Let’s Get Rail Rolling : Diesel now doesn’t preclude electrification over longer run

Southern California is plunging into an ambitious, multibillion-dollar expansion of a transportation network that, as is, barely holds the region together.

To get some of these projects off to a running start will take a trade-off that makes some environmental activists unhappy. But other green groups back a brief trade-off. They are on the right track.

Under the plans of regional county transportation commissions, freeway gaps will be closed, some roads will turn into fast-flowing streets, bus fleets will grow and high-speed commuter trains will one day link six counties. Trains of double-deck coaches will run between Los Angeles and Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties and--eventually--San Diego County.

The venture is on such a grand scale that work will continue into the next century. That makes a quick start all the more important. Some environmentalists oppose that running start because the plan calls for some use of diesel locomotives, which would dirty already polluted air. But it is not an either-or choice between getting a running start with new rail projects or keeping the air breathable. The rail plan can accomplish both goals.

Here’s how: The rail program has certain funding, so work can get under way. Bonds approved last year through the passage of Proposition 116 will pay for some of the 400 miles of commuter rail service. The trains will be electrified, but to get service started on some lines by 1993, the commissions’ Regional Rail Authority would temporarily use state-of-the-art diesel locomotives.

Some environmentalists ask what smoking diesels have to do with the “clean air” part of Proposition 116. But other environmental groups, the Clean Air Coalition among them, see no contradiction in terms. They are right. They want the rail authority to meet deadlines for eliminating diesel and commit itself to electrification before service starts.

Those are reasonable requests. Transit agencies should get that down in writing and then get back to meeting target dates for rail service.