Free ‘Trolley’ a Public Transit Hors d’Oeuvre

It hums like a bus, it moves like a bus, but it rides with a certain flair.

The bright red Brea Trolley, which began operating last month, has attracted more curious looks than riders, but city officials are banking on its nostalgic appeal to spur people to use public transportation.

“We hope that people during their lunch hour may find it easier to take a short walk to a trolley stop than to hustle their cars in and out of parking structures,” said city spokesman Chris Reimer.

Shuttle buses, designed to look like the trolleys that once clattered along Los Angeles streets, are popping up in Southland cities.

In Anaheim, buses that resemble trolleys have been sharing the road with cars for 2 1/2 years, said Diana Kotler, executive director of the Anaheim Transportation Network, which operates a fleet of 28 shuttles running between Disneyland and surrounding hotels.

They were brought in after confused tourists complained about complicated schedules for the 87 individual hotel shuttles that once served the area.

The buses are painted with palm fronds and resort logos, making them easily recognizable.

“They scream ‘resort,’ ” Kotler said. “It almost becomes like a ride in Disneyland.”

Some of the buses run on propane gas and others on electricity, she said, and they carry from 3,000 to 9,000 passengers daily. For $3, passengers get unlimited rides.

In Laguna Beach, buses resembling blue trolley cars have offered free rides to downtown from a parking lot at the city’s entrance on Laguna Canyon Road. The decade-old program saw ridership last summer reach 350,000, city officials said.

In Los Angeles, the Community Redevelopment Agency has funded a $100,000 feasibility study to determine how much it would cost to build a real trolley system with a 5-mile loop connecting downtown landmarks from Chinatown to Staples Center.

The Los Angeles cars would run on tracks like the trolleys of the past, and some purists scoff at the imitations on modern streets.

“The ones on rubber wheels I would consider dressed-up buses in a way,” said Ken Bernstein at the Los Angeles Conservancy.

Brea’s “trolley” does not operate on tracks, but city officials are hoping the ride will be a draw nonetheless.

Inside the gasoline-powered bus are two rows of short benches. The windows are round and tinted. The high ceilings are dotted by softball-size lightbulbs. Easygoing tunes flow from speakers; air-conditioning keeps the inside cool.

“A lot of people are asking questions: ‘Oh, where does it go?’ ‘What time does it leave? How long does it take?’ ” said driver Dawn Fazzina, 36. “They say they’ll try tomorrow.”

The bus runs during lunchtime hours with as few as five riders a day, but the city hopes it will grow in popularity and ridership. Its 20-minute route loops from downtown Brea to an office park on the eastern side of the city and stops at the Brea Mall.

As Fazzina drove by an elementary school on Birch Street on a recent afternoon, kids on the playground pointed and waved. She rang the bell for them.

“It’s the highlight of my day,” she said.

At a stop in front of Brea Mall, three boys waved wildly.

They hopped on for their second ride of the day, heading from the mall to movie theaters downtown. They had no school because it was teacher conference day.

Matt Gutkowski, 12, said he learned about the buses from an ad in the local newspaper with an information line.

“I called up to see,” he said excitedly, “and we just hitched a ride.”

The boys agreed the shuttle was cool and said they’d tell their friends.

“And it’s free,” added Tanner Tousignant, 12. “It’s pretty awesome.”

“It makes Brea more exciting -- like a bigger city,” said Wade Broadstreet, 12.

When the bus reached downtown Brea, two mothers and their children climbed aboard.

“We’re just going for a ride,” said Naomi Godfrey of Yorba Linda. As the bus took off, Godfrey and her friend Wendy Smith mused that it would be great for holiday shopping.

“I think it’d be great during Christmas, because parking at Brea Mall is so bad,” Smith said. “It’d be great, you could hit the promenade [downtown] and the mall and not have to deal with moving your car.... The hours would have to be a little longer, though. Three hours isn’t long enough for shopping, at least, not for me,” she said.

Smith said that she doesn’t ride buses but that she would ride this one even if it wasn’t free.

The bottom line: “This has charm,” she said.