Agencies to Merge Rail Offices Early

The heads of Orange County’s two principal transportation agencies reached an agreement Tuesday to merge their rail offices a year ahead of schedule.

The agreement is the first step in the union of two public transportation bureaucracies that last year controlled a combined total of more than $300 million in revenue.

Under a bill passed by the state Legislature in August, after months of political infighting, the county Orange County Transportation Commission, a planning body, and the Orange County Transit District, which runs the county’s bus system, are to combine and form a single agency. A plan for the merger must be in order by December, 1991.

But even before that plan is developed, there is an “urgency” to combine the current staffs and duties of the two bodies in planning, acquiring and operating local rail operations, OCTC Chairman Dana W. Reed and OCTD Chairman Richard B. Edgar said in a statement outlining their agreement.

The two chairmen said streamlined decision making and planning are needed in the weeks ahead on the public acquisitions of rights-of-way now being offered by Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads, on nine separate rail studies under way in the county, and on the impact of Measure M, the half-cent transportation sales tax proposal on the Nov. 6 ballot, should it pass.

Reed and Edgar therefore agreed to merge their offices to deal with those issues and to create a Rail Program Office to be overseen by Brian Pearson, who is now OCTD director of development. The merger is expected to be approved and put into effect Nov. 26 by the two agencies’ boards.