Groups Seek to Revive MTA Trolley Proposal : Development: Potential cost of $5 million per mile scuttles the $1.2-billion proposal. Businesses and residents were counting on system to help refurbish Anaheim Street.

City officials and business groups are lobbying to reverse a Metropolitan Transportation Authority vote to scuttle a $1.2-billion electric trolley system.

The first leg of the system was scheduled to open in 1995 on 7th and Anaheim streets, a struggling commercial area where several businesses were looted during the 1992 riots. A subsequent addition would have run north and south along Atlantic Avenue and Long Beach Boulevard.

But the MTA board, faced with a $126-million deficit next year, unexpectedly voted two weeks ago to dump the whole project, including planned trolley lines in Los Angeles and the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

The vote was 8 to 4, with Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and his two appointees voting with the majority. Riordan’s stand led to others on the board abandoning the project, according to trolley supporters.

Long Beach business and community groups had been counting on the trolley system, with its pollution-free electric cars as well as such amenities as antique-style street lamps and bus shelters, to help refurbish Anaheim Street.

“It’s insane to kill something like this,” said Harry Boerner, the owner of an electronics store who has been participating for two years in planning meetings for the Anaheim Street trolley.

Long Beach Councilmen Evan Anderson Braude, who is a member of the MTA board, and Ray Grabinski are seeking to have the matter brought before the board again next month.

“We have to have some closed-door sessions with Riordan and the others to see if we can get the votes,” Braude said.

Grabinski said the vote against the trolley system may have been based on misunderstandings. “I think a lot of people missed the point about (the trolley system) in the rush to solve other problems or dodge other bullets,” Grabinski said.

Jeff Johnson, the MTA’s director for the trolley project, said some board members were put off by the trolley system’s potential capital costs of $4.5 million to $5 million per mile just when the MTA was facing increasing expenses.

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Unlike liquid-fueled mass transit, the trolley system would require building a series of fixed power stations as well as installing overhead wiring to propel the cars.

“You don’t have to put all of that in when you’re using buses,” Johnson said.

If the entire system is ever completed, it will add 184 miles of trolley tracks to the mass transit system, MTA officials said.

The MTA has already invested $11.6 million in the project, most of it for design and engineering work. By canceling the first phase of the trolley system, Johnson said, the MTA reaped an immediate savings of $38 million, part of which would have paid for a trolley line along Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles.

The Anaheim-7th Street line would have run between Long Beach Boulevard--connecting with the Blue Line--and Pacific Coast Highway.

Grabinski said board members voting against the project did not take into account its potential to draw private and federal money.

Before the vote, planners and Southern California Edison had discussed the possibility of the utility building the Long Beach part of the system, city and Edison officials said.

Federal agencies that are pressing communities in the Los Angeles Basin to adopt stringent anti-pollution measures have also a stake in the trolley, Grabinski added.

“You never know how much federal funding you’ll get,” Grabinski said. “All I know is that we should be getting every dime we can.”

Along Anaheim Street, a down at the heels commercial corridor shared by drive-through hamburger stands, auto repair shops and strip malls, the news of the trolley’s apparent demise sparked despair and anger.

“It’s a terrible loss,” said Bonnie Lowenthal, planning director for the United Cambodian Community, which represents some businesses in the area. “A lot of energy has been generated, a lot of organizations have been involved.”

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“They never consider our time,” said Boerner, who participated in meetings to discuss lamppost designs and species of palm trees to install along the trolley route. “There were so many meetings. We’re not paid for this.”

The MTA board is not scheduled to reconsider the trolley project, Johnson said. Neither Riordan nor his representatives could be reached.

But a vote reversal is always possible, Johnson said. “In private business, no means no,” he said. “In public business, no means ‘not now.’ ”