On a Fast Track

Standing on the platform, you would hardly know a commuter train is coming.

The scene lacks most classic hallmarks of serious rail commuting. No briefcase-toters in identical tan trench coats lined up at the exact mark on the concrete where they have watched the train doors stop for decades. No vendors hawking daily newspapers and acrid coffee dregs.

This is, after all, Southern California. So instead, the scene is populated with just a few dozen Metrolink riders, including floppy-haired Darrin Finley, 21, who bought a ticket to Burbank one recent morning from an automated machine while still astride a silver motocross bicycle. Nearby, John Quinn of Canyon Country was also bound for Burbank, where he designs consumer products for Walt Disney Co. He passed time before the 8:53’s arrival by sketching a rhinoceros while sitting cross-legged on the ground.

But despite the lack of rail-commuting stereotypes, Santa Clarita has emerged as one of the most popular stops for the fledgling Metrolink, which just celebrated its fifth anniversary.

With about 330 passengers boarding there daily, the Santa Clarita Station ranks in the top five of Metrolink’s 46 stations for ridership. Following the Northridge earthquake in 1994, which crippled the primary freeway commuting routes, the smaller Princessa Station was added four miles to the east to accommodate a surge that quadrupled ridership.

Now the city has begun work on its third station, just east of San Fernando Road in Newhall, to be paid for by $4.2 million in grants from the federal and state governments. When it opens in 1999, Santa Clarita will have more stations than any other city except Los Angeles in the six-county Metro Rail region.

That doesn’t mean train commuting has made more than a tiny dent in the overwhelmingly auto-oriented commuter culture. City Transportation Manager Ron Kilcoyne estimates that Santa Clarita is only slightly more train-oriented than the norm for the nine-county Metrolink area, in which only three of 1,000 commuters use the train.

But Metrolink’s 10-year plan predicts that booming residential development and increased awareness of the train will boost ridership 51% in Santa Clarita over the next three years, said Bob Murphy, Santa Clarita’s transit coordinator.

The opening of the Newhall Station is expected to send that number even higher, because it will serve the western communities of Newhall and Valencia, which have the bulk of the city’s population. About 400 riders a day are expected to use the Newhall Station, Kilcoyne said, although some of those will simply be moving over from one of the other stations.

Many Santa Clarita residents moved there to get away from traffic-choked Los Angeles. That, along with the area’s population boom, encourages the symbiotic train-city relationship.

“People there are more concerned about things like the environment, air quality and quality of life,” said Metrolink Executive Director Richard Stanger. “We also have a lot of ‘choice riders,’ people who could logistically drive to work but decide to take the train.”

For regulars like Finley, it is indeed all about choice.

“It’s way cheaper than putting gas in my van. It’s a V-8, so it guzzles,” he said while flipping the tape in his Walkman. “I don’t like to stress out on traffic or gas. I’d rather be free on my bike.”

The more buttoned-down train riders also attest to its benefits.

“This is really the first time in my life that I’ve taken public transportation,” said Trisha Emard, a 33-year-old Canyon Country resident who began riding Metrolink about a year ago, after getting a new job downtown. “They told me to get off [the train downtown] and take the Red Line. I never even knew we had a Red Line. I said, ‘A subway? In earthquake country, under the mountains?’ ”

Since making the adjustment, Emard has driven to work just twice.

“I see traffic go by and I go, ‘Hah! That could have been me,’ ” she said.

Community leaders also hope the station will boost the long-standing plan to revitalize the section known as Old Newhall, where much of the city’s Old West heritage lies, by drawing train-using tourists out from the city and generating foot traffic in the neighborhood.

Stanger realizes Metrolink, which has faced criticism as an overfunded tax drain, has a tough task in trying to expand what is already the West Coast’s largest commuter line. But he takes heart in the approach of Santa Claritans.

“I know people who have commuted [by train] on the East Coast, and they come out here and they’re just amazed at what’s possible,” he said.

Quinn, taking a break from his sketch pad, said he was intrigued to hear of the Newhall Station. But he said the current level of ridership, with uncrowded rail cars, is part of what attracted him--another possible hurdle for Metrolink if it keeps growing.

“People I talk to say, ‘I hear it’s great! I gotta do that!’ ” he said, but crowds have yet to materialize. “This isn’t like doing mass transit somewhere else. You’re not fighting for a seat. It’s real comfortable.”

Before hopping on the train, he added: “It’s not like New Jersey.”