Light Rail Regroups

With less than a month to go on its own timetable, the Orange County Transportation Authority was on the verge of taking a big step toward building a huge and costly light-rail system. On Saturday, it retrenched in the face of outright rebellion in the urban areas north of Costa Mesa and decided to build only the southern part of the system for now. This was really the only alternative it had, short of scrapping the entire plan.

It had come to this point without answers to such major questions as whether $175 million would be available to widen busy city streets, whether the route will go as intended and whether important constituencies in Santa Ana and Anaheim concerned about congestion would agree to the plan at all. The region was not ready to make a big commitment at this point.

The best justifications for the plan remain that it is in theory a nice idea, that voters approved money in 1990 to study the proposal, and that there simply is no other way available than this to increase transportation capacity in a built-out freeway system. Without a solid plan and solid support, these things are not enough.

For the county’s $1.5-billion CenterLine project, has come to the point where the wheels must meet the rail. The current philosophy seems to be: We are planning to build it and therefore build it we must. We will worry about the money and the details later. With so many unanswered questions, the wisdom of plunging forward has been doubtful.

The concept of rail to supplement freeways is important. We have supported the development of commuter rail during the 1990s. The significance of having such a system to serve Orange County along the Los Angeles-to-San Diego railroad tracks has been borne out by the overcrowded parking lots. Safety on this line must be a priority, as was evident in the collision of a freight train and passenger car last week. However, commuter rail is quite different from a light-rail system that would snake through a sprawling and developed suburban area, with the intention of serving points along that line exclusively. A rail system that eased congestion, served to supplement the automobile and was a catalyst for urban redevelopment would be a good thing.

But for starters, communities all along the line would have to be on board. That isn’t happening now, at least not yet. This is so despite the best efforts to sell the project, and in the face of a scathing grand jury report that questions whether the system would reduce congestion at all.

Because of the obstacles, big thinking has been reduced to incremental steps. After a year, the citizens advisory committee has been so divided that it has been unable to make even the most basic recommendation that the system should be built. Meanwhile, there are unhappy cities at the heart of the plan, and only communities with money or assurances that they will get what they want are anywhere near being in the tent.

Irvine, with its futuristic thinking about rail, is perhaps best prepared to go forward. But it has the lowest projected ridership. If it ends up being a kind of demonstration leg of the project because the rest of it is still up in the air, as now appears likely, the numbers probably won’t look good for obtaining future funding. It’s been a Catch-22 for planners, because not taking care of Irvine, with its planned link of the Irvine Transportation Center and John Wayne Airport, could mean losing the $120 million it brings to the table.

Santa Ana ostensibly is the city that would produce the ridership numbers, but city officials recently voted against building the system and also are unhappy about OCTA’s recent decision to buy a bus depot in a site designated for an empowerment zone. The decision may not be cast in stone, but residents also are worried about traffic and more fatalities and injuries for pedestrians. Fullerton had its concerns addressed with the preferred route of elevated tracks down Harbor Boulevard.

Cities need to think regionally for this to work, but self-interest and local considerations necessarily come to the forefront when every city weighs its own involvement. These things have conspired to put a decision that looked inevitable in August in more doubt.

The idea of having the CenterLine project makes some sense on the face of it. But getting a plan that people can agree on, securing guarantees of funding and addressing ridership concerns remain obstacles. At the moment, there appear to be too many questions to go forward with the big plan.