Light-Rail Engineering Plan on Track

In its strongest action yet, the Orange County Transportation Authority’s board of directors on Monday authorized $6 million for preliminary engineering on a proposed $1.7-billion light-rail system from Fullerton to Irvine.

“We have to send a message to Washington,” board member Sarah L. Catz said in voting with the 10-1 majority to earmark the funds, 75% of which will come from the federal government.

“We have to find alternative modes of transportation. I think it’s essential.”

Earlier plans had called for the engineering study to be “conceptual”--requiring much less detail than the work the board approved.

“This is an affirmative step advocating rail,” OCTA spokesman John Standiford said. “There seemed to be an emphatic statement to the federal government that we want to advance this and are committed to fully examining it.”

While the federal government is expected to provide about $4.5 million for the preliminary design, the plan approved Monday calls for the remaining funds to come from local sources, mostly Measure M revenue.

Once an engineering firm is chosen, it is likely to start work in early 1998 and complete it within two years, Standiford said.

If all goes well and further federal funds are approved, he said, construction could begin within a decade.

However, critics argue that light rail is more expensive than other methods of mass transit.

“It’s not a good idea,” Bill Ward, president of Drivers for Highway Safety, said of the proposed light-rail system after urging board members to move with caution. “It will cost the taxpayers a lot more per passenger than the freeway does. This is just another inexorable step toward something that we don’t need.”

County Supervisor Jim Silva, the only board member to vote against the engineering study, voiced similar concerns: “I’m not sold on the project based on pure economics.

“I can’t support it.”

Monday’s action, which strengthened and confirmed a decision in June, came after three years of discussion that began in 1994 when the OCTA commissioned a $3-million study to analyze ways of improving traffic along the 28-mile-long, 6-mile-wide area from Fullerton to Irvine.

The corridor contains 34% of the county’s residents, 57% of its jobs and generates about 5.1 million trips a day--more than 60% of the county’s total. Among other things, the study recommended improving the freeways, increasing bus service and building the $1.7-billion light-rail system.

While the “jury is still out” regarding the economic efficiency of rail versus freeways, Supervisor Todd Spitzer said, it was time for the board to show it is serious about light rail.

“We have to be willing to put our dollars out there; we need to make a commitment,” he said.

Board member and Santa Ana Mayor Miguel A. Pulido Jr. worried about how the federal government would react if the board failed to act. “I think that today’s step is instrumental,” he said. “If we don’t take this position today, they’ll just tell us to take a hike.”

OCTA staff members will return to the board Dec. 8 with a recommendation for an engineering firm to begin designing the project.