Rail Proposals Signal O.C.’s Coming of Age : Mass transit: ‘We’re no longer the suburbs,’ says one official. By April, planners hope to have route selected through congested core.

Breezing into your office after a hop on a monorail or similar vehicle is still a dream for Orange County’s stressed-out commuters. But prospects are looking up, say county transit officials.

By April, transit planners hope to have a route selected through the county’s heavily congested central core. At the same time, the Orange County Transportation Authority Board will be asked to push for an undetermined amount of federal funds for the rail project. That will trigger a $1 million-to-$2 million analysis of all transit options along the same corridor, which would be used to justify federal funding of the rail project.

This will not be the final decision to build. In fact, officials have not even decided yet whether the rail line should be elevated or built at street level, like the Metro Rail Blue Line from Long Beach to Los Angeles.

The public, including groups critical of rail transit as a costly boondoggle, will weigh in at a public hearing in March.

Still, the decision pending in April symbolizes Orange County’s coming of age, its transformation from a bedroom community to an urban area distinct from Los Angeles.

“We’re no longer the suburbs,” says Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young, who predicts that he and his colleagues on the OCTA board will vote to beat a path to Washington’s pot of gold.

Money is a driving force. Federal transit funding is done in seven-year cycles and the next one starts in 1996--shortly after OCTA completes the mandatory analysis, which will consider a variety of modes of transit for the corridor.

Moreover, Measure M, the half-cent sales tax increase approved by county voters in 1990, promised an intra-county, multi-stop urban rail system, not just more of Metrolink commuter trains that run between counties with few stations in between.

Measure M earmarked $340 million for urban rail--enough to build maybe six miles. But transit planners and politicians are eyeing a 15- to 30-mile starter line that would require a big chunk of state and federal funds as well as investment in station sites by private developers.

“It’s a defining moment,” said OCTA Chief Executive Officer Stan Oftelie. “We’re dealing with a classic paradigm shift. . . . When we previously looked at light rail (in 1984), we asked if it could work in a suburban county. Now we’re asking, can it work in an urban county? It’s a gamble, but one that was approved by the voters in Measure M. It was Measure M that shifted the burden of proof. Now it’s ‘Why shouldn’t we do it?’ ”

Because of the tremendous lead time needed for such projects, decisions made now will not be running until 2002. Failure to move forward, said Monte Ward, a key OCTA strategist, could force officials to seek amendments to Measure M in order to allow use of the $340 million for other transportation purposes.

Even the recent Northridge earthquake is giving the project new impetus.

County elected officials are talking about how the Northridge temblor proved the value of having multiple transportation options, including rail service, to supplement the highway system.

The buzzword in Washington is “multi-modalism,” which means those in charge of doling out federal tax money are looking for projects that reduce the public’s dependence on any single form of transportation. In Orange County, that means getting people off the road.

Two studies show that the South Coast Plaza-Disneyland corridor is well suited for urban rail. So far, said OCTA planner David Elbaum, “there are no fatal flaws” to putting trains there.

But OCTA board members are fiscally cautious and openly skeptical about the timing for urban rail; their constituents focus on today’s budget and traffic hassles--not on projections for what the county may be like in 2002.

“You have government agencies that by their very nature are conservative,” Santa Ana’s Young told a convention of transportation planners in Anaheim last week. “They’re not used to taking risks. Business takes risk.”

La Habra Councilman William D. Mahoney is the OCTA board member most skeptical. He’s suggested that the bus system must first expand and “max out,” which would save money in the short run and lay a more solid foundation for the high ridership levels needed on urban rail to justify the enormous construction cost--anywhere from $30 million to $70 million per mile.

“Pre-Measure M, we saw a strong shift toward rail in the public opinion polling we’ve done,” said OCTA’s Ward. “But when you talk specifically about rail, like where you’re going to put it and who is going to use it, the public gets much more critical of it. The question is ‘Who is the system going to serve?’ ”

Ward says there is constant debate about whether one system caters more to the well-to-do rather than the poor.

OCTA’s chief rail planner Nancy Michali, who previously worked on rail projects in Los Angeles County, says there are lots of ways to define success and measure ridership.

“Do you measure success by how many riders you have during the morning and evening peak congestion periods? The Blue Line has had success partly because people use it in the middle of the day for shorter, local trips--like students and people doing their shopping. It’s not just people commuting from homes in Long Beach to jobs in Los Angeles.”

Moreover, changes in the economy mean there are fewer people working traditional 9 to 5 jobs. “Work has spread out to other times of the day or week,” Michali said.

There are other changes to be reckoned with.

For example, Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, OCTA’s chairman, has had OCTA look at the county’s evolving demographics to make sure any urban rail line reflects future settlement patterns and cultural diversity.

And there’s built-in tension between those who want urban rail to help people get to and from work and others who see it as a tool for city redevelopment projects. There’s a constant refrain: “Will it be good for business?”

Tran Vinh, who owns a liquor store on Bristol Street in Santa Ana, believes an elevated rail line there would “improve the neighborhood” and bring in a “higher class clientele.” But he worries that new competition from development around station sites would drive him out. “Who knows?” he asked, laughing. “Maybe I will have enough money by then to buy the entire block.”

To be sure, there’s no shortage of companies lining up for a chance to supply vehicles and lay the track. They range from Canada’s Bombardier Corp., which built the monorail at Walt Disney World in Florida, to local entrepreneurs who have designs for pneumatic tubes with slits for windblown sails attached to a train’s underside.

But any OCTA decision to move forward will be met by an almost unanimous chorus of criticism from academia, where anti-rail sentiment has peaked in recent years.

A recent UCLA study, for example, cast doubt on the net transportation benefit from rail because of the congestion created from new development around stations.

And some, including UCI Prof. Charles A. Lave, argue that rail is extremely inefficient. “Can you imagine what could be achieved if they put the same money into a decent bus system?” Lave wrote recently. But Lave is no fan of buses either, suggesting that automobiles are simply an “irresistible force.”

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In the end, OCTA officials hope to build both an extensive bus system and add urban rail in stages. There are fears, however, that the bus system will cater only to the poor and the rail line will be priced for the well-to-do.

OCTA officials say the bus system will be expanded first. Urban rail will not be completed for a long time, allowing the bus system to grow and improve.

Interviews with bus riders suggest there is room for that. Riders say trains are nicer, cleaner, safer, quieter and less jerky than buses. Trains get stuck due to accidents on the tracks, several passengers told The Times, but it is worse on buses because they get mired in the same traffic jams as cars every day.

Many surveys also show that the public is not too keen on buses because they associate them with low economic status and crime risk.

Manny Lujan last week was on the No. 43 bus north to Fullerton from his mechanic’s job at a Costa Mesa car dealership, a route that parallels the proposed rail corridor.

“Sometimes there is no room on the bus and I have to wait for the next one, or the third one,” he said. “I don’t like it because it’s too crowded, and you get bounced around quite a bit.”

But will Lujan and other car-less, transit-dependent city folk be able to afford to ride urban rail or will it be used by yuppies in suits and ties who can afford what are likely to be stiff ticket prices?

In the end, politics will govern this debate about pricing and subsidies.

“So what if it’s the folks in suits and ties,” said Santa Ana’s Young, when commenting on the ridership on existing commuter trains. “Isn’t it amazing that you can get those people to leave cars?”

New Rail Route?

County transportation planners will soon decide whether to go ahead with plans for an intra-county, urban rail line. So far, experts favor a South Coast Plaza to Disneyland path roughly along Main or Bristol streets in Santa Ana.

Source: Orange County Transportation Authority; Researched by JEFFREY PERLMAN / Los Angeles Times