Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Amtrak Service Is Resumed to Burbank Airport : Transportation: Statewide effort to link different types of mass transit does not currently include stop for airport-bound Metrolink riders.

Amtrak service to Burbank Airport, suspended for more than a year, began anew Friday as part of a statewide effort to link different types of mass transit.

Passengers on the Santa Barbara-San Diego line can now disembark six times a day at the airport’s southeast edge on a new boarding platform, construction of which was hurried along after the Northridge earthquake.

“What we always talk about is a seamless transportation system. . . .We wanted to seize this opportunity” to resume train service to the airport quickly after the Jan. 17 temblor, said James W. van Loben Sels, director of Caltrans, a partner with Amtrak on the new stop.

However, airport-bound Metrolink riders, who pass directly through the new stop on the Moorpark line, will still have to travel to downtown Burbank and double back on a free shuttle provided by the airport--even though Metrolink owns the tracks and has been invited by Caltrans to use the airport platform.

Burbank Airport and Ventura County transportation officials have pressed Metrolink for direct airport service as a convenience to train commuters from Moorpark and the western San Fernando Valley. But Metrolink chief Richard Stanger said there would be too few users to justify another stop of the train.

“On a wildly good day, you’ll probably have maybe a dozen, maybe 20 people” who would use the airport stop, Stanger said. “That’s only 1% or less of our ridership on that line.

“So you’re causing 99% of our people to stop two minutes to let 1% get off and go to the airport when they could have gone to Burbank, and for admittedly a little more time gone to the airport from the downtown Burbank station.”

To gauge interest in a stop on their perimeter, Burbank Airport officials have begun conducting a survey of Metrolink riders and will present the results next week to the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, which oversees Metrolink. The authority will consider the issue at its Friday meeting, including Stanger’s recommendation not to add the platform stop to the schedule.

Stanger noted that the new stop, on Empire Avenue just west of Hollywood Way, does not meet certain Metrolink requirements, such as adequate parking space nearby. Also, Stanger said travelers have many more options if they use the Metrolink Burbank station, the nexus for frequent trains headed to Union Station, Ventura County and the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

But he acknowledged that the rail authority can waive its requirements and that there could be a pool of commuters who would use the airport stop to get to businesses close by.

Bill Davis, a Simi Valley councilman on the rail authority board, said he believes the board will approve making the airport stop part of Metrolink’s itinerary at least on a trial basis, a move Davis himself strongly backs.

“If I could only get 10 people to use this stop, it’d be worth it,” said Davis, who represents Ventura County on the board. “It’d be 20 less trips on the freeway, and all for a minute and a half” more on the Metrolink schedule.

Currently, Burbank Airport provides a free shuttle service to and from the downtown Burbank Metrolink station--about a 10-minute journey. Jennifer Lewis, the airport’s transportation coordinator, said the tram carries 100 riders daily, up from 35 before the Northridge earthquake.

“It’s quite a mix of people that work in the area, airport passengers and people that work at the airport,” she said.

The new open-air platform, which had been scheduled for construction later this year, cost $130,000 and is a temporary structure until a permanent one can be built, probably by next year, according to Caltrans spokesman John Robin Witt. The new stop will not be staffed. Tickets will be sold on the train.

Amtrak service--one train daily in either direction--was curtailed in mid-1992 to allow Metrolink to develop its operations along the railway. Amtrak representative Ronald Scolaro estimated that between 6,000 and 7,000 passengers used the stop each year, or 16 to 19 a day.

The new schedule includes three trains a day in both directions, the earliest arriving at the airport at 9:45 a.m. en route to Los Angeles and the latest at 8:31 p.m. going north.

On Friday, Steve Oliva of Del Mar was the lone passenger--and perhaps the first all day--to use the airport stop, getting off about 2:30 p.m. for a surprise weekend visit to his girlfriend in Burbank.

“It was terrific. Normally I would drive,” said Oliva, 28, who had originally expected to disembark in Glendale. “I haven’t taken an Amtrak (train) since 1986.”

But once off the platform he had no idea where he was or how he would get to his girlfriend’s place--until reporters pointed out a waiting airport shuttle that could take him to a taxi rank.