Voting Time on Shorter Light Rail?

CenterLine was once envisioned as a key transportation chute through the heart of Orange County--a street-level commuter train that would run 28 miles and speed riders to Disneyland, Edison Field, South Coast Plaza, even UC Irvine.

Now, light-rail advocates appear willing to settle for less--almost 16 miles less--to get the project built.

If Irvine Mayor Larry Agran and Councilman Mike Ward have their way at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, CenterLine will be reduced to a 12-mile, three-city system that would go from downtown Santa Ana to Irvine City Hall. It would be the second time in two years that the project has been scaled back, and the surviving route would no longer reach many of the high-demand destinations the original architects of CenterLine had in mind.

“Opposition can shape a project,” said county Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who is also chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority. “What we are going through is not any different than other light-rail projects around the country.”

In early 2001, Arthur Leahy, OCTA’s chief executive officer, shelved the 28-mile version of CenterLine because of neighborhood and political opposition to the suggested route. As originally planned, the line would have run from downtown Fullerton to the Irvine Transportation Center.

Eighteen miles of the project were resurrected late last year after OCTA forged a coalition with city councils in Irvine, Costa Mesa and Santa Ana. Preliminary engineering studies are underway.

The latest Irvine proposal would cut six miles from the 18-mile route and remove stops at the Irvine Spectrum commercial complex and the Irvine Transportation Center, a major transit hub. South Coast Plaza, the Irvine Business Complex and the Santa Ana Civic Center would remain destinations.

Agran and Ward want to eliminate the route through or near several Irvine neighborhoods, such as Woodbridge and Oak Creek, where residents have been staunch CenterLine opponents.

Woodbridge, for example, has about 9,000 dwellings and 30,000 residents. The seven-member board of its neighborhood association has unanimously opposed the light-rail system.

Supporters of the Irvine proposal say it is necessary to make light rail more politically palatable for county residents and to neutralize opponents who think the project is a $1.4-billion boondoggle.

If the scaled-back system is built, light-rail advocates predict, CenterLine will work so well that many cities and neighborhoods, even the stubbornly resistant, will clamor to become part of the network.

The latest proposal “will defuse some of the opposition and take the alignment to where it is needed and wanted,” Agran said. “Once people see and touch CenterLine, the next fight will be a fight to be included.”

County transportation officials say solid political support is critical for the project and for OCTA’s ability to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in federal transportation funds.

Critics contend that the scaled-back proposal is entirely political, designed in part to improve support for Agran and candidates he supports in the November city election. Agran denies that the change is an election ploy.

Eliminating some Irvine neighborhoods from the CenterLine route, opponents say, will not thwart their efforts. If anything, they say, they are emboldened in their drive to kill the project in Irvine with a citywide ballot initiative. The measure, now undergoing a review by city officials, might be ready for unveiling at the City Council meeting Tuesday night.

CenterLine opponents hope to gather enough signatures to qualify the measure for a special election expected to be called in February or March to fill Supervisor Spitzer’s seat. Spitzer is likely to win a state Assembly post.

“I don’t think people believe they will be protected by this change” to a 12-mile route, said John Kleinpeter, an anti-CenterLine activist. “It’s only a matter of time before they will expand the line to the Spectrum. Eventually, it will have to go through residential neighborhoods.”

Irvine city officials say they would like to build the line to the Irvine Transportation Center at a later date along another route. It would head north from the Civic Center to the Tustin train station, then proceed along the Metrolink right of way to the transit complex.

Agran said such an alignment would have trains passing through residential neighborhoods already accustomed to such traffic. But CenterLine opponents say those areas might not tolerate more rail service.

“This is an immensely unpopular project in Irvine,” said Councilman Greg Smith, who opposes CenterLine. “Doing it in bits and pieces is less painful politically. Once the initial project is on the ground, they will want to spend more money to expand it and protect their investment.”

Activists who oppose CenterLine have broader concerns that light rail is one of the most expensive and least efficient forms of public transportation in a sprawling, suburban setting such as Orange County. Buses, they say, are a better option because they are much cheaper, more flexible in scheduling and, in total, carry far more passengers.

Nationally, many light-rail systems have been fraught with cost overruns and less-than-projected ridership. Studies show the systems have contributed little to reducing air pollution and traffic congestion.

“Most of the same people who take buses end up taking rail. People don’t get to work any quicker, and existing bus service would serve rail riders better,” said professor Mike McNally of UCI’s Institute of Transportation Studies. “If you are going to spend $1 billion, there are better ways to spend it than for light rail.”

CenterLine advocates say the nation needs to break its dependence on motor vehicles. They say air pollution must be cut, land is limited for city highways, rail is safer, and rush-hour road congestion will worsen.

“You need a diversified transportation system,” Agran said. “We spend billions of dollars every year on freeways jammed with traffic. There is only so much of the county we can pave over. If we don’t get serious and deal with our mobility problems, we will be choking on our own exhaust fumes.”

Agran contends there is council support to approve the shortening of CenterLine, but some on the OCTA Board of Directors say some serious issues must be resolved before they will go along with the idea.

Four board members on the agency’s planning committee have signaled Irvine city officials about their concerns and proposed sending a formal letter to the Irvine City Council.

They say they worry about greater traffic around the Irvine Civic Center, the inability to have a maintenance yard at the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and the money OCTA would have to spend for bus service and transit improvements at the City Hall stop.

The agency wants the project to reflect community input from advocates and critics, said Leahy, who partly blames the failure of the 28-mile plan on OCTA’s unwillingness to compromise with critics.

Although the board members have concerns about the Irvine proposal, Leahy praised the idea as a way to remove a bloc of opposition to CenterLine and reduce the cost of the project’s first phase. He said, though, that before the project is built, it “has to make good economic and transportation sense.”