Urban Rail Boosters Drop Their Bid for U.S. Funds : Transit: Thanks to Measure M, the $1 million originally sought isn’t needed right now, say leaders overseeing plans for a six-city line.

County congressmen have withdrawn a request for $1 million in federal start-up funds for a six-city urban rail system, officials said Wednesday.

The money is not needed right away, Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young said, so leaders of the six-city consortium overseeing the project decided to wait and see what transit programs are included in the new federal Surface Transportation Act winding its way through Congress. The bill may contain new transit programs that the county can tap.

“It’s a matter of timing,” said Young, who helped create the six-city organization pushing the $1-billion project. “Measure M has passed, and there’s the ability to use some of that money to do the studies that are needed.”

Measure M is the half-cent sales tax for highway and transit projects approved by county voters in November. The tax is expected to raise $3.1 billion over 20 years.

County officials were unsuccessful in seeking $1 million in federal money last year.

Fighting to reverse that result, Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) adopted a new strategy three months ago: They cut Rep. William E. Dannemeyer from their team.

Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), an outspoken fiscal conservative, angered members of the House Appropriations Committee last year when he voted against a transportation bill that included--partly at Dannemeyer’s request--$1 million for preliminary design work on the urban rail project. He was the only county congressman to vote against the bill on the House floor.

Dannemeyer’s action angered House leaders, who disapproved of a legislator seeking money from a bill while voting against it.

In a recent letter to the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, Dornan and Cox wrote that “sufficient local and state funds have been identified to fully cover the initial design work. . . . We therefore respectfully ask that you remove this item from consideration.”

The subcommittee, the letter noted, had been very supportive.

Young said he is not sure whether the urban rail project will seek federal money later.

The 23-mile project is expected to extend from Irvine’s Amtrak station to Fullerton’s Amtrak station on an elevated guideway built along city streets. The six cities in the project are Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Irvine, Orange and Santa Ana.

A final commitment by transportation officials to build the line is not expected until early 1993.