Rift Over Trolley Alignment in Little Italy Ends

The San Diego City Council put an amicable end to a bitter debate over a San Diego Trolley alignment through Little Italy and Harbor View by approving $8 million to help fund underground tracks intended to avoid street-level traffic congestion.

By a unanimous 8-0 vote, with Mayor Maureen O’Connor absent, the council agreed to share the project’s cost with the San Diego Unified Port District. Last month, the port also allocated $8 million to fund the underground tracks at two major intersections--Grape and Hawthorne streets--included in a 3 1/2-mile, $90-million expansion of the trolley from downtown to Old Town.

The Metropolitan Transit Development Board had originally proposed elevating the eight-block section of tracks passing through Little Italy and Harbor View, a plan that community leaders complained would create a “physical and psychological barrier” destructive to the neighborhood’s panoramic bay views, property values and character.

Instead, under a compromise fashioned by City Councilman Ron Roberts, the tracks will cross beneath Grape and Hawthorne streets and pass over Laurel Street, a concession to its higher traffic volume.

The city plans to pay its share of the project through annual $1-million payments to MTDB. The money will come from hotel room tax revenue, city administrators said.