Light-rail system was too short and too slow to work

The county plan to build a 9.3-mile long light-rail system rightly

died a needed death last week, even if some county supervisors simply

couldn’t get themselves to admit it. The short and too-slow

CenterLine system, which was set to run from John Wayne Airport,

through Costa Mesa near the Performing Arts Center and South Coast

Plaza to Santa Ana, was not going to do enough people enough good for

its $1.1-billion price tag.

It certainly was not going to make life in Newport-Mesa any

better.

The rail line, despite running somewhat parallel to the Costa Mesa

(55) Freeway, was going to be too short and too inconvenient to make

any serious dent in the terrible backlogs of cars that are the norm

these days on the 55. It wasn’t going to pull so many cars off the

freeways that a proposed extension of the Orange (57) Freeway from

the Santa Ana (5) Freeway into Costa Mesa and possibly as far as

Coast Highway could be scrapped, as it should for the sake of

maintaining the quality of Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach

neighborhoods.

Yes, we can count ourselves fortunate that CenterLine will not be

built. But we should count ourselves all losers that a truly useful,

expansive rail system appears to have died, as well.

Originally, CenterLine appeared to offer some salve to our traffic

woes. But that was back when it was 28-miles long, running from

Fullerton to Irvine. Irvine residents nixed the project in their

city, setting the stage for the inevitable.

And it is worth wondering if even the 28-mile version would have

been enough help. The Los Angeles Metro Rail System is more than

73-miles long, stretching from Long Beach to north Hollywood and

Pasadena. More than 200,000 people a day ride the rails. Orange

County officials failed to aspire to such heights.

But imagine the benefits from such a rail system. South Coast

Metro could have become a true focal point for Orange County as

people took one of several rail lines to a nexus here. A drive from

Dana Point or Fullerton or Mission Viejo through the heart or Orange

County could have been replaced by a quick drive to a rail station

just miles away from people’s homes. The traffic that now passes

through Newport-Mesa, clogging the freeways and roads, might have

dropped significantly.

Given the fact there was not the political capital or muscle to

build a 9.3-mile, $1.1-billion rail line, there is little hope for a

vast system of real use. Lacking that then, county leaders are going

to have to find some option for handling our ever-worsening traffic

problems. Adding bus lines when our buses already are empty isn’t a

solution worth talking about.

Each day that passes, the price of a public transportation system,

one of real worth, rises. And our traffic problem just gets more

difficult to solve.