SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : City Facing Crunch in Amtrak Parking

About 15 minutes before the scheduled departure of the 6:40 a.m. Amtrak train, commuter Robert Ross leaves his San Juan Capistrano home for the depot.

Ross lives only about five minutes away, but he starts early to get one of the 131 parking spaces in the Franciscan Plaza next to the historic depot.

“I always wonder what happens to No. 132,” Ross said.

As co-chairman of the Amtrak Commuters Assn., Ross is anxiously awaiting the effects of Southern California’s new commuter train service, announced Monday by the Orange County Traffic Commission. In an effort to lure hundreds of people from the crowded county freeways, Amtrak will offer an earlier and more prompt five-car train capable of carrying 400 riders from San Juan Capistrano to Los Angeles each working day. As an added incentive, the new commuter line will also offer reduced fares.

The question facing Ross and San Juan Capistrano city officials is just where these new riders will park.

“As far as we’re concerned, given this new schedule and increased ridership, the 131 spaces downtown aren’t going to be enough,” Ross said.

Officials in the other Orange County cities with stops on the Amtrak line, Santa Ana, Anaheim and Fullerton, have what they consider more than adequate parking for any increase in ridership. But unlike stations in those cities, the Capistrano Depot sits right downtown in an area where merchants depend on parking. And San Juan Capistrano, the busiest of all the county train depots, already has struggled to provide the existing 131 spaces.

With the prospect of a greater demand for parking, the city is looking for some help.

“This is a regional transportation issue,” said Cassandra Walker, San Juan Capistrano’s community development manager. “These commuters are coming from all over, they’re not just city residents. San Juan is willing to do anything we can to accommodate commuters, and we already have started by taking back the $2 fee (for parking), but we can’t do it alone.”

Adrienne Brooks, an analyst for the Orange County Traffic Commission, said a study is under way to identify problems such as parking and to offer new solutions. In addition, two bond measures on the June ballot offer potential financing that can be diverted to county rail issues, including money for San Juan Capistrano, Brooks said.

“We’re keeping an eye on San Juan Capistrano,” she said. “We know that as participation increases and new commuters abandon their cars for trains, we’ll see some changes.”

In the meantime, Brooks pointed to the June opening of the Irvine train station and commission-backed shuttle services as potential ways to ease the pressure in San Juan.

“We think some of the riders who use the San Juan station, particularly those from the Mission Viejo area, will switch to the Irvine station,” Brooks said. “And there are off-site parking areas (in San Juan Capistrano) that can be utilized through a shuttle service that the OCTC has been talking about looking at.”