When the Anaheim City Council put an official end to the city’s streetcar project late last year, you’d have thought it made its position on the project pretty clear. But, just to make things even clearer, in January council members voted 6-1 on a resolution “expressing opposition to a streetcar system in Anaheim.”

But the Orange County Transportation Authority has different ideas, judging by the agency’s Central Harbor Boulevard Transit Corridor Study.

“In August, the OCTA initiated a study on Harbor Boulevard between the Fullerton Transportation Center and Westminster Avenue, and a month ago the project team presented 12 draft conceptual alternatives for board members to review,” the Register noted. “Of the dozen options, seven involve a streetcar.”

When the OCTA voted to take control of Anaheim’s streetcar project last year, many saw it as the agency killing the proposal. Instead, it appears that the agency intends to make it the potential next leg on the Santa Ana streetcar project’s journey. After all, the agency has christened the Santa Ana project the “OC Streetcar,” so it seems only a matter of time before track is laid in a city near you.

That doesn’t sit well with Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait, who is also an OCTA board member, and has been continuously opposed to the streetcar project. He thinks the agency is going through the motions as it waits him out, hoping to get a more agreeable mayor in the next election.

“I’m done in 2018,” Tait said. “We’ll wait out this mayor and see what happens — that’s the general message that I get.”

But Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, also an OCTA board member and streetcar proponent, thinks Anaheimers will change their minds. He said that the Santa Ana council had at one point been unanimously opposed to a streetcar but now supports it.

“What began to open up eyes was data and information,” Pulido said, according to the Register. But here are the facts: Streetcars are a needlessly expensive, inflexible mode of transportation that rarely meet ridership projections or come anywhere close to recovering operating costs.

The Anaheim council was once 3-2 in favor of a streetcar and is now 6-1 against it. The OCTA should listen rather than play the odds that seem to be going against them.