Light Rail in O.C.: Not Everyone’s on Board

Re “Transportation Fix That Isn’t,” Aug. 18:

Although I’ve known Jack Mallinckrodt for about 58 years, attended two universities with him (Notre Dame and Stanford) and consider him a longtime friend, I strongly disagree with his proposition that light rail causes more problems than it solves. He excelled at measuring the acceleration of a rocket sled and in countless other cases of high-tech problem solving. But I believe his rationale negates the proper role of government, in this case to provide its citizens with the best and most economical means of getting from one point in the county to another.

Since my youth, I’ve watched Orange County turn from orange groves to subdivisions and strip malls--along with more freeways and auto congestion. It’s always easy for the fortunate of us to rail against rail without considering the plight of those who can’t afford a car, or for that matter, even a home near work. If we don’t begin to correct the malaise that is Orange County transportation today, we never shall.

True, it will be difficult and costly beyond expectation. But for one of the wealthiest places on Earth, surely we can find the moral compass to right a wrong that is perpetuating itself with more and more cars, roads and freeways.

We must start measuring our society by what is possible and not by what is fiscally irresponsible in the eyes of those who don’t need such services. One has only to visit Europe to see the success of melding rail and road into a system that serves all fairly.

Jack Carpenter

San Juan Capistrano

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Mallinckrodt was dead-on in his characterization of the CenterLine folly trolley as worse for traffic than a hole in the ground into which you pour your billions. The irony of his exposition is that his technical information comes from Orange County Transportation Authority studies and analyses. The mind-set at OCTA is: “We’ll build it no matter what our studies and our environmental impact reports say!” That money could certainly be put to better uses to solve traffic problems, as OCTA’s own analyses have shown.

Robert C. Geiss

Lake Forest

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Re “City Owes Public Fair Shake,” Aug. 18:

I am impressed that you recognize that the main job of a public agency is to obtain and disseminate good information, not to mention protect the common welfare.

I am waiting for you to apply this standard to OCTA, which was castigated by the Orange County Grand Jury’s 1999 report. Yet OCTA continues its deceit in its unabashed marketing campaign to promote the CenterLine. Neither the citizens’ welfare, as pointed out by Mallinckrodt, nor the grand jury report is evident in OCTA’s propaganda.

Perhaps The Times should remind OCTA of the main job of public agencies.

Trujillo Escareno

Tustin