Legislative Study Calls for Increased Commuter Train Service in County

Daily commuter trains would be added between San Clemente and Los Angeles, and Oceanside and San Diego, under a legislative study that calls for increasing rail service along the Los Angeles to San Diego corridor.

The proposal also calls for passenger stops between Fullerton and Los Angeles for the first time.

Besides providing for 10 commuter rail stations between Oceanside and San Diego, the study, which was finished last month, also calls for replacement of the track along the 128-mile rail corridor between Los Angeles and San Diego.

State Sen. William A. Craven (R-Oceanside) called for the study of improving rail service between Los Angeles and San Diego in the wake of a proposed bullet train’s failure to gain popular support. The plan for a high-speed train met tremendous opposition several years ago from the same Southern California communities it was designed to serve.

“We have to find some ancillary system or systems to assuage the (traffic) problem,” Craven said. He said the cost of improvements in existing rail service, projected at $246 million, would be more acceptable than the bullet train proposal, which was budgeted at $3.2 billion.

Fullerton-L.A. Stops

Additional Orange County stops are proposed in Mission Viejo, Irvine, north Irvine and Buena Park. And there are proposed stops in East Los Angeles and two stops to be located somewhere between Commerce and Norwalk.

The new stops would be used only by four new daily commuter trains running between San Clemente and downtown Los Angeles.

San Diego County’s proposed East Coast-style commuter trains may start to cut into the growing North County freeway congestion within three years if a plan recently endorsed by several North County cities is approved by the Legislature this year.

The proposed rush-hour runs between Oceanside and San Diego would take 70 minutes, about 10 minutes longer than the current trip by car at rush hour, said a San Diego Assn. of Governments official. The $2.50-to-$3 cost would be cheaper than an Amtrak ticket for the same trip, which now costs $5.50. The average commuter fare, based on people getting on and off at stops along the line, would be $1.50.

The study proposes adding seven commuter stations for San Diego County to the three existing Amtrak stops at Oceanside, Del Mar and San Diego.

Proposed New Stations

The new commuter-only stations would be added in Carlsbad at Elm Avenue and at Palomar Airport Road; in Encinitas at La Costa Avenue and at Birmingham Avenue (a replacement for the Del Mar station, which would be abandoned); in San Diego at Sorrento Valley Road and Interstate 5, at Miramar Road, at Gilman Drive and Interstate 5, and in Old Town near Rosecrans Street.

Oceanside City Councilman Walter Gilbert, a member of the Los Angeles to San Diego Rail Corridor study group, said the proposed commuter service should pay its own way.

“Eventually, we should be able to put a second set of tracks all the way down to San Diego,” Gilbert said. “You can put in railroad tracks for a quarter of the cost to build a lane of freeway. Our only protection (from freeway congestion) in the future is going to be railroad. I firmly believe this is going to save our sanity in Southern California, particularly along this corridor.”

A joint powers agency consisting of the North County Transit District and the Metropolitan Transit Development Board would, under the plan, operate the commuter service, said San Diego Assn of Governments senior transportation planner Mike Zdon. Amtrak might be contracted to operate the commuter trains, which would have double-sized doors to allow for quick entry and exit and “a short dwell time” at stops, Zdon said.

The study estimates that the San Diego commuter runs would initially draw 2,500 riders a day. That should easily go up to 5,000 an hour at rush hour by the year 2005, said transportation consultant Byron Nordberg. With a double-track railroad from Oceanside to San Diego, Nordberg said, it would not be unusual to run six to eight trains an hour during peak traffic conditions. “In Chicago, they’re running on a five-minute schedule” at rush hour, Bordberg said.

Compared to Bay Area

Zdon said the proposed train service “would be the first time in San Diego County we have had commuter rail service like they have in the East or in the Bay Area.”

The improvements for the entire corridor are expected to cost about $246 million, which would be paid for by Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego county governments, with matching funds from the state, according to the plan.

Of the total $246 million cost, the capital cost of adding two commuter trains each rush hour from Oceanside to San Diego comes to about $30 million.