Light Rail Is the Way to Go
* I was quite pleased to read on June 10 that there is some plan in the works for a light rail system in Orange County, and was equally perplexed at the comments made by Bill Ward and other members of Drivers for Highway Safety against such plans.
Having lived for two years in the Netherlands and forayed into surrounding countries (Germany, Belgium, France, etc.) on occasion, experiencing their forms of public transportation, I can only find the statements made by Drivers for Highway Safety laughable.
Consider that during the entire time I was in Europe, I traveled almost exclusively by train (between cities) and by a thorough system of public transportation (within the major cities and between smaller cities and towns).
One of the most irksome things about existence in the Los Angeles and Orange County area is the fact that in order to get anywhere, one is required to own, operate and, most importantly, maintain an automobile.
Not to mention enduring the constant traffic jams on our freeways and pollution and hostility from other drivers who attempt to go 85 mph through 65 mph traffic in order to get someplace 30 seconds sooner. Mix in the factor of potential sudden, violent death or injury and you have a whopping case of stress and an infuriating financial burden. This is something that automobile companies never include in their advertising for some reason. Do we really need this as a society?
I hardly think that the money needed to finance the development of a rail system would be much more of a burden to taxpayers than if the taxpayers didn’t have to sink immense amounts of cash into their own private automotive money pits. If the average driver would somehow realize that the imagined freedom of using an automobile is the real sham, the benefits of a mass transportation system would become a little more clear.
As for the Drivers for Highway Safety, I might ask: How does an apparently self-appointed group with an official-sounding title expect the public to swallow this tax-busting rhetoric while the two words Highway and Safety continue to contradict each other?
ROBERT AUL
Fullerton
* Is light rail in Orange County’s future? Not if the naysayers have their way.
The League of Women Voters is not opposed to highways; we supported the Measure M sales tax, which is, in the main, a highway, street and road tax.
But we also believe that we need to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, reduce emissions and quit condemning huge swaths of land for freeway construction, land that is forever removed from the tax rolls.
The proposed Fullerton-to-Irvine rail line would use existing rights of way for much of its length. Where it cannot, the takings are small compared with freeway needs. It is almost a truism that other than a problematic extension of the Orange Freeway, there will never be another freeway in the Fullerton-to-Irvine corridor. This leaves the options of putting a lot more buses on already crowded streets or a rail system.
As for those that can find no success in rail, they need look no further than their own backyard. Metrolink, the San Diego trolley, the Amtrak San Diegan and the Blue Line with 46,000 boardings a day are certainly successes. In contrast, the tollways appear to be off to a rocky start.
Those opposed to rail are adamant that they have seldom seen a rail system that isn’t a failure by their reckoning. The Reason Foundation, a major player in opposing rail, includes in their corporate donor list: the American Petroleum Institute, Western States Petroleum Assn., ARCO, Ashland Oil, Chevron, Exxon, Shell Oil, plus auto manufacturers, trucking interests, bus interests and other ancillary highway services. Why is this not a surprise?
FLORENCE CAVILEER
League of Women Voters
of Orange County
