Transit Panel Votes to Drop Central Line

Citing strong ridership on VISTA buses, the Ventura County Transportation Commission voted Friday to continue nearly all the intercity transit system’s lines next year.

All except the little-used Central line, which serves the Naval Air Warfare Center at Point Mugu and the soon-to-be-closed Camarillo State Hospital and carried only 2,007 fares in February, will be continued.

Ridership on the Central line compared poorly with all other VISTA lines, such as the Highway 101 line from Thousand Oaks to Ventura, which carried nearly 5,000 fares in February, according to commission records. The Central line’s performance paled beside even the tiny Santa Paula Dial-A-Ride line, which carried 2,858 fares in February, the records show.

So the commission voted 7 to 0 to continue the other VISTA lines and end the Central line July 1. The commission plans to pay for limited VISTA service to continue in the area on four runs a day between Camarillo and the Flynn Road industrial area, using Camarillo Area Transit buses that would otherwise be going to and from their Oxnard depot.

But the commission agreed that the $1.33 million in federal funds it cost to run the other VISTA lines this year was money well spent, and voted 7 to 0 to begin the budgeting process to harness federal and local funds for VISTA next year.

In other business, the Transportation Commission:

* Approved a draft 1997-98 budget for spending $8.86 million on the county’s transit systems.

* Voted to buy the Camarillo train station, now used for Metrolink service, from Southern Pacific Transportation Co. for $630,000.

* And approved a master plan for setting up freight and possibly commuter rail services along the 42-mile Santa Paula Branch line, a length of rail from Santa Clarita to Ventura that the commission bought for $8.6 million.