BURBANK : New Metrolink Stop Opens Near Airport

Irene Cardenas is so accustomed to taking the Metrolink train to work each morning that it hardly fazed her when she became the inaugural passenger to depart from Burbank’s newest Metrolink stop at 6 a.m. Monday.

“It was very convenient, just as it always is,” said the 59-year-old nurse, who normally catches the train in Van Nuys. She had stopped in Burbank on Monday to drop off a rental car.

But ironically, transportation officials said the new station, on Empire Avenue next to the Burbank Airport, isn’t intended for passengers like Cardenas.

“The purpose of this station is to provide an alternative for people who work Downtown and need to catch a flight, or people in Ventura County who need a convenient way to get to the airport,” said Peter Hidalgo, a Metrolink spokesman.

“Our research has shown that not many people would use that station to get to Downtown Los Angeles or to Oxnard, so it’s really a destination station rather than a commuter station.”

Under a six-month trial program that began Monday, Metrolink’s Ventura County line, which stretches from Los Angeles to Oxnard, will make 18 stops a day at the station, which is actually an Amtrak depot that has served the airport for more than a year.

After the trial period, Metrolink officials will evaluate whether enough passengers are using the facility to warrant continuing the service.

It is the first time Metrolink, a commuter train service initiated in 1992, has served a regional airport, officials said. Amtrak will continue using the station as a stop on its San Diego and Santa Barbara lines.

The station is about a block’s walk from the airport’s main terminal, but there is also a courtesy phone so that passengers with large amounts of luggage can call the airport’s shuttle service.

Modifications to the station include lengthening the platform to enable Metrolink trains to stop there and the installation of automated ticket machines, Hidalgo said.

Officials with the airport and the city of Burbank had asked Metrolink to begin stopping at the airport ever since the Amtrak station was opened there. They said the request was unrelated to a proposed expansion of the airport.