The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 319

A22 I KII1AV. JULY l.i. I WO SD i.os i BLUE LINE: COMMUTER RAIL SERVICE RETURNS TO L.A. 750-volt DC power Is supplied VsTo to the car from an overhead aa- cjpp21 i traction bar TRANSIT: Sleek New Blue Line Will Debut on Saturday Rail transit vehicle Type: Six-axle light rail vehicle, similar to those used in San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco. windows are made Trfcrte" Flexible middle HJSSSL WSZ Allows cars to make Ariculated (flexible in middle) for ease in turning.

Double-ended (either end can be used as front). Suppliermanufacturer Sumitomo Corporation of AmericaNippon Sharyp, Japan Number orderedcost each 54 at a cost of $1,170,000 each Dimensions: Length: 87' Width: 8'-8 34" Height: Top of rail to top of roof, ll' Height: Including extended overhead power collector, 23 -b maximum Height of interior ceilings: 6'-8" Performance: Powered by electric motors for a quiet, smooth, comfortable ride Maximum operating speed: 55 miles per hour Acceleration: to 55 m.p.h. in 45 seconds Braking distance (non-emergency or "service" braking): 55 m.p.h. to full stop within 750 feet Seat arrangement Modern technology provides a emnnth nuiot riHo nnrl oil paw oi-a equipped with heating, air conditioning dnu uiueu winuuws Each car holds 76 seats, a total of 230 passengers and two wheelchairs Maximum of two cars will be linked Two seats convert for wheelchair space "71 rTKBW LiiLliililllL Source: Southern California Rapid Transit District 6" Top Seats face booth on jjfllll how thrcu Inch Sip MBSjBBSwlflSo bctm-un platform. Floor uf twin platform QBBB ITSSBLp-'" i dru on amv lovul udS i fl OSS wheelchair access jjP L-7 1 I mm I- rtiartianfu intormmc uro I II i II InnatnH in onr-h far allnuind if passengers to talk to the operator of the train I Train operators are in contact Fare inspectors and Los Angeles with command center personnel County sheriff's officers will be at all times and have access to riding the train a silent alarm system Dropenel SMS" Closed-circuit '-LL'jiyj control facility been mounted to attract passengers.

The RTD spent $250,000 to make and distribute a videotape called "Operation Blue Line" starring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It demonstrates how to buy tickets from the automatic vending machines and ride the trains. In another effort to lure riders, the commission has set the train fare at $1.10 for a one-way ticket, about half what it costs for a bus ride along the same route, and the Blue Line will honor bus passes and transfers. The start-up of thf. trolley line has not been smooth or free of conflict.

Built without federal assistance, the project was funded primarily by money raised through a special half-cent county pales tax passed by voters in 1980. This Proposition A money also subsidizes RTD bus operations and funds other transit projects in the county's 86 cities. As the Blue Line's projected cost soared from $411 million in 1984 to the current $877-million figure, the increase touched off a feud between the RTD and the transit commission. The RTD, which needs transit tax dollars for bus operations, accused the commission of letting costs get out of hand. The commission contended that costs rose simply because the light-rail project was expanded.

Controversy also has arisen over use of the honor system for collecting fares. This concept opposed by some RTD rail experts has been tried, with some success, in San Diego and Vancouver, Canada, transit experts at the commission said. The Blue Line will have no gates or barriers. To ride the train, a passenger needs only to buy a ticket from an automatic vending machine and get aboard. There are no ticket collectors or train conductors to punch tickets.

"Fares will be checked only on a random basis by sheriff's deputies on the station platforms or riding the trains," said Norm Jester, director of rail activation for the commission. He said that anyone riding the trains without the proper time- and date-stamped ticket will be cited and ejected at the next station. The fine for riding without a ticket is $80. For the first year, operations will be limited to 19 miles of the 22-mile route because of construction delays at both ends of the line. When in full operation, the north end of the line will terminate in the Metro Rail subway station under 7th and Flower streets in downtown Los Angeles.

