Authority expected to derail CenterLine

Alicia Robinson

The Orange County Transportation Authority’s board of directors will

officially decide the fate of the CenterLine light-rail line Monday,

but those involved say it’s a foregone conclusion that the project is

headed for the transportation scrap heap.

The board is expected to vote to shelve CenterLine, which would

have run from Santa Ana through Costa Mesa to John Wayne Airport. It

started as an 11.4-mile line that would also pass through Irvine, but

even a pared-down 9.3-mile alignment was expected to cost $1.1

billion.

The denial in November of $483 million in federal funding for

CenterLine looked to many like a death warrant, and on Feb. 4, a

transportation authority board subcommittee made it official,

recommending shifting the focus -- and the available funding -- to

bus rapid transit and other options.

While the board will ostensibly ask administrators to study

various options, the recommended alternative is to put some of the

already-secured $532 million into converting the light rail project

to bus rapid transit system using some of Centerline’s route.

Bristol Street could be widened in Santa Ana, and some funding

could go to expand the existing Metrolink commuter rail system.

Centerline was always somewhat controversial, and one of its

biggest problems was that it didn’t have public support, particularly

from local elected officials.

Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell, who also chairs the

transportation authority board, voted against Centerline himself, but

he said the real issue was a lack of Congressional backing.

“The Congressional delegation ... came to the conclusion that

there was not county-wide support for an investment of this type,”

Campbell said. “What they asked for and OCTA was unwilling to do was

to put it on the ballot.”

Campbell thinks board members feared an imbalanced, negative

campaign would lead to the project getting killed at the polls.

But county Supervisor Jim Silva, also on the transportation board,

said light rail had already suffered a mortal blow in 2003 when

residents in the city of Irvine voted against being a part of

Centerline.

Even some businesses that would ostensibly have benefited from

Centerline were only lukewarm in their support. The Segerstroms,

business magnates behind South Coast Plaza, backed the project

overall but raised objections to some parts of it.

The Segerstroms worried that the proposed above-ground line would

look ugly, take away needed parking at South Coast Plaza, and

encourage people to park there for free and ride the rail line

elsewhere to spend their money, said Paul Freeman, spokesman for C.J.

Segerstrom and Sons.

When a partial underground route that bypassed the Plaza was

proposed, Freeman said, “We were OK with it. We weren’t ecstatic

about it, but we had agreed to it.”

A lack of public knowledge and interest in Centerline was another

obstacle.

“I’ve always felt that if the people of Orange County wanted it,

the stakeholders would have gotten involved,” Silva said.

People often like the idea of mass transit but they don’t think

it’s of practical use to them, said Sarah Catz, director of UC

Irvine’s Center for Urban Infrastructure and a transportation

authority board member from 1992 to 2002.

“A lot of the polling I saw showed strong support, but they

weren’t going to ride it, they just thought it was a good idea,” she

said.

What all those issues add up to is a general disagreement over

whether a short, expensive light rail line was worthwhile. Costa Mesa

officials supported Centerline as the beginning of a county-wide mass

transit system, but people lost sight of that bigger picture, Costa

Mesa City Councilman Gary Monahan said.

“The biggest key is that OCTA has had a hard time putting forward

a vision of what the transit system will look like, say, 30 years

down the road,” he said. “Does that have a rail component or doesn’t

it?”

The county will have to look to mass transit as it runs out of

other options, Monahan said.

“[The Orange Freeway is] one of the only remaining areas that you

can add freeway, and no one wants it in their backyard,” he said.

Whatever solution the board chooses, the north end of Costa Mesa

will be a critical part of it, Monahan said.

No one seems to expect a light rail proposal to be brought back

any time soon.

“I think ultimately Orange County will have new rail options,”

Freeman said. “It’s not going to be Centerline as it has been planned

and as it has over time evolved, but it will be something and, I

think, something better.”