The San Diego Trolley system – which turns 25 Wednesday – may trace its genesis to an obscure British monthly for streetcar buffs.
SCOTT LINNETT / Union-Tribune
The San Diego Trolley began regular service between San Ysidro and downtown on July 26, 1981, fueling a renaissance of light rail.
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Jim Mills, a state senator for San Diego who rode streetcars as a child, came across Modern Tramway to read about historic rail systems of the United States and Great Britain. The magazine also pushed the idea of light rail in places where bus lines were overloaded.
“This is kind of amusing,” Mills remembered thinking. “These people think streetcars should be brought back.”
After a few years, Mills hopped aboard, so to speak, and sponsored legislation that established the agency now known as the Metropolitan Transit System, its trolley line and statewide transit funding. On the heels of a revival of light-rail lines in Europe and Canada, the San Diego Trolley began regular service between downtown and San Ysidro on July 26, 1981.
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Top 3 days for trolley ridership
342,615: Jan. 25, 2003: NFL Experience, one day before Super Bowl XXXVII
226,238: Dec. 29, 2005: Holiday Bowl and parade
224,322: Jan. 24, 2003: NFL Experience, two days before Super Bowl XXXVII
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Now, the trolley moves more than 100,000 commuters, students, visitors and other travelers on an average weekday. The signature-red cars have served two Super Bowls, a World Series, a Republican convention, rock concerts and Comic-Cons.
“It has created the backbone of our public transportation system here,” said Paul Jablonski, chief executive of the Metropolitan Transit System, the trolley's parent. “It has become a San Diego icon.”
A pioneer
Transit industry experts say San Diego blazed a trail for a renaissance of light rail in the United States, now seen in 29 regions and planned for at least a dozen more. Tony Kouneski, a vice president of the American Public Transportation Association, said the early success of the trolley became a model for other cities.
“Follow the line, look at the development and the resurgence of your community in those areas . . . being served by the trolley,” Kouneski said. “It's pretty exciting.”
Patronage climbed quickly, from less than 4 million in the first year to 7 million in 1986. For the 12 months that ended June 30, the trolley carried more than 33 million passengers along its 54 miles of rail, including a newly opened segment between Grantville and La Mesa.
Total ridership since 1981 is placed at more than 433 million.
“In the basic way of getting people from Point A to Point B, they're doing a good job,” said Robert Palmer, a daily commuter from the Rio Vista station in Mission Valley to his downtown job as a graphic designer.
“It's ultimately pretty reliable,” said Palmer, 25, who started a Web site, www.bettertrolley.com to offer what he feels is a more user-friendly version of the trolley's operating schedule. “I can count on one or two hands the number of times in the morning when the train hasn't been there when I expected it to be.”
The future
The 25th-anniversary milestone is getting low-key treatment at the transit agency. Officials tentatively plan some form of recognition in September, when they also will celebrate the 120th year of public transportation in San Diego.
Inside the 12th and Imperial transit headquarters – named for Mills – some officials fret over the long-term health of the system.
The first 14 trolley cars are now 25 years old and have racked up as many as 1.5 million miles. Trolley officials say the internal components should have been rehabilitated five years ago – replacing or rebuilding some parts or just dusting off and greasing others.
That work has not been budgeted, and the transit system – with its purse strings now under the control of the San Diego Association of Governments – has been unable to take a first step.
“One of the things that we have yet to do is bring on a consultant to do a technical assessment of the vehicles and give us an accurate, professional determination” of what needs to be done, said Peter Tereschuck, president and general manager of San Diego Trolley Inc.
San Diego Historical Society
/ Union-Tribune collection
Transportation workers installed track for the trolley at C Street and Sixth Avenue downtown in October 1980.
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San Diego Historical Society
/ Union-Tribune collection
An estimated 10,000 people rode the trolley on July 26, 1981, the light-rail system's first day of operation.
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SEAN M. HAFFEY / Union-Tribune
A Green Line trolley rolled into San Diego State University's trolley station on July 8, 2005, marking the underground station's opening.
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Tereschuck said implications for the aging fleet are the same as those for an old automobile: increased failures and higher repair costs.
Any breakdowns aren't likely to endanger passenger safety, he said, but will affect another critically important issue with riders: reliability.
In a 10-year analysis of the trolley's funding needs, Metropolitan Transit estimated it needed at least $125 million for cars and nearly $1.25 billion for trolley infrastructure, such as rail, signals and power systems.
No one expects to see nearly that much money anytime soon, but passage of a statewide infrastructure bond measure in November would help.
Over a 10-year period, Jablonski said, San Diego could draw as much as $170 million, to be used partly for new cars and the rehabilitation of the 1980s-era U2-model fleet.
Without the bond, Jablonski said, the improvements will take longer to bring about and the agency will have to continue shifting money out of its operations budget.
Planners continue to study a possible Old Town-to-University City extension of the trolley's Blue Line, which hasn't attracted the federal funding needed to come to reality. Jablonski said such a line, which would follow Interstate 5 and stop at the University of California San Diego, is at least 10 years away.
Mills agrees with a recent professional review of San Diego's transit plans, which concluded that the proposed Mid-Coast extension might not draw enough riders between the two destinations to make sense.
“A bus line should be put in. . . . If the time comes when the bus service indicates that a railway is justifiable, then that's the time to build a railway,” he said. “If the patronage isn't there, that's going to be a real hemorrhage of dollars.”
More good than bad
Mills believes Metropolitan Transit already made one mistake in extending the trolley to Santee, where it terminates at an auto-oriented shopping plaza. According to trolley statistics for fiscal 2006, the station gets an average of 1,932 passengers daily, compared with 4,001 in El Cajon.
The most heavily used station is now Old Town, with nearly 25,000 daily passengers.
In general, Mills believes the trolley “is working very well.”
“It's taking people out of automobiles,” Mills said.
Beyond the use by commuters, the trolley is considered a big plus by the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, which makes sure meeting and convention planners are aware of the light-rail system.
“The big plus is the ease of getting around and about,” said Sal Giametta, vice president of communications at the bureau. “Literally being able to step outside your hotel or walk a block from it and finding a trolley station.”
Safety is a concern. As a crime deterrent, trolley officials say they hope to expand the use of security cameras, now installed at 10 stations.
And for all their appeal to passengers in wheelchairs or with other mobility problems, the new S70s trolley cars aren't as suitable for bicycles as the older models.
Taylor, the trolley enthusiast with the Web site, said many passengers still are befuddled by the need to transfer trains at Old Town when traveling into or out of Mission Valley, an inconvenience that started with the opening of the Green Line last year.
Again, the agency turns to the November bond measure. It would cost about $6 million to modify trolley stations between Old Town and the Bayside corridor to allow the newer, low-floor S70 models to serve the area, Jablonski said, eliminating the Old Town transfer.
Despite the worries over funding, transit officials say the trolley system has plenty of room to grow. Rising fuel prices and a continuing residential boom in South County will continue to feed passengers into trolleys.
“We will mature with dignity and hopefully with some face-lift,” Tereschuck said, and “before too long (get) to a point where we look younger than we really are.”
Jeff Ristine: (619) 542-4580; jeff.ristine@uniontrib.com
