000, compared to $250,000 for a diesel bus, according to Green. But the trolley bus has a life expectancy of 25 years, compared to 12 years for a diesel bus, and costs 30% less for overall maintenance.

Patsaouras estimated that it would cost $1.6 billion to convert 20% of the RTD’s lines to trolley buses by 1998. The money would come from county Proposition C on the November ballot, which calls for a quarter-cent transportation tax.

Al Perdon, RTD assistant general manager, who recently returned from Seattle and Vancouver where he observed those cities’ trolley bus systems, called the electrified buses “a really refreshing approach” to solving pollution and traffic problems.

“What is really exciting is that when you stand at a bus stop, the bus is there loading up passengers and it is absolutely quiet,” said Perdon. “And . . . there are no fumes coming out the backs of buses.”

Perdon said that the buses are so quiet that they could pose a hazard to pedestrians. Vancouver has reported a higher accident rate for electric than diesel buses. Green said that local transit authorities expect to install horns or other pedestrian warning devices on the trolley buses, as well as give trolley drivers extra training to avoid mishaps.

Perdon said the study will employ urban design experts to help devise ways to reduce the visual impact of the overhead wires needed to propel the trolley buses. He said it is possible to eliminate some of the bulky wires over intersections by equipping buses with a battery that would power the buses at street crossings.

Sierra Club regional director Bob Hattoy said Monday that the environmental group supports the move to electric buses because they are the most energy-efficient and least-polluting. He said that environmentalists will be monitoring how the electricity is produced to meet the heightened demand for electric power because “we don’t want to replace (smog-producing buses) with the smokestacks of new electric power plants.”

Los Angeles had the first trolley system in the country in 1910--the Red Cars, operated by the Pacific Electric Railway. The expansion of freeways and pressure from the oil industry brought an end to trolleys in 1963, when a switch was made to diesel buses.