Board Supports Driverless Trolleys Despite Costs

Led by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission on Wednesday ignored warnings of budget overruns and voted to reaffirm its commitment to high-tech driverless trolley cars on the Metro Rail Green Line.

While one commission director warned that a projected $67-million Green Line cost overrun will play havoc with the commission’s 30-year plan to build more than 300 miles of rail rapid transit in the county, Bradley, who is also a commission director, marshaled support for the driverless cars.

The mayor said he has coaxed the two companies seeking the project’s $100-million car-building contract to promise to open a Southern California factory to assemble the vehicles.

The commission voted 8 to 3 to continue to support the project. One of the dissenters was Director Gary Hertzberg, representing Supervisor Gloria Molina, who said the extra cost would result in no benefit for transit riders.

“This commission initially approved automation because the $30-million added cost would result in $30 million in lower operating costs over 30 years,” he said. “But now that cost savings is gone, and we’re told that it will cost $67 million more instead.

“What’s the difference in speed? A mile an hour. What’s the difference in frequency? It’s the same. What’s the difference in (passenger) capacity? None. I don’t see any differences (between the automated system and a much cheaper manual system) as I go down the list of advantages.”

Bradley said the benefits will come.

“Nobody suggested we abandon the Red Line when it was learned it was going to be $300-million-plus over budget,” he said. “I’m not ready to abandon this technology, when we promised people along the route shorter headways (more frequent service) and higher technology.”

Commission members also expressed concerns about the process used to choose the line’s car builders. Rather than reopen the bidding process, however, the commission ordered its staff to reconsider revised bids from the only two firms to seek the contract in the first place.

The Green Line, which is scheduled to run 23 miles between Norwalk and El Segundo down the median of the Century Freeway, would be the first driverless mass transit line in the United States, but the project has become troubled by cost overruns and controversial contracting procedures.

Originally projected to cost $814 million, the system currently is budgeted at $886 million, with that price tag expected to hit $974 million with the use of automated cars. Included in the expected overrun is $67 million for the automation and $21 million for other increases.

Wednesday’s vote comes two days after the Rail Construction Corp., the LACTC’s construction arm, acknowledged serious problems with the project by delaying the award of two contracts that are vital to developing its futuristic, driverless cars.

At a meeting of the RCC board in Los Angeles on Monday, members voted to withhold approval of contracts to buy driverless train cars and the computerized train-control system needed to run them until the policy-making LACTC made its decision Wednesday.

Blame for the high costs has been attributed to the LACTC’s 1987 decision to automate the line--forcing Los Angeles to buy wholly different kinds of vehicles, control-and-signal networks and propulsion systems for each of its rail transit routes.

The Metro Rail Blue Line, opened last year, uses conventional, manually operated trolley cars. Commuter trains, scheduled to start running next year, will consist of diesel engines trailing separate double-decked passenger cars. The Metro Rail Red Line, scheduled to open in 1993, will have larger subway cars. A monorail is under consideration for an east-west line in the San Fernando Valley. Unproven magnetic-levitation technology is planned for a train to run along the San Diego Freeway between Los Angeles International Airport and Palmdale.

Each kind of train requires different parts inventories, controls, signals, train yards and crew training.

Under this system, vehicle costs are further increased because the custom-built cars must be bought in relatively small lots--40 cars for the Metro Rail Green Line compared to a 256-car order for more traditional vehicles used by the Chicago Transit Authority. One 90-foot Green Line car was to cost $2.9 million; two 45-foot Chicago cars go for a total of $1.6 million.