Metro a road to recovery?

Newport Beach and Costa Mesa may begin a joint study to examine ways of easing road and air traffic at John Wayne Airport, employing a $100,000 grant from the Orange County Transportation Authority’s “Go Local!” program to do so.

While in its early stages, the feasibility study would examine ways the cities could relieve congestion at the airport by increasing access to Metrolink, while cutting down on the number of flights from the airport by shuttling passengers to other regional airports, such as Ontario or San Bernardino.

The Costa Mesa City Council unanimously approved city staff to accept the grant and move forward. Newport Beach’s council will consider the measure during its Tuesday night meeting.

Costa Mesa considered a similar joint project with Santa Ana last year, but turned it down.

The Orange County “Go Local!” program is designed to put money in the hands of city staff, who best know the local needs of residents, Authority spokeswoman Andrea West said.

“Every city is going to be different — some cities are looking at monorails, fixed guided roads for shuttles — it could be anything,” she said.

“Our objective is to look at what can be done to start [bringing] air travelers to those more underutilized airports in the area,” Costa Mesa City Manager Allan Roeder said. “There are great examples of this internationally, but we’ve been a little slow to come around to this in the United States.”

The study would also examine the demographics and other details about traffic collected in 2007; assess various means of delivering passengers from the two cities to JWA and other local airports; and evaluate security concerns for each proposal.

“We’re looking at an express bus, but they’re also talking about looking into light rail and other things,” Assistant City Manager Sharon Wood said. “I think it may potentially become more than just a shuttle bus.”

Airport spokeswoman Jenny Wedge said that while the airport would take no official position on any plans proposed by the city, anything to help relieve congestion would be welcomed at John Wayne.

“We sent a letter directly to Newport Beach, stating, ‘Hey, thanks for meeting with us, and we’ll do whatever we can to help provide information,’” she said. “But, we don’t have a specific position on which way this goes at this point.”

“Anything that will help move transportation easier and more efficiently is probably beneficial,” she added.

“The airport obviously affects both cities — having the planes overhead is detrimental to both of our cities — and anything we can do, cooperatively, to minimize the number of flights will be beneficial,” Costa Mesa Mayor Eric Bever said.

CHRIS CAESAR may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or at chris.caesar@latimes.com.