Transit Hub Near Disneyland Urged : Transportation: Coalition of local and state agencies and the Walt Disney Co. is lobbying for federal funding.

Lobbying efforts for a transportation hub near Disneyland to serve rail, bus, car-pool and other mass transit have been launched in Washington by a coalition of local and state public agencies and the Walt Disney Co. led by Gov. Pete Wilson’s office.

The coalition, organized by California Trade and Commerce Agency Secretary Julie Meier Wright, met with several Orange County congressmen last week to “float a concept” of building a transit facility on land between Disneyland and the Santa Ana Freeway, Wright said Monday.

The lobbying effort aims to capture some of the transit dollars that may be provided in President Clinton’s soon-to-be-released budget. However, Wright said, there is not yet a cost estimate for the project.

Wright’s contingent includes representatives of the Walt Disney Co., which two years ago independently sought $395 million in federal tax support for two space-age public parking garages, a people mover and other transit improvements near the Magic Kingdom. The effort failed when congressional leaders balked at authorizing public funds that would directly benefit a private firm.

This time, Disney officials are willing to consider a public transit facility to meet some of the needs of the company’s proposed $3-billion expansion of Disneyland, Wright said.

Disney officials could not be reached to comment on the specifics of the proposal.

But Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly said construction of the proposed facility would provide an additional means of transporting people to Disneyland, the Anaheim Convention Center and other tourist sites.

The proposal “is not similar at all” to what Disney sought funding for in 1991, Wright said. “It’s a much different kind of facility.”

“Instead of a private parking structure that had been previously proposed by Disney,” she said, “it would be a park-and-ride and parking and mass transit (facility) connected to high-occupancy-vehicle and mass transit off-ramps from the I-5 and be part of an integrated transportation network.”

Wright said the project meets federal and state goals of combining various modes of transportation to encourage commuters to get out of their cars and use mass transit. Although last week’s meetings were exploratory, the coalition “is precisely the kind of partnership that California needs to embark on for economic development,” she said.

In 1991, Disney was unsuccessful in prying $395 million from Congress for transit improvements near the Anaheim amusement park complex. Instead, a more modest $14.8 million in improvements was ultimately approved for the area, but that was only a fraction of the $175 million requested by Anaheim city officials, independent of the Disney request.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) said Monday that last week’s “meeting was informational, an opportunity to explain the proposed project to me.”

But Packard made no commitments other than to discuss the measure with Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), the Orange County Board of Supervisors and the Orange County Transportation Authority before making a judgment on the project.

The coalition also met with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach).