Transportation, city and community leaders gathered at the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center on May 11 to mark recent milestones related to the development of Orange County’s first modern streetcar in the cities of Santa Ana and Garden Grove. OCTA Chairman Jeff Lalloway, mayor pro tem of Irvine, and OCTA Directors Miguel Pulido, mayor of Santa Ana, and Steve Jones, mayor pro tem of Garden Grove, delivered remarks. OCTA Directors Todd Spitzer and Al Murray also attended. OCTA has taken over as the lead agency to design, build and operate the OC Streetcar.
Scheduled to travel within the cities of Santa Ana and Garden Grove, OC Streetcar is on track thanks in part to approval from both city councils and environmental clearance from the Federal Transit Administration. The OC Streetcar was recently accepted into the project development phase of the New Starts federal grant program, making it a candidate for future funding, and is also being partly funded by Measure M, the county’s half-cent sales tax for transportation.
On a four-mile route from the Santa Ana Metrolink Station to a new multimodal transit hub in Garden Grove, OC Streetcar is expected to provide easy connections for people traveling from trains and buses to employment, retail and recreational areas in the heart of Orange County. OC Streetcar is expected to begin carrying passengers in late 2019.
