Commentary

Why are so many still fascinated with implementing 19th century rail technology in the 21st century’s public transportation strategies? Using a streetcar for transit? Who is kidding who?

Why is Orange County trying to build a streetcar in Santa Ana, California? My recollection from serving on the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) Board, while an Orange County Supervisor (2006–2015), was that the Federal government was providing most of the funding. So, the OCTA Board majority decided to take and use this potential money versus forgoing the opportunity, or should we say, “money pit?”

Forget that (1) construction is a nightmare; (2) a vehicle on a fixed rail will disrupt the flow of normal automotive traffic, especially when the fixed-rail car is stopped due to an accident or out of fuel; (3) streetcars don’t pencil out financially, as fare revenue addresses only a fraction of the costs; (4) nonfixed-rail vehicles such as buses do not inconvenience the flow of traffic; (5) buses will soon be driven without human drivers, thus theoretically reducing the high cost of public employee unionized labor; (6) most drivers still refuse to get out of their cars; (7) public transit systems are failing around the nation; (8) construction costs historically always seem to go over budget; (9) the homeless tend to use trolleys as a place to spend their days; and (10) crime is rising on government-operated transit systems.

Did I mention that the track grooves are difficult for bicycle riders? Or that fixed-rail trolleys are useless in an emergency, where buses can easily transport people and equipment anywhere?

Yet here we are in affluent and sophisticated Orange County building a trolley line in Santa Ana that has gone over budget by double (originally anticipated to cost $240 million), is late in completion, and has been devastating to businesses on the route.

A rendering of the Orange County Transportation Authority's first streetcar. (Courtesy of the Orange County Transportation Authority)

Thankfully, some retail business owners have received subsidies from OCTA to keep them open. How embarrassing is that? As if the pandemic didn’t hurt these businesses enough, transportation planners are making a problem into a mess. But it adds to the overall cost of this trolley folly.

The groundbreaking for this bad decision started laying track in August 2019, five years after the OCTA Board’s approval. It has already seen the then $400 million revised projected cost increase by another 25 percent. Here we are in 2023, and the four miles are still under construction. Since your sales tax dollars, through Measure M-2, are funding your great-grandfather’s transportation of choice, you should be aware of the inconveniences you will experience the next time you drive on Fourth Street or West Santa Ana Boulevard in the Civic Center area of Santa Ana.

This now $509 million fiasco, costing $127 million per mile, is already expected to be a year late in its completion. And efforts to assist impacted businesses have fallen short. Worse yet, a lawsuit has already been filed that could increase the cost of construction by another $50 million.

When it is completed, some 300 riders can move along at 11 miles per hour. Have you seen an OCTA bus? When did you last see one full? So, let’s say that 150 riders use the streetcar for their morning and evening commutes. Let’s throw in another 100 people hopping on during business hours, with another 100 for evening activities. With 500 customers per day, willing to pay, let’s say, $5 dollars to shorten their walk or bike ride, it would take 613 years for OCTA to recoup just its total investment in capital costs. Isn’t government great!?!

I would like to give more optimistic numbers, but the builders of the county’s toll roads made that mistake back in 1994, and the Foothill Eastern and San Joaquin Hills lanes are still struggling to get by. And I won’t even bring up the gruesome details of the $1 billion, or one-third, increase in costs for the Garden Grove (22) Freeway’s remodel nearly two decades ago.

The back of an Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) bus is seen in Orange County, Calif., on Aug. 21, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

While serving my final few months on the OCTA Board, I opposed the building of the streetcar. One media outlet provided the following:

“I just see it as an old technology in a high-tech world,” said Moorlach, who is also a county supervisor, pointing to issues like pedestrian deaths due to longer stopping distances than buses. “I see it as a boondoggle.”

One fine board member would provide this rebuttal: “I think this project will over time ... prove to be something we’ll be proud of as a board.”

Oops. At least this board member would oppose the second streetcar proposal.

What was my overriding frustration back then as an elected taxpayer representative? “Moorlach, meanwhile, questioned how taxpayers will react to their M2 transit dollars being used almost exclusively for projects in Central Orange County.”

Back in 2014, then-Mayor of Anaheim Tom Tait and I were the only ones opposed to OCTA taking over the building and assuming the financial risk of this endeavor. It’s another vote I’m proud of. We tried to save Orange Countians what is now more than a half-billion dollars. This is money that could have been used more wisely and productively in other areas for improving transportation chokepoints in the OC. I’m just sorry the “free money” and “use it or lose it” arguments prevailed with the remainder of the 17-member OCTA Board for the Santa Ana proposal.

Fortunately, Anaheim residents should be thankful that the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) to Disneyland streetcar proposal was put on hold. OCTA Board member and Anaheim’s Mayor at the time, Tait, could foresee the human cost and potential eminent domain concerns that would have accompanied this redundant nostalgic people mover’s potential implementation. I even came back to an OCTA Board meeting in 2015 to testify against this second streetcar proposal.

So much has changed in the high-tech space in the last decade, like the creation of Uber and Lyft. Who knows what’s next on the horizon? In the meantime, and forgive the pun, the residents of Orange County get to watch a train wreck in slow motion. Besides the building costs, they will also have to financially subsidize passenger fares for those who ride OC’s version of the San Francisco Cable Cars for the time it stays in existence.

This “streetcar named disaster” is another sad episode where we get to observe our hard-earned tax dollars being squandered. And this form of government-knows-what’s best is happening on a much grander scale—but don’t even get me started on California’s high-speed rail.