OCTA Raises Rail Issues With Irvine

Top Orange County transportation officials warned Irvine city leaders Thursday that a host of critical issues must be resolved before they will agree to eliminate another leg of the county’s long-stalled CenterLine rail project.

Mayor Larry Agran and Councilman Mike Ward want to lop off six miles of the proposed 18-mile CenterLine rail project and end the first phase at Irvine City Hall. The change means the proposed commuter train would not reach the Irvine Spectrum commercial complex or the Irvine Transportation Center.

Agran, who faces reelection in November, contends that shortening the line would help defuse opposition in several politically powerful Irvine neighborhoods and improve the project’s chances for federal funding.

The city’s proposal prompted Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who serves as the Orange County Transportation Authority board chairman, to call a special meeting of the agency’s planning and operations committee Thursday to review the proposal to trim the line. “We need to tell Irvine what our concerns are. I have questions about a terminus at City Hall,” Spitzer said. Only a “political junkie,” he quipped, would take a train to City Hall.

Ending the rail line at the Irvine Business Complex, John Wayne Airport or UC Irvine would make more sense, one committee member agreed.

OCTA is the main agency behind CenterLine, a light-rail system that, as now drawn, would run from the Irvine train station and pass through Costa Mesa before turning north to the Santa Ana Transportation Center. Preliminary engineering studies are underway.

Higher Costs Feared

Committee members said a cutback would prevent the line from reaching Irvine’s rail station and might drive up costs by forcing OCTA to provide more bus service and other transit improvements at Irvine City Hall.

The panel also wondered how Irvine would handle the potential growth in traffic caused by locating the last stop in the government complex.

Because the line would not go to the transit center, the proposal would eliminate a CenterLine maintenance yard planned at the retired El Toro Marine base. Board members said that would force OCTA to consider building a facility near the Santa Ana station, where it would probably face political opposition.

At the committee meeting, Marty Bryant, Irvine’s deputy director of public works, said Agran and Ward did not consider the proposed route to the Irvine Transportation Center as the “best place to move forward.”

Petition Drive Planned

The path crosses through or near Woodbridge and Oak Creek, two neighborhoods where there has been strong political opposition to CenterLine. Some residents are planning a citywide initiative drive against the project.

Instead of going through those communities, Bryant said, the city would like to use another route to connect the line to the transit hub at a later date. That path would go north to the Tustin train station and travel along the Metrolink right of way to the transportation center.

But Spitzer cautioned that if OCTA and the city agree to reduce the project by six miles, there might not be any guarantee that funds would be available in the future to restore the transit center link.

The Irvine City Council plans to take up the matter Tuesday.