Making a Statement About Commuter Rail

Nick, you tell it like it is, and you also recognize those who have the courage to take a position on this important issue.

63+% of South Coast voters supported Measure D '06, and as you speculate, commuter rail may have been one reason for the strong support. I think that's true, and unfortunately North County voters were lead to believe they would be paying for the rail project, which was not true.

So it's a new day, and the SB City Council has stepped up to the task of managing the future transportation challanges of the South Coast. Good for them, and more power to them.

SBCAG is happy to just do what they always do, build and pave roads. Too bad for the folks stuck in traffic, while they play catch up.

We're lucky to have more forward thinking electeds in our neck of the woods, and I guess they'll be the ones to show the way.

Los Angeles has commuter rail.

San Francisco has commuter rail.

San Diego has commuter rail.

Orange County has commuter rail.

Stockton has commuter rail.

Riverside has commuter rail.

Santa Barbara has none.

Ventura has commuter rail to Los Angeles.

Face reality. Except for some people on the City Council, this county has third rate leadership with no higher policy goals than maintaining the status quo.

Will somebody please explain how a commuter travels the extra mile or five from the SB train depot to their place of work? And if the answer means that their total commute time is just as long or as using their car, why would they choose commuter rail over using their car?

Perceptive minds will read the second posting above, about which California regions have commuter rail, and discern one trait in common: large populations and dense population centers. That is why Santa Barbara will not have AFFORDABLE commuter rail in any current player's lifetime: IT DOESN'T PENCIL OUT! Talk all you want, it just won't work, and that's been apparent for several years -- it's just that the SB idealists, bless their hearts, won't accept the facts. With the increasing costs of fuel, we will be relying more and more on rail transport for goods, which should ease some of the 101 congestion a bit (local workforce housing would relieve it much more), and put Union Pacific in an even sterner position of having little/no incentive to "deal" with the City of SB, regardless of whatever puny support the City Council could offer for a second rail along the coast. Please -- someone do the math and figure out how much commuter rail would cost per passenger/mile. YOU WON"T WANT TO AFFORD IT.
By the way, I'm not anti-public transit, just anti-fantasy. The most affordable (there' s no free lunch...) congestion solution between Ventura and SB Counties are buses, which will cost less per passenger/mile, are more mobile since they don't use fixed tracks, and largely solve the unaddressed issue of needing connector transportation between RR station and final destinations. Does that make too much sense? Apparently.
Perhaps someday, SB will elect someone to City Council who can do basic math....

The problem with light-rail is that it isn't, light that is. The high-speed trains in Europe and Japan run on special rail-beds designed just for light high-speed trains. The Union Pacific rails are built to withstand the heavy loads of freight trains. The Amtrak trains are commensurately heavy. This causes their cost per passenger mile to achieve little over a person on the freeway. The other problem with light-rail, and buses, is that they do not take a person directly where they want to go. Instead the passenger must endure waiting for everyone else's stops. The real solution that none of the transportation pundits appear to have discovered, or are feverishly trying to suppress, is at www.skytran.net Read this web-site before you make any assumptions about transportation.

I think its an attractive idea to have a train take me to work. But would people really go out of their way to use it? It makes cents if your a big city. I dont SB to become a big city. It's to big already.

How about electric buses?? they can reduce cars and get you to work almost as quick as your own car. 2-4 electric buses per morning and evening?

MTD could provide the management. How does their Board feel??

Some education is needed here.

First of all the plan put forth by the SB City Council begins with a rescheduling of existing trains, this costs nothing.

KEYT coverage omitted the fact that the morning train arrives at 10:10AM, when they pointed out that only 12 people ride that train.

I would submit that for the commuters from the south who spend upwards of 2 hours driving the short distance from Ventura County would jump at the chance to take a train and leave the car at home.
A local employers forum on commuter solutions found that a vast majority would shuttle their people from the train each day.

"The last mile" as it is called, is part of the plan. MTD has already made a commitment to provide buses at the station when trains arrive. There's no reason for apprehension about leaving your car.

