Free Ride Is Over--Blue Line Totals Off : Transit: Ridership plunges 67% as fares begin. But officials say they are not alarmed.

Ridership on the Los Angeles-Long Beach light rail system tumbled sharply Wednesday as Blue Line passengers paid fares for the first time and morning commuters endured some breakdowns in the rail service’s newly installed ticket vending machines.

The glitches in the computerized ticket machines, which transit officials said caused no disruption in service, were among the snags on a day when many trains were running at less than half their capacity and ridership plunged by 67%.

In contrast to the soaring ridership figures since the Blue Line opened in mid-July, only an estimated 11,000 passengers paid to ride the 19-mile trolley on Wednesday--a third of the 33,000 riders who rode the trains for free the day before.

But transit officials, who have been buoyant over the initial popularity of the Blue Line, said they were not alarmed by the sharp drop-off in ridership, especially since they recently had estimated that paid ridership would be 5,000 to 7,000.

“I don’t think we should be too disappointed in comparing this with free rides,” said Arthur Leahy, director of transit operations for the Southern California Rapid Transit District.

“This has been a great success,” he added. “We still have some novelty riders . . . but today, we had an increase of serious commuters.”

In all, more than 673,000 passengers have ridden the Blue Line during its first 18 days--many of them holiday travelers or youngsters who took advantage of the free fares to ride from one end of the line to the other.

“The last week has been kids galore, and I know they were going from one station to another,” said Marilynn McCoy, an underwriter who has been commuting from her Long Beach home to downtown Los Angeles amid some boisterous youngsters. “Don’t get me wrong, I love kids, but I’m looking forward to a train without them.”

Other passengers agreed.

Herman Grey, a shipyard worker heading home on the Blue Line after his graveyard shift, looked around the half-empty train Wednesday morning and said he noticed that some regular commuters were absent.

“I saw them every day when it was a free ride. Now that they have to pay, I don’t see them,” Grey said. “I think they just wanted to see how it was and save a few bucks.”

For the riders who stuck with the Blue Line, a phalanx of RTD workers, transit helpers and sheriff’s deputies were on hand to remind everyone to purchase $1.10 one-way tickets and to help them operate the ticket machines at each station.

The $40,000 machines, operated by the Illinois-based firm of General Farebox Inc., provide instructions in English and Spanish, but officials said some passengers were still confused by the directions. Others were stymied when the computerized machines rejected their dollar bills or simply broke down.

By 9:50 a.m., an RTD log showed, technicians already had responded to problems at nine of the 34 machines including several stations where the trouble was traced to the machine itself. By the end of the afternoon rush-hour, problems with several other machines had been reported, RTD spokeswoman Andrea Greene said.

“These weren’t prolonged problems,” Greene added. “We had no machines down for more than five minutes. Everything actually went pretty smooth.”

Even before revenue service began, some transit officials had expressed apprehension that mechanical problems with the $4-million ticket vending system--or confusion among passengers--could slow down the entire system.

“The vending machines are what worry me,” said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “If they jam or there are too many glitches, we could have some real problems at the stations.”

However, Norm Diamond, vice president of marketing for General Farebox, said that technicians and other trouble-shooters are roving the Blue Line to respond to any problems. RTD officials also were standing by, ready to issue tickets by hand if the vending machines failed.

“We expect a certain amount of glitches in a new start-up,” Diamond said during a telephone interview. “We are out in force to make sure the trouble is identified and dealt with properly and hopefully not get a reoccurrence of that problem.”

RTD, he said, is the first transit system in the United States to use the ticket system although General Farebox’s French partner has installed similar machines in Paris.

Passengers with RTD monthly bus passes could bypass the two ticket machines at each of the 17 stations.

Those without the required fare or RTD pass could receive a citation and face possible fines and penalties of $90. But Sheriff’s Lt. Jim Holts of the Transit Services Bureau said his officers have been instructed to warn passengers whenever possible, rather than issue a citation during the first days of revenue service.

“The posture we are taking is that if we find someone without a fare we will escort them off the next platform and turn them over to one of the greeters and let the greeters show them how to get a fare,” he said.

By early Wednesday afternoon, Holts said, his deputies had inspected 3,100 passengers and found 26 without fares. Only three of the riders were issued citations, Holts said, including a ticket to one man who tried to sneak up the back platform of the Compton Station and onto the train. “Obviously, he was trying to circumvent the ticket system,” Holts said.

Some passengers who boarded without fares said they thought the free rides were still in effect.

But other passengers said they were more than happy to pay for the ride.

Shirley and Michael Coulter said they had just moved from New York last weekend and were delighted to find a railway system in automobile-mad Los Angeles.

“I think it’s great,” she said. “And we’ll ride it--at least until we get a car.”