Comments by reader33
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Posted on August 24 at 12:25 a.m.
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.
Posted on August 23 at 4:18 a.m.
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.
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Posted on August 24 at 12:37 a.m.
(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.
On Making a Statement About Commuter Rail