Train Beats Car for Easy Riding

What’s the best way to get around this maddeningly congested megalopolis?

Two months ago, Times transportation reporters Kurt Streeter and Sharon Bernstein started searching for answers. They challenged each other to an ongoing duel. They’d ply well-traveled routes like the morning rush-hour commute from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles, starting and ending at the same spots. Streeter would rely mostly on mass transit. Bernstein would hit the roads in her Honda.

The results haven’t been kind to Streeter.

His trips on buses and trains have been interesting and fairly relaxing -- but slow as syrup. Bernstein, facing thick freeway traffic, beat him from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles by almost half an hour. Then she beat him from the San Fernando Valley to Los Angeles International Airport by about the same amount of time.

Frustrated, Streeter reached out to Metrolink, the commuter rail system that runs trains across six Southern California counties, most of them heading into downtown Los Angeles’ Union Station.

Metrolink trains are big and fast. They don’t run on streets and they don’t get tangled in traffic. “We can get you there first,” said Sharon Gavin, Metrolink’s spokeswoman. “Why not give it a try?”

Maybe -- just maybe -- if Streeter boarded a Metrolink train in Orange County and sent Bernstein down the traffic-addled Santa Ana Freeway, this was a trip he could win.

On a recent foggy morning, they arrived at the Laguna Niguel home of Metrolink Chief Executive David Solow. He takes his agency’s trains to work most days. Streeter figured it couldn’t hurt his cause to tag along with the railway’s boss.

The race would pit Streeter and Solow, riding the train, against Bernstein, weaving down the freeways in her car. The winner would be the first one to Metrolink’s headquarters at 7th and Hill streets in downtown Los Angeles, a trip of about 50 miles. Loser buys ham-and-egg breakfasts at The Pantry.

At 6:50 a.m., the three left Solow’s house. Bernstein drove off; Streeter got into Solow’s 1995 Jetta for a short drive to the nearest Metrolink station.

“We’re going to give her all she can handle,” said Solow, “and our trip is going to be a whole lot more enjoyable.”

As Bernstein pulled away, she worried whether she could make enough sense of the labyrinthine suburban Orange County roads to make it to the freeway without getting lost. It wasn’t too hard -- after all, most roads in the neighborhood, like most roads in Orange County, seemed to lead to the freeway.

Within a minute of getting on the freeway, Bernstein was jolted into traffic reality. A gigantic truck hauling Dole bananas cut her off. After losing time behind the truck, she found the freeway pretty open.

For a good spell, she experienced Southern California freeway bliss, alone with her thoughts and National Public Radio, watching the world go by at 70 mph.

Meanwhile, Streeter bought his $8.50 ticket and waited at the station, just off the 5 Freeway in Mission Viejo. It soon became clear they’d already given Bernstein slight advantage by leaving too early; the train wasn’t due for several minutes.

At 7:10, somewhere around Irvine, Bernstein was listening to the radio. About a minute later, around Tustin, the cars around her began slowing. A sea of red brake lights appeared before her. Then traffic stopped.

Just as quickly, it started flowing smoothly again. Then it slowed. Then it stopped. Then it began moving fast again. Ah, the flip side of Southern California traffic bliss: the lurching, neck-sprain-inducing unpredictability caused by tens of thousands of cars stuck together on too few lanes of asphalt.

The periwinkle-and-white train arrived on time at 7:15. Streeter and Solow walked to the train’s second deck, eager to get going.

Streeter often makes his way around Los Angeles on Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses, which run slowly, have hard seats, are used almost exclusively by the poor and are sometimes so stacked with passengers it can be difficult to breathe.

By contrast, Metrolink seemed like some sort of spa on wheels. Streeter and Solow sat on thick, cushioned seats. Some seats had tables and electric outlets for laptops. There were bathrooms on the trains. The floors were carpeted and clean. Nearly all of the riders wore suits or carried briefcases.

“You can really just relax on the train,” said Rick Fornelli, an engineer who takes Metrolink from Oceanside to Santa Ana on most days. Fornelli said his trip might take longer than it would by car, but “on the train, I can do whatever I want: grab some sleep, read, look at the scenery. I end up at work a whole lot more relaxed.”

“I’m selling a lifestyle,” said Solow, who started at Metrolink as assistant executive director in 1990 and has since overseen every aspect of the publicly financed agency. “People don’t take our trains because they are gaining or losing 15 minutes.... They take the trains because they are consistent. That’s something the freeways don’t have: consistency.”

At 7:30, the train whooshed by the old El Toro air base near Irvine. At 7:43, it stopped in Santa Ana. A few minutes later, it cruised through Commerce going about 50 mph and then on a bridge above the Santa Ana Freeway. The freeway was jammed.

“That congestion,” Solow said, “it’s actually good for me. It drives people out of their cars.”

He said he expected Metrolink, which carries about 20,000 riders each weekday, to double its ridership in the next 10 years, adding trains and track along the way. By 8:30, the train eased into Union Station. The ride had been fast and comfortable, as advertised. And unlike the complaints frequently heard from Los Angeles bus riders, the comments from rail line passengers were almost all positive.

Minutes later, after a short subway ride, a walk across 7th Street and an escalator ride to the 26th floor of a downtown skyscraper, Streeter and Solow rushed into the Metrolink offices, fingers crossed. Their trip had taken an hour and 40 minutes.

There, in a small cubicle belonging to Metrolink spokeswoman Gavin, sat Bernstein. She’d arrived downtown about 15 minutes earlier, found an $18 all-day parking space and was resting her feet on a desk.

Streeter would soon be buying the Atkins devotee a high-protein breakfast.

“It would have been a tie if we’d timed it a little better,” Solow said. “We got to the station 15 minutes too soon. Kurt, I want my 15 minutes back. Give me those 15 minutes and it would have been a tie. I swear.”