North County Commuters on Metrolink Get 2-for-1 Deal : Transit: Passes bought by Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley riders for February will be valid through March. The goal is to retain new passengers.

In a gesture to new Metrolink riders following the Northridge earthquake, Los Angeles County transportation officials Wednesday approved a 2-for-1 monthly deal for passengers from the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

Under the motion unanimously adopted by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board, Metrolink passes bought by north county commuters for February will also be valid through March. Ridership from those communities has soared since the Jan. 17 temblor, which prompted thousands of motorists to turn to the trains for relief from bottlenecked freeways.

“Because of the earthquake, we have a captured audience here,” MTA board member Mel Wilson said. “Let’s not gouge the captured audience. Let’s help them where we can.”

Average daily ridership on Metrolink has already dropped as Caltrans officials have opened up more lanes of the Antelope Valley Freeway and as commuters find alternate routes to Los Angeles, such as Angeles Crest Highway.

Commuter train ridership dropped 30% this week, disappointing mass-transit advocates who had hoped that the earthquake might persuade commuters to permanently relinquish their cars.

Officials said they anticipated the drop-off but hoped that it would be more gradual. At its peak, ridership on the commuter trains soared to a record high of 31,276 daily passengers last week. More than two-thirds of the riders were Santa Clarita Valley residents who bypassed quake-damaged freeways.

This week, however, Santa Clarita ridership fell by 40%, to 13,149 from nearly 22,000.

“It’s natural that people would want to see what the commute (on freeways) is like right now,” said Richard Stanger, executive director of Metrolink. “It was obvious that people were going to try the roads again.”

For the year-old rail system, the throngs of travelers still represent a boon in post-quake ridership as well as publicity. In December, about 10,500 passengers rode the periwinkle-and-white trains on an average day; of those, only 1,439 rode the Santa Clarita line.

As for keeping the new Metrolink riders on the trains, MTA officials said Wednesday that the 2-for-1 discount would be a good marketing tool that might also attract new customers.

Some new riders have complained about ticket prices and asked transportation officials to take into account the lower income levels of many north county residents. Currently, a monthly Metrolink pass for travel into downtown Los Angeles from the Santa Clarita Valley costs $144 and $208 from the Antelope Valley.

“I cannot afford $208” every month, Palmdale City Councilman David Myers told the MTA board Wednesday. He said the transit board’s action would answer the question of “whether the board wants to make Metrolink service to the Antelope Valley work.”

Other passengers have said they were led to believe that the 2-for-1 special was already in place when they purchased their passes.

Metrolink officials traced the confusion to a bureaucratic tangle. Although Metrolink officials approved the idea of a discount two weeks ago, the reduction had still to be formally ratified by the MTA for Los Angeles County riders.

The Ventura County Transportation Commission will decide the same issue Friday for riders on the Moorpark Metrolink line.

In approving the Santa Clarita/Antelope Valley discount, MTA directors went against recommendations by their staff members not to offer a fare reduction. Staff analysts warned that while federal disaster relief funds could subsidize the difference between full- and half-price passes for new passengers, the MTA would have to cover the gap for discounted passes bought by pre-existing riders--about $200,000 in all.

But directors dismissed the $200,000 as not too significant. And to address concerns over fairness, the board passed an amendment authorizing the MTA to issue free bus vouchers, good for a month, to residents in emergency shelters who have qualified for some type of federal disaster aid.

In other action, board members approved $316 million for the construction of new car-pool lanes over the next three years, including several projects on San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley freeways. Car-pool lanes are scheduled to be built on sections of the Ventura, Antelope Valley, Hollywood, Simi Valley and San Diego freeways, in addition to other sites throughout the county.

Times staff writer Nora Zamichow contributed to this story.