On Track With Light Rail

Old freeways are adding lanes and new toll roads are coming on line. Bus routes are being revamped and marketed heavily to potential riders. Trains run by Amtrak and Metrolink are proving popular to move riders inside and outside Orange County.

But as anyone who has been here much longer than a day knows, the transportation picture can change ever so quickly. Add thousands of new residents, put them on the freeways, and the 30-minute commute turns into 35 minutes, 40, 45. Fail to replace buses or trains and the existing rolling stock deteriorates.

So the challenge to transportation planners is to see the future, figure what will work and search for money to implement proposals.

One of the more intriguing plans under consideration is a train to run two dozen miles from Fullerton into Irvine. It would be enormously expensive to build--nearly $2 billion by the estimate of the Orange County Transportation Authority. How much it would cost to operate, if it ever got built, is anyone’s guess at this point. Fares would not cover expenses; they never do on trains. The question is: How much of a subsidy would be required.

But even with the questions, the likely barriers, the long planning time required, OCTA is right to plow ahead and consider different scenarios.

The head of the Federal Transit Administration visited Orange County last month and pronounced himself “very impressed” with the plans for the possible light-rail system. Administrator Gordon Linton aptly noted that Orange County has “invested very heavily in highways, but you can’t deal with everything just with highways.”

The primary reason the Fullerton-Irvine corridor looks like a site waiting for light rail to happen is its density, both in residents and in jobs. With so many people packed in so closely, rail could prove attractive.

In 1990, Orange County voters voted for a tax increase to pay for transportation improvements, including rail. Some of that money has gone into planning for a possible light-rail system. OCTA planners say any rail line will probably be at grade level in most cases, rather than elevated. There has not been mention of building a subway, nor should there be. Los Angeles’ disastrous experience in trying to build a subway system should be instructive to transportation planners.

However, San Diego’s above-ground model also has lessons. There the 42-mile trolley line carries as many as 55,000 passengers on an average weekend day. A San Diego transit official said 70% of the trolley’s $20-million annual operating cost is covered by fares, a high figure. Portland officials said that city’s train system carries about 30,000 passengers daily and costs about $8 million a year, about half of which is paid for by fares.

Prying money out of Congress to build the rail system could be a major task. But so far the federal government rightly has decided that the feasibility of such a project is worth study.

It may take some persuading to get Orange County residents and workers to ride the rails. In most surveys, respondents say they favor rail in Orange County but would not ride the trains themselves. That could change when there is an actual system in place.

OCTA deserves credit for moving the process this far along. After all, the possibility of light rail (as opposed to long-distance Amtrak-style train travel) has been discussed periodically in Orange County for at least the last 30 years. But never before did planners actually get to the stage of drawing up preliminary engineering plans, as is now being done.

Sarah L. Catz, chairwoman of the OCTA board, said last year that Orange County residents need choices in transportation--cars, buses, trains, “a whole smorgasbord.” If light rail turns out to be part of that buffet, it could relieve the burden on the other parts, and prove a boon to commuters now tied to their automobiles.