Type Light rail Status Operational Stations 19 | System San Diego Trolley Locale San Diego, California | |
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Termini Santa Fe Depot
El Cajon Transit Center | ||
The Orange Line is an 18.0-mile (29.0 km) light rail line in the San Diego Trolley system, operated by San Diego Trolley, Inc. an operating division of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System. It currently operates between Downtown San Diego and El Cajon. The Orange Line has the lowest ridership of the San Diego Trolley's three regular lines, transporting 10,896,289 riders during FY 2014 according to the MTS.
Contents
The line is one of four lines in the Trolley system, the others include the Blue, Green and Silver lines.
At night, the San Diego and Imperial Valley Railroad uses the Orange Line right of way east of the rail yard near the 12th & Imperial Transit Center for its freight service to El Cajon and Santee.
History
The Orange Line is the second line in the San Diego Trolley system, with service beginning on March 23, 1986 and initially operating between downtown San Diego and Euclid Avenue. The East Line, as it was then called, kept this name after successive extensions to Spring Street on May 12, 1989, to the El Cajon Transit Center on June 23, 1989, along the Bayside in downtown San Diego on June 30, 1990, and finally to Santee Town Center on August 26, 1995.
The line was renamed the Orange Line in 1997. Service between Gillespie Field and Santee Town Center was replaced by the Green Line in July 2005 upon that line's introduction.
2012 realignment
During a system redesign on September 2, 2012, the Orange Line's eastern terminus was further shortened to the El Cajon Transit Center, while Orange Line service along the Bayside was eliminated and its western terminus was rerouted to the Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego. Once the Mid-Coast trolley extension to University City is completed, the Orange Line's western terminus is likely to be curtailed to a new Courthouse trolley station.
Trolley Renewal Project
To accommodate the new Siemens S70 models so that they could be used on the line, Trolley stations needed to undergo renovation, although this was done over a period of time to prevent the disruption of operation. The new S70 models began operation on the Orange Line in January 2013, once all remaining Orange Line stations had been upgraded to handle them, and all renovation work on the Orange Line was completed in 2013.
Possible Extension to Lindbergh Field
In January 2013, San Diego Mayor Bob Filner and SANDAG conducted talks about a possible trolley extension to the San Diego airport. SANDAG has been conducting feasibility studies on an extension to Lindbergh Field since 2009. There are many different plans and scenarios for such an extension, but one of the possible scenarios is to extend the Orange Line from downtown San Diego up N. Harbor Drive to the passenger terminals on the south side of Lindbergh Field, with possible stops along the way. Currently, there is no projected start or completion date for such a proposed extension of the Orange Line to Lindbergh Field.