Rail Plans Impressive, Lead FTA Official Says

SANTA ANA —  The head of the Federal Transit Administration came to Orange County on Tuesday and all but endorsed controversial plans for a $1.7-billion light-rail system.

“I was very impressed with the plans, and I embrace what you’re doing,” Administrator Gordon Linton said. The comments are significant in light of the county’s effort to persuade the federal government to help pay for the proposed system.

“This is a county where you have invested very heavily in highways,” Linton said, “but you can’t deal with everything just with highways.”

A light-rail system, he added, “seems appropriate for the [crowded] conditions” the county faces.

Linton’s informal remarks to reporters were followed by a luncheon address during which he stressed the Clinton administration’s support for transportation development nationwide.

County transportation officials said Linton’s remarks about a local light-rail system were the strongest expression of support so far from a high-ranking representative of the federal government.

“I haven’t heard anything like that before,” said John Standiford, a spokesman for the Orange County Transportation Authority, which had invited Linton to speak.

Sarah Catz, chairwoman of the OCTA’s board of directors, agreed, saying, “I think this really helped us get [the federal government] on board.”

Linton, who oversees funding for public transit systems throughout the country, is the highest-ranking federal official to confer with local transportation planners working on the proposed 28-mile light-rail system connecting Fullerton and Irvine.

Last year, the OCTA’s board of directors voted to begin preliminary engineering on the project at a cost of $6.5 million, about $5 million of which has already been appropriated by Congress. But much more federal funding will be needed for the project, planners say.

“This certainly helped us build a relationship between Orange County and the federal government,” Catz said of Linton’s one-day visit.

If completed, the proposed light-rail system will run through a 7-mile-wide swath of land containing 31% of the county’s population, 57% of its jobs and now generating about 60% of its total number of trips per day.

Opponents say that a rail system would be costly and inefficient, while supporters say that it would help provide for Orange County’s transportation needs well into the next century.

If all goes well, supporters say, construction could begin in five to seven years with completion in a decade.