Rail Projects Take Twists and Turns : Transportation: Green Line work is on a slow track, projected ridership is drastically down and costs are almost three times higher than originally anticipated.

“Metro Is Coming Your Way!” announces the green and white sign near the intersection of El Segundo Boulevard and Nash Street in El Segundo.

But what the sign does not say is that, compared to predictions of almost a decade ago, the Metro Green Line commuter railway is not coming your way very quickly, or very cheaply.

When it finally opens in 1995--according to current projections--the Green Line will have cost almost three times more than once expected.

It will carry only a fourth as many passengers per day as once envisioned, and planners have not yet determined if cutbacks in the defense and aerospace industries, which were supposed to supply many riders, will reduce ridership estimates further. On top of all that, it will be in operation three years later than anticipated.

On the other hand, it will also be about 2.5 miles longer than first proposed.

Nevertheless, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials say the system is doing fine.

“I think we’re pretty satisfied,” said Enrique Valenzuela, an MTA spokesman. “We think it’s a good system.”

When the Green Line was first approved in 1984, it was envisioned as a 17.5-mile system linking Norwalk and El Segundo and running along the median of the Century Freeway, which opens next week. Officially, it is called the Glenn M. Anderson Freeway (I-105).

County mass transit officials approved the rail project even though a proposed busway down the middle of the freeway would have cost an estimated $70 million less to build while serving the same number of commuters.

At the time, the total cost of the railway was estimated at $254.5 million and the completion date was targeted at 1992, as was the freeway.

Estimated ridership on the light rail system was 100,000 people a day, although one staff study called that estimate “unreasonably high.”

Now, the tab for the rail project is estimated at $725.5 million. The completion date is now targeted for May, 1995. And the ridership estimates have been drastically down-scaled to 25,000 riders a day within one year of the opening date, and 40,000 a day in 15 years.

Valenzuela acknowledged that the 100,000-a-day projections of a decade ago were overly optimistic. And even the current estimates of 25,000 riders a day are clouded by the decline in defense and aerospace industries in the South Bay area.

“We haven’t gotten any hard numbers yet” on how defense industry cutbacks may affect Green Line ridership, Valenzuela said. “There has been some very visible downsizing in El Segundo, but you still have significant residential ridership.”

According to Valenzuela and other MTA officials, there are a number of reasons for the cost and time increases.

The primary reason is that since 1984 the length of the Green Line has grown to 20 miles with the addition of a southern branch that leaves the freeway median at Aviation Boulevard and travels south to Marine Avenue in Redondo Beach on a 24-foot-high aerial guideway--sort of a futuristic overhead railroad track. Further southern extensions of the line are being considered and plans for a north route to Westchester and Los Angeles International Airport have been put on hold pending funding and decisions on revamping LAX.

“The scope of the project changed,” Valenzuela said.

Inflation and retrofitting the system to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act also boosted the cost, Valenzuela said.

Construction on the Green Line eventually began in January, 1991, and was proceeding on schedule with a new completion date of October, 1994.

But the project was delayed in January, 1992, when a contract with the Japanese-owned firm Sumitomo Corp. of America to build the cars for the Green Line was canceled amid criticism from elected officials that not enough American workers were involved.

To quell the controversy, the MTA decided to buy some cars from Sumitomo and others from a German-American consortium, the Siemens Duewag Corp.

Fifteen cars were purchased from Sumitomo, at a cost of about $3 million each, to start up the Green Line. The first car is expected to be completed next June. The MTA plans to award a $215-million contract to Siemens Duewag for another 74 cars that can be used on the Green Line or any other portion of the county’s light rail system.

Current plans are for the cars to have drivers, as on the Los Angeles-to-Long Beach Blue Line, although the cars will be designed with the option of converting them to driver-less.

On the whole, Valenzuela said, the Green Line is on track.

“A lot of people are waiting for it to happen,” he said. “They wish it was in operation yesterday.”

The Metro Green Line The Metro Green Line, scheduled to open in 1995, will span 20 miles from Norwalk to El Segundo, running down the center of the Glenn Anderson Freeway (known unofficially as the Century Freeway.) As it nears the ocean, the Green Line will split into segments extending north to Los Angeles International Airport and south to El Segundo. The Green Line will connect with the Blue Line, which is already in operation, and other segments of the region’s vast new rapid transit system that are planned or under construction.

Green Line Rail Facts Route: Norwalk to El Segundo

Completion date: May, 1995

Length: 20 miles

Travel time: 35 minutes

Speed: Up to 65 m.p.h.

Fare: Not determined

Projected cost: $725.5 million (includes 15 cars)

Construction time: More than four years

Projected ridership: 25,000 passengers per day