The argument about lack of density doesn't wash. The studies have been done, and the ridership is there. As you can tell by the gridlock on 101 morning and night, we don't have to wait for more density. Of the nearly 20K commuters daily from the south, I don't see a problem filling up the trains that would be breezing past those sitting in traffic. It would be an easy sell.

As the City Council pointed out, next year when the 15- 20 years of road improvements start, commuter rail will be even more compelling.

The problem is a regional one that is shared by two counties.
Why should Santa Barbara County help residents of Ventura County? and why should Ventura County help Santa Barbara County employers make it easier for their employees to commute?
Does that make sense? Shouldn't we be working together on this?

Regional solutions can be difficult, but are nevertheless important.
The Santa Barbara City Council has taken the first step to making sense of regional transportation. It needn't be all on rubber tires.

Three distinguishable but overlapping issues about passenger trains exist here.

I start from the largest geographic perspective. First is interstate passenger transportation, i.e., providing transportation to San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, and New York. Responsibility for providing and promoting national mobility of the population lies to build a country lies with the national government and involves national policy. Lincoln recognized this when he proposed building the Central Pacific Railroad.

Amtrak provides one through train south to Los Angeles and north to San Francisco and Seattle. This is totally inadequate. You can't go and return to San Francisco or Silicon Valley in a day. Along the Coast Route Amtrak should have at least five schedules, early morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and overnight connecting San Diego to Sacramento.

The City Council and County should be demanding that the state and federal governments adequately fund interstate rail passenger service. That would include more double tracking between LA and Sacramento.

Second is regional transportation. San Bernardino and Riverside are the present Eastern termini for the Los Angeles regional Metro commuter trains. Santa Barbara is not that much further west than those cities are East and is the natural geographic Western terminus for Los Angeles regional trains.

(Continued from first part above)

The regional story is more complex. Amtrak operates five regional trains from Santa Barbara, including one from San Louis Obispo, to Los Angeles and San Diego. Los Angeles Metrorail operates three commuter trains ending at Montavelo and five more ending in Moorpark.

Extending the San Fernando Metrolink runs to Santa Barbara is a far bigger political than economic deal. Indeed, it makes economic sense now. An early afternoon commuter run might leave Los Angeles around 4 and pick a new load of commuters in Ventura for Santa Barbara around 5. The marginal costs would be near zero if the equipment otherwise stopped in Ventura and did nothing overnight.

The City Council and County should demand that the State make service to Santa Barbara a mandate of Los Angeles Metrolink.

This does raise some sticky political problems. Los Angeles and Orange County taxpayers have long been paying the bills for Metrolink while the "no tax" crazies in Ventura County enjoyed the service without bearing their fair share of the cost.

Third is local transportation. There might be some local needs beyond what national and regional system could provide. Optimizing Metrolink schedules for Santa Barbara might require more than fiddiling with LA schedules. What this is no one knows until the resolution of the first two issues.

The economics of Santa Barbara commuter rail do not depend on intra-county ridership. A lot of other people are riding, and should be riding on this line, and are paying the bills.

As a matter of economics, commuter rail and better train service are doable here. The County political leadership is lacking.

Santa Barbara County was asked to join the original Metrolink JPA when it was formed in the early 90's. Too bad SBCAG didn't see the future, and didn't know plans to widen 101 would be killed.

A Metrolink solution must deal with the issue of reverse commute.
Their service is about getting people to LA in the morning, and back out in the afternoon. A Santa Barbara/Ventura service would bring people to SB in the morning and back south in the aftertnoon.

That's why Surfliner trains are being looked at as a possible solution. They run the right way at nearly the right times. The morning train needs to leave LA between 4 &5 AM to get to SB before 8. It currently leaves LA at 7 and arrives here after 10.
An additional morning train would also be needed, and could be a Metrolink (which are parked in Moorpark overnight) or an additional Surfliner that could be parked in the Oxnard area where there is a spur.