Metrolink Charges Fares, Loses Riders

After a week of heavy commuter interest aided by free fares and fanfare, Metrolink ridership slipped sharply Monday as the regional commuter railroad began selling tickets--a worrisome surprise that transit officials blamed in part on high fares.

The Southern California Regional Rail Authority, which runs the 114-mile rail network, said 1,399 paying passengers boarded its distinctive double-decked trains Monday, the first morning of regular revenue service.

That figure was down more than 70% from the 5,000 passengers recorded a week ago. By comparison, at the peak of free service last week, Metrolink carried 6,751 passengers--including 1,200 crowded aboard a single train.

Riders sampling free Metrolink service last week complained that the system’s distance-based fares are too high. A monthly Metrolink pass from Burbank to downtown Los Angeles is $80; an equivalent express bus pass from the Southern California Rapid Transit District costs $54. The most expensive monthly pass, from Moorpark in Ventura County to downtown, runs $176 a month.

“I think the trains are great. They’re a real nice way to get to work,” said Nery Watson, an RTD employee who dropped his wife, Donna, and their two sons at the El Monte station to take a pleasure ride Monday. “But the price is way out of what I would call reasonable.”

Still, several paying passengers who rode on the Monday morning lines said they were surprised by the low number of others sharing the plush, periwinkle-and-white trains.

However, Metrolink officials insisted they were not taken aback by the low ridership figures. Rail authority marketing manager Peter Hidalgo said he was “very encouraged by the numbers.”

“We anticipated that our first week of revenue service would be low,” he said. “We knew we would not match the levels of the first week.”

Jacki Bacharach, chairwoman of the agency’s board, noted that ridership last Monday also was relatively low, but increased later in the week.

“I’m optimistic the number will go higher and higher,” she said, brushing aside suggestions that the five-county railroad might have to lower its prices to draw riders.

“It’s much too early for second thoughts,” she said. “The board wants to get a couple of months under its belt before we adjust schedules or fares.”

Richard Stanger, rail authority executive director, said he expected the three lines to carry 2,000 fares on Monday--roughly 1,000 in each direction. However, two years ago, shortly after voters authorized $1 billion in state rail bonds, a draft plan outlining the system projected that the stations opened last week would attract 3,500 fares a day in each direction, or 7,000 total.

Bacharach said that Metrolink fares were based on such factors as equivalent express-bus service, fares on other commuter railroads and Metrolink’s operating costs. The 1990 ballot measure authorizing the bonds that helped to finance Metrolink requires the system to cover at least 40% of its operating costs with fares by 1996.

A companion $1-billion rail-bond ballot measure, Proposition 156, is on today’s ballot. If approved by voters, it would partially finance expansion of Metrolink, as well as construction or expansion of other passenger-rail services around the state.

Metrolink officials insist that commuting by train still is cheaper than driving alone--after adding up the cost of fuel, parking, maintenance, insurance and depreciation. Some riders agreed.

“People look at it and say it is too expensive, but this is nothing compared to driving,” said Rosita Diesman of La Puente, a legal secretary who said she will change to Metrolink from her old express bus. “I fill my (car’s gas) tank once a month now. If I drove, I would have to do it three or four times a month--not to mention what I’d scream at people on the freeway.”

Perry Schonfeld of Porter Ranch said a monthly Metrolink pass will more than pay for itself if it lets him sell one of his cars. “I’ll ride if for a month or two and I’ll dump off a car and save $300 a month and I’m happy,” said Schonfeld, waiting on the platform in Chatsworth.

Some commuters said they chose to ride the train because their employers subsidized part of the cost of their passes. The subsidies are either part of a general fringe-benefit package or are designed to comply with regional air pollution regulations that require major employers to discourage their workers from commuting by driving alone.

Elisa Urangk of South San Gabriel said her company, Paramount Pictures, offered shuttle van service from Union Station to Hollywood in addition to subsidizing monthly train passes.

Transit officials in Los Angeles County said that more employers may be encouraged to offer similar subsidies now that President Bush has signed into law a new energy policy. The law increases to $60 a month from $21 a month the amount of tax-free public transit subsidies that employers can give their workers. At the same time--and for the first time--federal law caps the amount of free parking that companies can give tax-free to their employees.

Such employer subsidies, if granted widely, might speed Southern Californians’ embrace of the railroad. But Schonfeld, a New Yorker and veteran of the Long Island Rail Road, said it will take time.

“It’ll takes a couple of years,” he said. “The city is still in culture shock. The mentality of the city has to change.”

People who did ride trains Monday generally liked them.

“It’s much less stressful for me,” said Cathy Magallanes, a civilian employee of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The added cost, she said, was worth it if it got her off her old bus. “I didn’t like the people I was riding with,” she said.

One surprising development was the number of people who alighted at interim stations. At El Monte, about 20 people stepped off a train that arrived at 7:16 a.m. and were met by shuttle buses that drove them to the Southern California Edison headquarters, a high school district administrative office, the El Monte Civic Center and other destinations.

Times staff writer Hugo Martin in Chatsworth contributed to this story.