ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Training 2 Counties

Orange and Riverside counties are adjacent entities joined at the hip by their common interest in improving transportation.

Each morning and evening, the rush-hour commute between the two counties brings its full and frustrating measure of delays, bottlenecks and private incantations uttered in vehicles creeping along the Riverside Freeway.

Well, beginning in 1995, there will be a better way. The Orange County Transportation Authority board has just approved a contract with Riverside County to provide the first Riverside-to-Orange County commuter rail service by January of that year. The welcome announcement was sweetened by the news that by beginning service in 1995, the trains would be rolling four years ahead of the previous schedule. Riverside County has already approved the agreement, which calls for four round-trip trains that would originate in Riverside each weekday morning.

Responding to commuting patterns from Riverside to job sites in Orange County, the trains will serve both northern and southern destinations. Two trains will travel to Fullerton and on to Los Angeles; the other two would go south to Irvine. One of those trains will go north to Los Angeles and the other will lay over at Irvine or Oceanside.

There has been a great deal of talk in recent years about easing the Riverside-Orange County daily crush through car-pool lanes, ramp metering and tollways. This commitment to providing rail transit as an alternative to freeway traffic is just what the doctor ordered.