Over-Under Alignment Approved for S.D. Trolley’s Old Town Route : Transportation: Section of line through Harbor View and Little Italy will be put below ground if transit agency can find $16 million in funding.

Transit officials compromised Thursday on a hotly disputed San Diego Trolley route, agreeing--if funding can be found--to run the tracks below ground past Grape and Hawthorn streets and elevating them over Laurel Street.

For months, residents and property owners of Harbor View and Little Italy had complained that irreparable harm would be incurred if the Metropolitan Transit Development Board followed through with its plans to elevate the right of way through their neighborhoods on the 3 1/2-mile route from the Santa Fe Depot to Old Town.

They argued that an elevated line--previously approved by the MTDB board--would hurt property values by robbing them of their prized views of the bay while disfiguring two of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.

The problem with Thursday’s compromise--spearheaded by Ron Roberts, a city councilman and MTDB board member--is that it will cost an estimated $16 million more than what the agency has budgeted for the line.

The board agreed on a 12-3 vote to try to secure the funds within two months, and failing that, to reconsider the issue.

Roberts said the city has about $5 million in surplus transit funds from taxes on hotel guests that might be used.

But, in an interview after the meeting, he argued that the majority of the $16 million--if not all of it--ought to come from the San Diego Unified Port District.

“Look, the only reason we’re discussing grade separation at all is because of the traffic going to Port property--including Lindbergh Field,” Roberts said.

Laurel, Grape and Hawthorn are key streets linking Lindbergh Field with Interstate 5.

“We had hoped to resolve this without involving” the Port, Roberts said, “but it doesn’t appear we can. At the very least, they should be participants in the solution.”

Port District spokesman Dan Wilkens was noncommittal.

“From a staff perspective, we’re not sure what it is that’s been proposed,” Wilkens said. “MTDB will have to come and tell us what it is they wish of the district.”

But, in an earlier interview with The Times, Wilkens said members of the Port staff were concerned about the dangers of elevating the trolley tracks at Laurel, which is directly in the path of jetliners on final landing approach to Lindbergh Field.

The trolley will run along the existing railroad tracks between the controversial 110-foot-high Laurel Travel Center--already a concern of the Airline Pilots Assn.--and the airport runway. The elevated segment of the trolley line, which will be 44 feet at it highest point, will be immediately west of the travel center parking structure at Laurel and Kettner Boulevard.

For James R. Mills, chairman of the 15-member MTDB board and the guiding force behind the trolley’s growth and development, Thursday’s vote was a clear setback.

In recent meetings, Mills has been challenged by fellow board members as well as Harbor View-Little Italy residents and property owners.

He appeared angry after Thursday’s meeting.

“These people in the community were terrified by dishonest representation from the beginning,” he said.

Mills, who favored elevating the tracks throughout the neighborhoods in question, said his opponents told residents the elevated tracks would be 50 feet high and 16 blocks long.

“They kept showing people structures that were built in Chicago in 1893, representing to people in their areas that that was what we would build--because they figured they could get more hysteria out of them than if they showed them something honest.”

Mills said the idea of putting the tracks at street level at Grape and Hawthorn, which neighborhood groups supported, “would be a nightmare” because of traffic.

“It wasn’t the community that fought us,” he said, “not when it was all said and done. It was property owners, just a few people, stirring them up, putting out all this junk.”

Rob Quigley, an architect who lives and works in Harbor View, is an opponent of Mills’ plan. He said he was encouraged by Thursday’s vote and considered it a victory, however minor, for the neighborhood.

“I’m encouraged that the movement is clearly away from the elevated trolley,” Quigley said. “To see them honestly exploring alternatives to that . . . was great. I liked the conversation that talked about the correct thing to do--which would be to put it all underground.”

Quigley, Roberts and Mills are in agreement that putting the disputed stretch of trolley tracks through Little Italy and Harbor View below ground would be the best solution by far, were the cost not prohibitive. To do that, MTDB officials estimate, would mean an additional $55 million.

“Only the port has that kind of money,” Mills said.

But Quigley said that, despite cost, a below-grade solution should not be dismissed.

“What upsets me is that the city of San Diego tends to do things halfway,” he said. “Look at the history of the city. City Hall was built in such a way that, 20 years later, we have to build a new one. The Convention Center, the day it was finished, was not big enough.

“It wasn’t done adequately, and this is one more example. The correct thing to do--despite the money--would be to underground all of it.”

The board agreed that, if it is unable to come up with the $16 million within two months, it will reconsider whether to elevate the entire line through Harbor View and Little Italy or leave it at grade.

William C. Lorenz, design engineer for MTDB, said it has not yet been decided whether to cover the underground section of track, creating a subway-like tunnel, or run it in an open trench. Covering the track would be the more expensive option. He said that, in either case, the track will be 23 to 25 feet below ground level. If the $16 million can be secured, the route approved Thursday will proceed north from the Santa Fe Depot along the existing Santa Fe-Amtrak track, dip beneath heavily traveled Grape and Hawthorn, then rise up at a 4% grade over Laurel Street and back down to grade again, and on to Old Town.