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For your entertainment, here is the April 2001 column our group wrote for the Southern California Transit Advocates' The Transit Advocate newsletter. Members receive the newsletter monthly...check the SO.CA.TA Website for membership and contact information! Our June '01 column is also now online as well.
Disclaimer: The Southern California Transit Advocates is not affiliated with any governmental agency or transportation provider. Names and logos of agencies appear for information and reference purposes only.
| Orange County Committee News by Mark Strickert and Jane Reifer |
OC Committee Meeting of 3/8/01
Members of the Orange County Committee of SO.CA.TA continued
to have concerns about the
group's name, especially when dealing with local people and
agencies. "Orange County
Transit Advocates" would be most straight-forward, but the initials
would come out "OCTA".
After much discussion at the monthly meeting on March 8th, it was
determined that the
working name within Orange County should be Transit Advocates of
Orange County, aka "TAOC".
Other topics at the meeting included the OCTA June Service
Changes hearing, OCTA's putting
the "CenterLine" light-rail plan on hold, and the Orange County
Committee's part in the
SO.CA.TA booth at the upcoming Fullerton Railroad Days. There
was preliminary talk of a
possible CenterLine advocacy group, but this will have to be
explored further at the OC
Committee meeting on April 12th. Orange County meetings are
held in Fullerton, on the 2nd
Thursday of each month. Please call (714) 525-3678 to confirm the
meeting location.
California High Speed Rail Whistle Stop
SO.CA.TA was well represented at the high speed rail presentation
held in Fullerton on
March 12th. Anthony Loui crossed the Orange Curtain to join Jane
Reifer, Kirk Schneider,
and Mark Strickert at the CSU-Fullerton meeting. The California
High Speed Rail Authority
is still early in the process, with these statewide presentations
being just general
feelers to the local government and interested public. They were
pushing the project
mainly as an alternative to flights between northern and southern
California, to the point
that whenever highways and cars came up, the question was
deferred for "later". They seem
pretty set on the routing from Sacramento and the San Francisco
Bay area to Bakersfield,
but still need to determine how to get from Bakersfield to Los
Angeles and then on to
Orange and San Diego.
West Orange County Rail Symposium
Members Kirk Schneider and Jane Reifer attended the West Orange
County Cities' Rail
Symposium on March 15 in Huntington Beach. There were speakers
from almost every major
rail project in southern California, who gave a good synopsis of the
status of Southland
rail projects. Amtrak, MetroLink and MTA spoke of current,
functioning rail projects.
The speakers for proposed rail projects spoke about OCTA
CenterLine, SCAG MagLev,
California High Speed rail, California-Las Vegas Super Speed Train.
Art Goodwin gave an
update on the Alameda Corridor Project.
There were very few people there from the general public.
Attendees were traffic engineers
from various Orange County cities, as well as several OCTA staff
members. As it is expected
to be an annual event, a small suggestion for next time would be
to have a question and
answer period. This was dropped because of a tight schedule, but
really turned the day into
a series of lectures, rather than a more interactive discussion. It
was a good survey of
most projects in our area.
OCTA Board Hearing, 3/26/01
Four members of the Transit Advocates of Orange County were at
OCTA's June Service Change
Hearing on March 26th. Kyle Minnis, Jane Reifer, T.J. Stiller, and
Mark Strickert were
there. TAOC submitted 7 suggested changes for the June Service
change. OCTA staff got
right to work on them, and will be implementing several of them in
time for June. This is
in addition to several other very good changes that other individual
busriders came up
with, or came internally form OCTA. The rest of our suggestions will
be analyzed and have
a good chance of being implemented for September, as OCTA is
starting to see the light
regarding straightlining effects.
For June:
Still being considered for September:
Bus Ridership
OCTA will be doing an in-depth analysis of their ridership and what
effect the
straightlining has had on it. OCTA has been known for the past
several years as an agency
with skyrocketing ridership (6-10% annual growth). They are now
realizing that their
ridership is flat, and will be developing comprehensive service and
marketing programs
to reverse the trend.
OCTA Driver Contract
The negotiations seem to be going well, which may mean that
there won't be a strike after
all. If there were to be a strike, TAOC is considering a rideboard
type program a la
MetroAngels.
OCTA Re-organization
Exciting News! OCTA will be reorganizing its departments in order
to introduce more
accountability and communication into their system. Both the
Marketing department and
Service Planning will now work much more closely with the
Operations people. In addition,
Coach Operator training will now be done as part of Operations
instead of the HR
department. Kudos to OCTA for making its bus division stronger!
CenterLine, Parked on a Siding
CenterLine is on hiatus, but is far from dead. At the March 26th
OCTA board hearing, they
authorized sending two people on a study trip to Dallas,
Denver,Phoenix, and Salt Lake
City, similar areas that have approved light-rail projects. This trip
was given a yes
vote only after a lot of discussion, with all but one of the board
members speaking up.
Also brought up was worry that the current Orange County
delegation in Congress was not
pro-rail enough to help in pushing for federal funding. All the board
members seemed to
be in favor of CenterLine, but many noted that they should be
doing a better job of
outreach to the affected communities. For his part, CEO Art Leahy
stressed a "need to
move forward on a number of fronts", including exploring the
potential for other light rail
corridors, as well as perhaps busways and a "Rapid Bus"-style
service. He also pointed
out that OCTA needed staff skilled in getting community input, and
also people with
experience in directly managing large capital projects. (This came
up again later in the
hearing, when a board member questioned why OCTA was allowing
CalTrans to use county money
on highway projects with too little local oversight.) In the
meantime, some funds they
would have spent on CenterLine will instead be going towards a
new bus base in Costa Mesa,
and a parking structure at the Irvine Metrolink/Amtrak station.
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