Orange County Focus : Countywide : Joint Bid Urged for More Rail Service

Orange County transportation officials, expressing concern about what they termed a negative attitude in Sacramento toward commuter rail service, have proposed an alliance with Los Angeles transportation leaders to seek more state commuter rail money and a friendlier state Transportation Commission.

Dana Reed, chairman of the Orange County Transportation Commission, and Stan Oftelie, its executive director, said they met Thursday with Neil Peterson, executive director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, to discuss efforts to get state money for commuter trains from both Orange and Riverside counties serving Los Angeles.

They said they hope that the present service--one daily San Juan Capistrano-Los Angeles commuter train--could be expanded quickly to a service that would run every 30 minutes all day long, and every 20 minutes during the morning and evening rush.

In addition, they said they will push for frequent service from Riverside, connecting with the Orange County service at Fullerton.

“There is a mutual desire on the part of both Los Angeles and Orange County authorities to increase the level of service dramatically over what’s occurring,” Peterson said Friday.

Los Angeles Transportation Commissioner Jacki Bacharach, meanwhile, said she thinks it is vital that Los Angeles and Orange counties work together to encourage the new governor to appoint state commissioners who will support a single, comprehensive commuter-rail system covering Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Reed said that with three vacancies scheduled to occur on the nine-member state commission in January, a coordinated effort must be made by the urban Southern California counties to induce the new governor to appoint members friendlier to rail service than the present commission has been.

Reed, a former Deukmejian Administration transportation official, expressed chagrin that four commissioners last week had criticized a planned, $450-million acquisition by Los Angeles County of Southern Pacific rights of way.

“Los Angeles is not the Lone Ranger in this,” Reed said. “We’re going to hang together to encourage the new governor to support, through his appointments, rail service in all the Southern California counties.”

Bruce Nestande of Orange County, one of the state commissioners who was critical of the rights-of-way purchase proposal last week, responded Friday: “I find it hard to believe that they’re serious.”

Nestande said the state commissioners want to be cautious, making sure that money is well spent, and he charged that some county transportation officials are trying to short-circuit guidelines for distributing $1.9 billion in state rail bonds approved by the voters last June in Proposition 116.

Reed and Oftelie said the present Orange County-Los Angeles commuter train is carrying about 280 passengers a day each way and is returning 40% of its costs through fares.