However, that station will not be completed until July, 1991. Meanwhile, the northern terminus will be the Pico Station at Pico and Flower Streets. From there, passengers can catch a shuttle that will take them the rest of the way downtown. In Long Beach, the line will end temporarily at the Anaheim Street Station, several blocks short of the the Transit Mall Station, which is scheduled for completion in September. Free shuttles will operate until then.

When routine operations start at 5:30 a.m. on Monday, there will be 'Security is the No. 1 issue. The initial success of this rail line and future rail lines is riding on it. The people have to feel comfortable and want to use the Blue Line.

They should feel personal safety is not a ED McSPEDEN Director of Rail Construction, Los Angeles Country Transportation Commission RAMRIiRG l.os Anycles Times aboard the trains, and deputies in black-and-white cars will also patrol the line, according to Lt. Jim Holts, the unit's second in command. "We play hardball with criminal elements up and down the line and when people start riding, we will come down even harder," he said. "Gangs will not get the upper hand." Transit advocates know that the performance of the Blue Line will have a major impact on the future of mass transportation in Los Angeles. Critics like Peter Gordon, associate dean of the School of Urban and Regional Planning at USC, contend that rail transit is too expensive and more could be gained by making freeways more efficient by developing car pools and highspeed busways.

But Peterson says that rail service must be a part of a much larger transportation network that includes a wide range of systems, including improved freeways, bus-ways dedicated to high-ridership vehicles and the like. Within the next two decades, planners say, the county's transportation system will include a 150-mile rail network reconnecting downtown Los Angeles with the San Gabriel Valley, the San Fernando Valley, Orange County and beach communities stretching from Santa Monica south to Huntington Beach. "The Blue Line is the first step," Peterson said. Continued from Al most experts agree. But county transit officials believe that many motorists are so fed up with freeway congestion they will take the train.

"When the Blue Line trains start rolling Saturday, it will show that Los Angeles is finally taking the first step toward returning to rails." said Neil Peterson, executive director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, the agency paying the Blue Line bills. "And this will send a signal: Even in Los Angeles, the people are beginning to realize they must change their way of travel if we are to have a livable planet." Passenger security is the major worry, officials say, because the 19-mile line traverses gang turf and high-crime sections of Los Angeles. To ensure rider safety, the line will be policed by 120 Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies. Traffic safety concerns have been raised by the union representing the train engineers, who fear that the trains will collide with cars at street crossings. And skeptics question whether the "honor system" for buying tickets and boarding the trains will work, or whether cheating will become widespread, resulting in lost revenue.

Rail critics predict that motorists will not leave their cars and will be afraid to ride the trains. Commission officials acknowledge that daily ridership will be low initially roughly 5,000 because portions of the line in downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach will not be completed for another year. The line will attract up to 35,000 riders a day by the summer of 1991, transit experts predict. A decade from now, when the Blue Line is linked to the other subway and light-rail projects now under construction, the line should be carrying 54,000 passengers a day, they say. During the first few years of operation, the line is expected to lose money and require heavy subsidies.

Officials say fares will bring in only about $1.5 million, or about 5, of the $33-million first-year operating budget set by the Southern California Rapid Transit District, which runs the line. By comparison, fares charged on the RTD bus system one of the largest in the nation return about 40 of the operating costs. More than a third of the Blue Line budget $12 million will go to pay for security provided by the Transit Services Bureau, a new unit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. No other transit agency has spent so much of its budget on security, according to the RTD. New York City, for example, spends only 10 of its operating budget on security, RTD Comptroller Tom Rubin said.

"We are deliberately making a major investment in security to protect the riders and the $877-million investment," said Peterson, the transit commission executive director. Major promotional efforts have Around the Track record: San Diego an exception, as experts say other systems have failed to solve urban transportation ills. By WILLIAM TROMBLEY TIMES STAFF WRITER Light rail systems, like the Blue Line that will begin to run between Los Angeles and Long Beach this weekend, are attractive and fun to ride, but they tend to be expensive money-losers that do little to solve urban transportation problems. That is the widely held view of academic experts who have studied the new light rail lines that have been built in various American cities in recent years. A recent U.S..

