Trolley Route to Stadium OKd by Transit Board

A 6.2-mile trolley line, connecting Old Town with San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, inched closer to reality this week as transit officials approved a timetable calling for construction to begin in 1994 and be completed by opening day of the baseball season in 1997.

The $231.7-million Mission Valley West line, in the planning stages for seven years, was approved unanimously by members of the Metropolitan Transit Development Board, which will fund the project through a combination of state and local revenues.

Before construction can begin, however, the San Diego City Council must approve a revision in the proposed Riverwalk Project, a mixed-use commercial, residential and retail project being developed by the Chevron Land & Development Co.

Jerry Bischoff, principal project manager for the Chevron group, said his company’s development plans will would supplant the River Valley Golf Course of the Stardust Country Club, whose lease expires in 1994.

Bischoff said most of the changes in the Riverwalk Project have to do with making the San Diego Trolley the focal point of the new development “and making everything more pedestrian-friendly and more acclimated to mass transit.”

Among the primary features of the Mission Valley West line are its proximity to major shopping centers--the Hazard Center, Fashion Valley and Mission Valley Center--and to the stadium, where up to 5,000 people are expected to ride the line to and from sporting events.

Assistant Stadium Manager Steve Shushan said Friday that a station will be constructed in the southwest corner of the stadium parking lot with a facility nearby capable of accommodating additional trolley cars in case they are needed after heavily attended events.

Shushan said the trolley is expected to ease the burden on the stadium parking lot, which contains only 18,750 spaces for a stadium that seats almost 60,000 people. Shushan said that large crowds now result in people becoming angry when they are turned away from the parking lot when it fills up.

Shushan said the trolley line will be elevated through the stadium parking lot, at a height of about 16 feet, so that cars, trucks and buses can pass beneath it. He said the line is expected to eliminate about 100 parking spaces.

The Mission Valley West Line, whose route has been developed during meetings since 1985, will begin at Taylor Street near Old Town, cross the San Diego River and proceed along the north side of the river before crossing back to the south side near Mission Center Road.

It will then connect with Mission Valley Center, crossing to the north side of the river and proceeding to the stadium. It reaches its terminus just beyond the stadium, at a station on Rancho Mission Road, east of Interstate 15.

The route will be 35 feet wide, and because it crosses much of Mission Valley’s extensive flood-plain zone, the tracks will be elevated on concrete bridges at key locations. The tracks will reach their highest point, about 20 feet above ground level, over Stadium Way.

Bob Robenhymer, principal planner with the MTDB, said the trolley will pass beneath I-15, which puts the tracks in danger of periodic flooding. But the alternative, he said, is to put the tracks above the freeway at a height of more than 70 feet--an idea the transit board rejected.

Robenhymer said the new route will link up with the now under-construction trolley line that will run from the Santa Fe Depot to Old Town. The Mission Valley West line will have nine stations: Napa Street and Morena Boulevard (near the University of San Diego), Riverwalk Project, Fashion Valley, Hazard Center, Mission Valley Center, the proposed projects of Rio Vista and Mission City (near the Mission Valley Marriott), the stadium and Rancho Mission Road.

Judy Leitner, a spokeswoman for the transit board, said the new route is expected to carry 50,000 riders daily.

“The line expands our regional transit network and allows the trolley to fan out through parts of the San Diego community,” said Toni Bates, project manager for both the Mission Valley West line and Mission Valley East line, which is now in the planning stages.

Bates said the Mission Valley East line will one day connect San Diego State University with the trolley system and “provide a link to lines moving north along the I-15 corridor.”

She said the Mission Valley East line will eventually proceed from the stadium to Grossmont Center in La Mesa along a route now being negotiated in community planning meetings. At Grossmont Center the Mission Valley East line will tie in with the trolley system’s existing East Line.

Bates said a route along Montezuma Road was recently eliminated because of opposition from community planning groups in the SDSU area.