ORANGE : Bike Path Plan’s Funding Cut by $400,000

The California Department of Transportation has pulled about $400,000 in funding from a proposal to turn an abandoned railroad bed into a bike path, leaving city officials to pick up the tab.

City Council members learned Tuesday that Caltrans will finish the environmental studies and public hearings for the path, but has run out of money to go any further.

“They feel it’s in our jurisdiction and that it’s more of a city project,” said Jere Murphy, the city’s advanced planning manager.

Federal funds will cover 80% of the project’s $2-million cost, leaving a $400,000 gap. Grants might be available from several sources, Murphy said, and officials will have to decide by mid-November whether to pursue them.

The 20-foot-wide Tustin Branch Trail, a combination of biking and walking paths, would be developed on an old Southern Pacific rail line that begins in north Tustin and ends at Glassell Street in Orange. Five of the seven miles along the rail line are in Orange, running primarily along Esplanade and Prospect streets.

A similar project proposed in the 1970s was defeated by neighboring homeowners who feared noise, loss of privacy and crime, said Jim Konopka, an environmental planner with Caltrans.

But this time, the agency has had hearings to address those fears.

“A lot of people who opposed the trails changed their attitudes after they went in,” Konopka said of other county trails.

City officials said they will ask the City Council to consider seeking grants to pick up the $400,000 cost left by the state.

“From a land-use perspective, this seems like the only reasonable thing to do,” said Councilman Dan Slater.

“Now it is just a weed patch that collects garbage and other things we don’t want to know about.”