County delays CenterLine vote

Deirdre Newman

The county will postpone deciding on the preferred route for the

CenterLine light rail system until January.

The county was scheduled to select a route next week, but Orange

County Transportation Authority staff members are recommending its

board of directors take more time to absorb the public comments on

the environmental report received in the past month-and-a-half.

CenterLine is slated to run from Santa Ana to John Wayne Airport,

through Costa Mesa.

On Monday, the City Council formally approved its preference for

the underground route, which it finally persuaded the county to

consider in October. This is the second preferred route the city has

approved.

The council’s approval on Monday means this underground option

will now compete with the other options the county is considering.

“Having been someone who supported this and fundamentally believes

in a variety of ways to move people around, I firmly believe this

will provide a great alternative for people to move,” said

Councilwoman Libby Cowan, the council’s most vocal proponent of the

light rail.

This council-preferred route will run from Bristol Street to

Sunflower Avenue to Avenue of the Arts, with a short underground

section on Avenue of the Arts. The closest station to South Coast

Plaza would be at Bristol and Sunflower.

The first preferred route the city approved, in 2001, is an

elevated route along Bristol Street and Anton Boulevard, with a

station at South Coast Plaza. The major property owners in the area

were not satisfied with this route since they were concerned that

having the light rail come through the high-end shopping center would

interfere with existing developments. They worked intensively with

the city to hammer out another route that would divert CenterLine

away from South Coast Plaza onto Avenue of the Arts.

While most of the property owners in the South Coast Plaza

vicinity support the underground route, since they helped create it.

Others, who will be impacted the most, are critical of the fact that

it will bypass South Coast Plaza, which is owned by C.J. Segerstrom &

Sons. Businesses at the Lakes Pavilion would be displaced by this

route.

Another business affected would be the Wyndham Garden Hotel. The

hotel would suffer from this route because putting the light rail

underground at Avenue of the Arts would require a 20-foot easement

along the entire length of the hotel and because the light rail would

be a mere three feet away from the hotel ballroom, General Manager

Tom Smalley said.

To protect the hotel’s ability to provide services if this route

is selected, Smalley has asked city officials to tweak the route so

it comes up from the underground portion farther south and move the

tracks farther away from the building. Mayor Gary Monahan has said

city engineers are amenable to the changes.

Transit advocates like Roy Shahbazian also expressed disdain for

the route.

“Pedestrian access from the station to employment at the office

towers and the plaza are significantly better with a station at South

Coast Plaza,” Shahbazian said.

But George Sakioka, of Roy K. Sakioka & Sons in the South Coast

Metro area, said the underground route has a definite advantage since

“it doesn’t have a transition zone from elevated to grade level,

which can be quite an impact.”

Because this underground route was a latecomer to the

environmental consideration of the light rail system, there are still

some issues that need to be worked out. In approving this alignment

as its second preferred route, the council made it clear that it

expects the county to address all the outstanding environmental

issues brought up by the city, property owners, and residents -- to

the city’s satisfaction.

If that doesn’t happen, the city will have opportunities in the

future to withdraw from the CenterLine project, City Manager Allan

Roeder said.

The council also wants the county to identify the alignment the

light rail system will follow through the Sakioka property. The

county is considering a few different options for the property.

Mayor Pro Tem Allan Mansoor was the only council member to vote

against the underground route since he has been opposed to the

CenterLine project since he was elected to the council.

The authority’s board of directors will receive a report next week

on how many public comments were garnered during the 45-day period,

which ended on Nov. 24 and a breakdown of those comments for and

against the project, said spokesman Michael Litschi. It is expected

to chose a route on Jan. 12, Litschi added.