Commuter Train Getting on Track

All aboard!

Well, not quite.

Only 20 of the 140 or so daily passengers on Orange County’s new commuter train to Los Angeles have actually been persuaded by the new service to forsake their cars for the train, county transportation officials said Monday. The remaining passengers, officials said, had been regular Amtrak riders anyway.

Although this means it’s costing taxpayers more than $130 to subsidize each one-way trip made by the 20 new train commuters, Orange County Transportation Commission officials remain optimistic that ridership will soar once the word gets out.

Total cost of the rail service, which began April 30, is about $1.5 million, with first-year revenue from passengers expected to reach $1.1 million. Officials are hoping to attract 350 daily commuters within 12 months.

Total ridership is impressive so far, given that the new commuter train currently seats only 197 passengers, said OCTC Executive Director Stanley T. Oftelie.

OCTC plans to market the new service via direct mail to commuters who have already expressed an interest in rail projects and in ride-sharing. Names of those people have been collected by the commission and by Commuter Network, the computerized ride-sharing match-up program operated by the Orange County Transit District.

The new rail service involves one train each morning that departs from San Juan Capistrano and stops in Santa Ana, Anaheim and Fullerton on the way to Union Station in Los Angeles. There is a return trip in the evening.

The purpose of the service is to relieve congestion on the Santa Ana Freeway during a massive, $1.6-billion widening project. A portion of the project is under way between the junction of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways in Irvine and the interchange for the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways in Santa Ana.