SANTA ANA : ‘Feeder’ Services Offered to Trains

Responding to a need for “feeder” lines to serve rail commuters, the county’s train passengers will find new van and taxi connections available in Santa Ana on Jan. 2.

“We have to transport commuters between the station and the office,” said Dana W. Reed, the Orange County Transportation Authority’s at-large public member.

Two services will aid commuters traveling among the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center, the Civic Center and the Grand Avenue-Dyer Road area. Rides during January will be free but will cost 30 cents each way as of Feb. 1, officials said.

Vans will operate on Route 362 during commute hours for employers in the Civic Center area. The first morning trip will leave the train station at 6:30 and will stop at key intersections before heading back to the station by 6:50.

The first afternoon trip will leave the intersection of Civic Center Drive and Main Street at 3:18 and arrive at the train station by 3:30.

Taxi service on Route 363 during peak hours will be routed from the train station to locations along Grand Avenue, including the Orange County Operations Facility, McDonnell Douglas, County Social Services, Novadyne, ACL Technologies, Gish Biomedical and Caltrans’ District 11 headquarters.

OCTA will use taxis through a private contractor as an experiment.

The new routes will be administered by the Orange County Transit District, which became a division of OCTA in June.

OCTA’s commute train, which supplements regular Amtrak service, set a new monthly ridership record of 13,181 in October.

The two new feeder routes will be partly funded by a grant from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which got the money from last year’s increase in motor vehicle registration fees.

Reed said feeder lines are “critical to the continuing success of our rail service.”

Feeder buses recently began serving the rail station in Irvine.