Orange County Looks South, North for Transit Lessons

Both the brutal pitfalls and gleaming potential of urban rail can be found in Southern California.

In Los Angeles County, an ambitious subway building project has been staggered by cost overruns and construction fiascoes. In San Diego County, a more modest and far cheaper light-rail system built at a measured pace has become a national model of success.

Now comes Orange County, with hopes of building its own light-rail system.

Four decades after freeways paved the way for explosive suburban growth in Orange County, local leaders will gather today to map the path of a proposed $1.5-billion urban rail line that backers see as a crucial step in the county’s evolution into an urban metropolis.

The concept has captured the imagination of traffic-weary residents: A new Times poll shows resounding support for the project, and a modest majority even favors a sales tax hike to pay for it (support, however, that falls well short of the two-thirds needed to pass an initiative).

The plan also enjoys wide support from county leaders, who are already vying with eight other jurisdictions for federal rail funding.

But this public eagerness has not silenced critics who question the wisdom of building the pricey system.

“There are no logical reasons to build this system, and only amateurs think its going to be a [traffic] solution,” said Charles Lave, an economics professor at UC Irvine. “No rail system built in the past 20 years has gotten people out of their cars. It’s a symbol of things cosmopolitan, it’s a dream.”

Lave and other doubters point to studies showing that rail siphons its passengers from buses, not cars. They argue that the money earmarked for rail should go instead into sure-thing improvements: wider freeways, better roads, more buses. Urban rail, they say, is nothing more than a shiny, impractical toy.

Advocates, however, insist that the 28-mile rail line linking seven local cities would reshape development in local downtowns, whisk tourists from the airport to Disneyland or ballgames and thin out the crush of commuters on freeways.

“Orange County is changing from being seen as a suburb of Los Angeles, and there’s a feeling along with that change that it has to become more cosmopolitan,” said Alistair W. Baillie, who leads a team of consultants hired for the project. “With that, you have to provide choices to people on how they travel.”

There is no doubt that urban rail holds a romantic allure for the public, even among those who say they would rarely hop aboard. In a Times Orange County poll, 74% of respondents said they support building a local urban rail system, while 53% said they were willing to go along with a half-cent sales tax hike to pay for it.

But how much of the popularity is based on hard fact and how much on a suburb’s desire for a lasting symbol of Big City life? The question is especially fitting in Orange County, which has struggled for years to emerge from the shadow of Los Angeles to be viewed as more than a patchwork of conservative bedroom communities.

To Alan C. Wulkan, whose Arizona-based engineering firm has worked on rail systems across North America, the answer is a combination of both. Rail is a huge transportation boon to growing cities, he says, but there’s no denying that it serves also as a touchstone.

“This country has had a fascination with rail way before the automobile was around; it was an image of the opening up of the West and opportunity,” said the vice president with Parsons, Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas. “When we’re young kids, what toy do we get? A miniature railroad set. It’s part of our culture. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a practical thing, too.”

Orange County seeks to join a “renaissance of rail” that began in the 1970s with a new breed of mass transit that relies on light rail rather than the old-fashioned subways and streetcars.

Unlike older transit systems, light rail is designed to handle fewer riders and shorter trips with the goal of making urban centers more accessible.

Twenty of the nation’s 30 largest metropolitan areas have heavy or light urban rail, and eight others are studying or building new systems. Four new urban rail systems have opened in California in the past two decades, and the two closest to Orange County offer lessons.

L.A. Boasts Rail Success

In Los Angeles County, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has built two light-rail lines and the shortest and most expensive subway system in the nation’s history. It now finds itself facing $7 billion in debt after a frenzy of borrowing that began in the 1980s. The debilitating debt has called into question the agency’s ability to expand or maintain a creaky bus system that is the second largest in the nation. Critics cite politics and mismanagement as the culprits behind the MTA’s woes.

Despite the problems with the subway, the MTA’s Blue Line light-rail system between Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles is considered a major success. Ridership is approaching capacity, and officials are struggling to accommodate more commuters.

And how did San Diego succeed?

The answer lies in taking modest steps and understanding how rail fits into neighborhoods and overall transit, according to Jack Limber, deputy general manager of the Metropolitan Transit Development Board in San Diego.

“I don’t want to criticize Los Angeles in any way, but I think the fundamental problem was overreaching,” said Limber, who explained that the 54-mile San Diego County system started with a 15-mile segment and expanded only after enjoying some success.

And, unlike Los Angeles County, San Diego County leaders opted to use only one type of rail technology and upgraded and coordinated bus service to complement the trains. They fostered development around the stations--allowing the school district to set up an adult education center in one station, for example, and placing another station in the heart of a business complex to spur ridership.

Orange County’s system would look and operate much like the San Diego trolley. But like Los Angeles’ subway, it would cut through the heart of the community’s urban core.

The county’s vision is, so far, a system of trolley-like trains that pull into stations every five minutes and that, for a $1 or $2 fare, will take passengers to work, school, government offices, ball games or the mall. The path would run through a dense corridor of cities that are home to 34% of the county’s population and 57% of its jobs.

The proposed line would start near downtown Fullerton, then head south along Harbor Boulevard into downtown Anaheim and to Disneyland before veering sharply to the east for stops at Edison International Field--home of the Anaheim Angels--and the adjacent Anaheim Pond, home of the Mighty Ducks.

The line would then zig-zag through Orange, Garden Grove and Santa Ana, making stops near the Santa Ana MainPlace mall. The line would then parallel the San Diego Freeway with stops in the South Coast Plaza district, the Irvine corporate hub, John Wayne Airport and the Irvine Spectrum and terminate at the Irvine Transportation Center.

Light Rail’s Heavy Cost

The price tag? The low-end estimate is $1 billion for a rail system that runs at street level, but those costs could swell up to $1.8 billion and beyond if the trains run on an elevated rail. The project would start with $340 million from Measure M, the sales tax approved in 1990 for transportation projects, and rely heavily on federal funding and the cooperation of involved cities, such as Irvine, which holds $125 million in state transportation money that would likely be tapped for the endeavor.

State highway funds, competitive grants and Orange County Transit Authority discretionary funds have also been targeted as money sources if the project is approved, according to Dave Elbaum, OCTA planning director.

But even with those funds, officials doubt they can finance the entire project without a tax increase, which would require voter approval. So planners would follow the lead of San Diego County and first build a single segment--the 15-miles linking Disneyland to John Wayne Airport--and expand later. This first leg of the system would cost $700 million, which Elbaum described as “very doable.”

Unlike the subway system in Los Angeles County--and perhaps because of its woes--no one in Orange County is discussing a system that ventures underground or uses heavy rail, fundamental aspects that would ratchet up costs and complicate engineering. The key remaining decision is whether to build at street level, on elevated tracks or, the most likely option, a hybrid of the two.

Baillie said the potential for rail in Orange County is rich. The consultant said he has repeatedly walked, driven and flown the proposed route, and he can envision centers of commerce and pedestrian traffic popping up around the stations, and workers hopping aboard the trains to dash to the Irvine Spectrum or South Coast Plaza for lunch or shopping.

That is an alluring idea to John Matthews, 57, of Capistrano Beach, who said he enjoys visiting San Francisco and using the rail transportation to make quick hops around the city. “I love that. We need that here,” the artist said. “It would change the feel of the place. And I’m all for anything that would take pressure off the freeways. They’re packed.”