Department of Transportation study of new light rail projects in Buffalo, N.Y., Pittsburgh, Portland, and Sacramento found that ridership projections were greatly overstated and that both construction and operating costs were much higher than expected. For example, average weekday ridership is 66 below expectations in Pittsburgh, 54 in Buffalo and at least 30 in Sacramento, according to the report. One line that has exceeded expectations, according to its operators, is Southern California's only existing light rail system the San Xt together view lights and clanging bells. Sheriff's deputies have cited more than 100 motorists for driving around the gated barricades as trains approach. Trains running along the center of Washington and Long Beach Boulevards cross 20 intersections that have no crossing gates.

Even though these intersections have special left-turn signals, trains already have collided with cars. Such traffic controls worry officials of the United Transportation Union, which represents 5,000 RTD bus drivers and now the engineers operating the trains. The union has "grave concerns over the safety of the light-rail system," General Chairman Earl Clark wrote the state Public Utilities Commission. He said he was "appalled" by the 20 ungated crossings on Washington and Long Beach boulevards, contending that these unprotected intersections pose "a major threat to life and limb." LINES COMPARE PITTSBURGH PORTLAND SACRAMENTO But Neil Peterson, executive director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which built the Blue Line, disagrees with Gordon and Pickrell. "In my opinion, the Pickrell report is distorted," Peterson said.

"He takes his estimates of costs and ridership at a certain point in time in the planning process and then compares them with the final numbers. But in any planning process you're going to find a lot of different numbers at various times." Pickrell said that he compared actual ridership and cost figures with the estimates that were made when the projects were approved paw. Ralls are standard gauge WTf (4'-8 12" apart) and i 1 mudc of high alloy steel jew Ji ji'" 1 operator each side 4 doors on each side a. 11 m. JzZ 13 of the big white trains running along the tracks at 10-minute intervals, both northbound and southbound.

The trains will travel at up to 55 miles an hour and will take about an hour to cover the route, officials said. The trains are controlled by state-of-the-art equipment from a "Star command center on Imperial Highway, near Wilmington Avenue in South-Central Los Angeles. Law enforcement dispatchers, sitting at consoles with sophisticated computer links to the trains, will monitor the route on huge electronic wall maps. Nearby banks of black-and-white TV monitors are connected to cameras that scan station platforms for security and safety problems. Alarms, emergency telephones and other electronic gear on the platforms and in the trains are linked to the command center.

There are 22 stations on the route, along with five overpasses and three bridges. In the midsection of the line there are 35 street crossings guarded by gates, red HOW OTHER CITIES' LIGHT RAIL BUFFAtO The union asked that the Blue Line opening be delayed until more safety precautions can be built into the system. The PUC has taken no action on the union's request, Clark said. Ed McSpeden, director of rail construction for the transportation commission, said the Blue Line train systems were designed and built to comply with all PUC regulations. "The trains operate just like buses on these streets, they follow the speed limits, operate by the same traffic rules," he said.

Overriding all other concerns for the Blue Line is the question of passenger safety and security and protection of the trains and stations from vandals. "Security is the No. 1 issue," McSpeden said. "The initial success of this rail line and future rail lines is riding on it. The people have to feel comfortable and want to use the Blue Line).

They should feel personal safety is not a problem." Over the strong protests of the RTD and the district's transit police department, the commission signed a $10-million-a-year contract with the Sheriff's Department to police the Blue Line. The special Transit Services Bureau, staffed by 120 full-time sheriff's deputies, has made nearly 300 arrests for vandalism, theft and other crimes in the last two months, commission officials said. The sheriff will deploy roving patrols on station platforms and and that there is no fairer way to do it. He said ridership estimates are inflated and cost projections are understated because "planners and political promoters seek inflated forecasts so they can sell the public on their projects and get more money from the federal government." Peterson acknowledged that the Blue Line once was projected to have as many as 54,000 average daily boardings, but that has since been scaled back to 5,000 to 6,000 in the early weeks of operation, perhaps 12,000 by December. He said this was because "the assumptions had changed." The downtown Los Angeles Metro Rail and the Century Freeway light rail line are not yet operating; feeder bus lines have not yet been established, and the price of gasoline and downtown parking have not risen as high as officials expected a few years ago.

