Halfway railway makes no headway in solving transportation woes
- Share via
Geoff West
Despite the fact that the federal government recently threw a curve
at proponents of the ill-advised CenterLine light rail project when
it chose to withhold funding, the billion-dollar fiasco continues to
ooze its way into the transportation future of Santa Ana and Costa
Mesa like the creature in the old Steve McQueen movie “The Blob.”
Even though this now-diminished project will serve a minuscule
portion of the county’s population -- those few souls eager to ride
from John Wayne Airport to the Santa Ana Regional Transportation
Center via South Coast Plaza and the Santa Ana Civic Center -- the
local politicians who conjured up this white elephant many years ago
just won’t let go.
The most recent numbers I’ve seen published project fewer than
20,000 riders would use this system each day. However, reports
published earlier this summer clearly pointed out that, with almost
no exceptions, such light rail systems have never come close to
original ridership projections and have never covered operating costs
from fare revenues. They always required hefty government subsidies
to keep operating. Construction costs for such projects have always
exceeded even the most pessimistic projections.
This project will remove few, if any, riders from their cars.
History shows us that riders of light rail most often come from other
forms of public transportation -- mainly buses. I fail to see how
spending more than a billion dollars of our tax money to extricate
relatively few riders from their more flexible and efficient buses
only to plunk them down onto a rigid, costly and inefficient light
rail system makes any sense at all.
Now some current politicians have decided that they, too, wish to
leave their mark on this project. At the behest of major
beneficiaries of the project -- the folks who own South Coast Plaza,
among others -- they tell us they now want to have part of it
constructed underground. It’s kind of like saying to us, “Oh, we love
CenterLine, we just don’t want to see it.” Of course, building part
of this boondoggle underground jacks up the cost considerably. It has
been reported that, amazingly, this subterranean section would
contain no passenger boarding stations. The train would simply dive
from view at the Santa Ana/Costa Mesa border, squiggle around
underground as it skirts the South Coast Metro Performing Arts
complex, then pop up again as it heads for the airport -- spewing out
passengers like a migrating whale surfacing for air.
Those who support the CenterLine project will try to convince you
that all the other cities, which have carefully assessed this project
in the past and have chosen not to participate, will come to their
senses and flock to link up with the initial segment once it is
constructed. They want you to believe that, as in the movie “Field of
Dreams,” if you build it, they will come. Since current optimistic
estimates indicate it will take the rest of this decade to complete
this project if -- and that’s a very big if -- construction begins on
schedule in a couple years. I find myself wondering how many of our
children will be around to make the decision on such an expansion.
The murkiness of this project got a little clearer when I recently
read that the city of Santa Ana will use CenterLine funds to
accelerate their redevelopment of Bristol Street by decades, the
widening of which will displace almost 1,000 people and will involve
the destruction of more than 150 homes and 170 businesses. I wonder
where these displaced persons, the majority of whom are
Spanish-speaking, will find open arms and an infrastructure ready and
willing to provide support in their hour of need? Well, of course,
right down the road on the Westside of Costa Mesa.
The critical question of who, specifically, will be riding this
system remains unclear. It’s difficult to imagine wealthy residents
of Newport Beach and Irvine driving their cars to the airport, then
jumping aboard the train for a day of shopping at South Coast Plaza.
It is also unlikely that they will use this system to reach the Santa
Ana Civic Center as they visit the courts. How many residents along
the northern portion of the route will avail themselves of this means
of transportation for an evening at “the theater” at the Performing
Arts Center? Not many, I suspect. So, who will ride CenterLine? Who
are these ethereal 20,000 people supposedly poised to jump aboard?
While these questions and many others remain unanswered, our
friends north of the border, in Santa Ana, are busily planning to
hack away at neighborhoods along Bristol Street, using the bloody
meat cleaver known as eminent domain to acquire land along the right
of way for this monstrosity.
We don’t have to look very far to measure the Orange County
Transportation Authority’s track record with “innovative” solutions
to this region’s transportation problems. Witness the toll roads --
great ideas gone bad. Yes, they move the traffic, but at such a cost
that several are near financial ruin. And what is their solution to
declining use and fiscal red ink? Instead of reducing fares to
encourage greater use, and thereby increase revenues, they have
increased fares. This, of course, will discourage users. For example,
drivers on the San Joaquin Toll Road now pay a nearly 17% surcharge
to use the road at “peak” times. And that is on top of an already
exorbitant fee, which has increased 50% during its brief lifetime.
It’s no wonder that more drivers are choosing to take the San Diego
Freeway these days.
CenterLine, in it’s present shrunken configuration, makes no sense
at all as a solution to Orange County’s transportation woes. If, at a
time of great fiscal distress in this state, it is determined that we
simply must spend more than a billion dollars on transportation
improvements, let’s spend it where it will do the most good for the
greatest number of people. Let’s improve our roads, provide greater
incentives for car pooling during peak hours, incentives for
super-economical cars and cleaner, more economical buses for those
who use them.
Forget CenterLine -- it’s a bad idea that only gets worse as time
passes.
* GEOFF WEST is a Costa Mesa resident and frequent contributor to
the Daily Pilot Forum pages.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.