Rail Lines Need Proper Planning

* What great news it is that Orange County is seriously looking at rail transit (May 8).

The only way this will work is to make it foolish for riders to drive their cars. This all comes down to money.

The big stops on the route must be willing to give up their parking revenues. This means Disney, with Disneyland, the Pond, Edison Field, Santa Ana courthouse, and most important, John Wayne Airport.

If the trains don’t stop at these popular locations, who is going to ride them? The owners of businesses that charge to park should be given tax breaks or other incentives to offset lost parking fees.

I live in Fullerton. When I need to fly for work, I drive the extra miles to fly out of Ontario rather than fight the traffic to get to John Wayne.

Los Angeles has not routed their Metro Rail properly by avoiding Los Angeles International Airport and other mass appeal locations, the Coliseum, art museums, Dodger Stadium, to name a few.

Let’s hope Orange County gets it right and plans for their trains to serve major public attractions.

BRUCE E. KONSCHUH

Fullerton

* The May 8 article “Tracking the Rail Routes” quotes Sarah L. Catz as saying, “From what I’ve seen, it looks like a majority of [rail users] may be giving up trips in their cars.”

I don’t know what Catz, the Orange County Transportation Authority’s public board member, has seen, but what she said is not accurate.

According to OCTA’s latest estimates for the proposed $1.3-billion CenterLine light-rail line, there would be almost 56,000 boardings each day. Of those boardings, more than 29,000 would be persons who were formerly bus riders. That leaves a minority of less than 27,000 new daily transit riders.

More importantly, that is way less than 1% of the more than 11 million daily Orange County automobile trips.

WAYNE KING

Orange