Blue Line operating costs are high, Peterson said, because of an "extraordinary investment in security" about $12 million of the estimated $33-million budget for the first year will be "security-related." County sheriff's deputies, both uniformed and plainclothes, will be guarding the stations, riding the trains and watching the line from the air. Although the Blue Line is the first modern-day rail system to be built in the Los Angeles area. Country, Light Rail Is Plagued by High Costs, Low Ridership ANNUAL OPERATING EXPENSE (millions of 1988 dollars): Forecast 10.4 na 3.8 7.7 Actual 11.6 8.1 5.8 6.9 Difference 12 na 45 -10 WEEKDAY RAIL PASSENGERS (thousands): Forecast 92.0 90.5 42.5 50.0 Actual 29.2 30.6 19.7 14.4 Difference -66 -54 -7 1 Forecast ridership for Pittsburgh applies to "Stage light rail line only: actual ridership figure applies to combined total for "Stage and "Stage II" lines. Sacramento forecast is for year 2000. SOURCE: Urban Mass Transit Administration, U.S.

Department of Transportation Diego Trolley, which began operation in July, 1981. The 33-mile line provides transportation from the U.S. -Mexico border north to downtown San Diego and east to the city of El Cajon. There are plans to more than triple the track mileage within the next decade. But if many sleek new transit lines lack for riders, they do not lack for high costs both to build and to operate.

The federal report found that construction costs were 59 higher than expected in Buffalo, 28 in Portland and 17 in Sacramento. Operating expenses were 45 above expectations in Portland and 12 in Buffalo. Actual operating costs were 10 below anticipated in Sacramento the only example in the study where performance exceeded the early projections. "Almost every analyst who looks at these systems realizes they don't make much sense as a public investment," said Don H. Pickrell of the Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, who wrote the Department of Transportation report.

"The bottom line is that these things don't perform and aren't worth the money," said Peter Gordon, associate dean of the School of Urban and Regional Planning at USC and a longtime critic of rail transit. Portland's 15-mile system, which opened in 1986, cost $240 million. Buffalo's 6.4-mile system, which opened in 1985, cost $536 it is not the first in the state- In addition to Sacramento, there are light rail lines in San Diego and in Santa Clara County. There is also the San Francisco Muni-Metro, part of the city's Municipal Railway, which carries an average of 130,000 riders a day on five lines. This is an updated and expanded 80-year-old trolley system that, unlike the Los Angeles "Red Cars," never was abandoned.

The San Diego Trolley-a $260 million system that started running nine years ago is probably the most successful of the new light rail lines. Officials report an average daily ridership of 49,000, a figure that has been achieved five years ahead of schedule. A 10-mile light rail line between downtown San Jose and employment centers in north San Jose and in the city of Santa Clara carries about 9,200 people a day, about half of what was expected at this point, said Bruce Kosanovic, a spokesman for Santa Clara County Transit. When another 10 miles are added next summer, it is hoped, ridership will jump to 20,000 a day, Kosanovic said. Construction costs, estimated in 1982 to be $321 million, have climbed to $550 million, he said, partly because the second 10 miles are being built in a freeway median instead of on city streets.

The Sacramento light rail system carries more than 20,000 riders a day, which is far below the 50,000 riders projected for the year 2000. million. Pittsburgh's 10-mile system, which opened in 1987, cost $537 million. Sacramento's first 9-mile leg, which opened in 1987, cost $172 million. Gordon predicted that the 22-rriile Blue Line, which cost an estimated $877 million to build, will attract relatively few riders as it wends its way between Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles, crossing some of the area's toughest gang turf en route.

"This will cost the public dearly," he said. "There will be reductions in bus schedules; there will be fare increases; overall transit use will decline. That is the sad scenario I see.".