OCTA Says Light Rail Plans Well on Track

The newspaper headline sounded a familiar theme. “Rail Line Could Speed Traffic . . . “ it said. In the article that followed, county leaders touted how the proposed light rail system through central Orange County would, among other things, reduce congestion and support growth.

The year was 1983.

Only recently, the Orange County Transportation Authority decided to start designing such a system. “It’s right on schedule,” said Stan Oftelie, former chief executive officer of the authority. If all goes well, OCTA officials predict, the county could have light rail within a decade. “I’m very optimistic,” Oftelie said.

Obviously, such talk has been heard here before. Critics characterize the present wave of discussions as just more hot air about something that shouldn’t be built anyway. Planners, on the other hand, say that the atmosphere has changed and they now have voter support for light rail. “This is the farthest we’ve ever gone,” Lisa Mills, the OCTA’s current CEO and Oftelie’s successor, said of the proposed 28-mile line.

Hanging in the balance is Orange County’s transportation future.

Indeed, that future has a very long past. According to Oftelie, county officials first began discussing light rail as early as 1971 in connection with a transit sales tax measure that ultimately failed.

Ten years later, they actually began planning a 38.3-mile light rail system connecting Fullerton to Costa Mesa in anticipation of Proposition A, a 1% sales tax that would have provided money for transportation. It too was ultimately rejected by the voters.

In 1988, a group of civic leaders and rail enthusiasts formed an organization called the Central Orange County Fixed Guideway Agency to begin seeking private funding for a light rail system.

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And, over the years, various other ideas have been floated and sunk, including a rail line down the center of the San Diego Freeway, a Disneyland-type monorail including a half-mile link between John Wayne Airport and the Irvine Business Complex and a high-speed magnetic levitation line from Las Vegas to Anaheim.

After being abandoned for lack of funding, that last idea has recently been revived.

Then in 1990, an historic vote by the people of Orange County changed the rules of the game. They approved Measure M, a half-cent sales tax that, among other things, set aside $340 million for developing rapid transit systems including rail.

“That changed the game,” Oftelie said. “Instead of asking if we should build a rail system, the burden of proof was put on the other side--why shouldn’t we build one? It’s a fundamental change in how you should look at it; voters have approved the concept of a high-tech rail system and provided money for it.”

The Fixed Guideway Agency ceased its efforts. And a three-year study by the OCTA culminated, among other things, in the current plan to design a light rail system along the busy 6-mile-wide corridor connecting Fullerton and Irvine.

Even with the seed money provided by Measure M, however, funding will be an uphill battle. The final price tag for the proposed project is expected to be $1.7 billion, most of which will have to come from the federal government. And the present climate, according to James McConnell, the OCTA’s lobbyist in Washington, is not optimum for getting federal funds.

“The next five years are going to be tough because we’re on this guided path to a balanced budget,” he said. “That means shrinking funds for discretionary projects and rail is one of the most expensive things you can devise. We’re talking big bucks.”

One thing the OCTA is doing right, McConnell said, is approaching the project piece by piece instead of as a whole. Thus, even if Congress approves the $4 million currently included in a transportation bill for design of the project, the agency will not yet be committed to its construction.

A major factor recommending this approach, McConnell said, is the skepticism among legislators inspired, in part, by the recent experience of the subway system under construction in Los Angeles County, which has consistently run into delays and cost overruns.

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Even if Orange County ultimately builds a light rail system, local transportation officials say, it is unclear where they will get the money to run it. “We still have a lot of issues,” Mills said, “and funding is a major one.”

Rail systems routinely can’t be operated solely on the income from the fares paid by passengers, she said. “Although we are well on our way to identifying where the funds will come from to build the project,” Mills said, “we still have a long way to go in identifying operating funds.”

The need for potentially large operating subsidies is one of the things critics point to as evidence that the system shouldn’t be built. That and their contention that commuters, especially in suburban Orange County, are unlikely to abandon their cars to ride a train.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate,” said Charles Lave, a UC Irvine economics professor who has studied rail systems nationwide. “It’s being sold as congestion relief, but there isn’t a rail system built in the last 20 years that has done anything for congestion because people don’t leave their cars to ride them.”

Rail proponents, however, say there are other ways to measure the success of light rail.

“Overall, it’s been a very positive experience nationally,” said Amy Coggin, a spokeswoman for the American Public Transit Assn. in Washington. “Light rail in general has been very popular and is probably one of the fastest growing segments in public transportation.”

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Portland, often cited in transit circles as a model of what can be done, opened its 15-mile line in 1986. The system--which runs on $8 million a year, about half of which is paid for by fares--now averages 29,300 passengers daily, according to spokesman G.B. Arrington, considerably fewer than the 42,500 originally projected.

But it has spurred development in the city’s downtown area. The number of people riding trains has increased more rapidly than the number of miles being driven in cars, according to Arrington.

Similar comments are heard in San Diego, where as many as 55,000 passengers ride some portion of the 42-mile trolley line on an average weekend day. “People like to use the system,” said Tom Larwin, general manager of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board, which operates the train on about $20 million a year, 70% of it from fares. “That’s another measure of success.”

The major question facing Orange County transit planners is whether people will like using a rail system here.

One rather conflicting answer has been provided by annual surveys conducted on the subject since 1982. Responses have been fairly consistent on two questions. Asked what would improve transportation in Orange County, most people cite light rail. Asked whether they would personally use such a system, most people say no.