Mass Transit Is Working--and It’s Just Getting Rolling

In most major metropolitan areas, mass transit systems are heralded by urban planners and transportation officials as a cure-all for such modern ills as smog, choking congestion and resource conservation.

Ride the rails, they say, and you’ll be treated to a cost-effective, almost convivial journey to wherever you need to go.

Instead of cursing those other drivers and belching out barrels of carbon monoxide and other polysyllabic pollutants, you can read the newspaper, catch up on some work or just watch the landscape drift by.

Or take the bus, which is even cheaper, and be treated to a chauffeur-driven ride while leaving the highways and its headaches to those who insist their way’s the best way.

But can public transit really work? Especially in Ventura County, where wide swaths of green still separate the cities?

First, a little context.

For the last 15 to 20 years Ventura County has been a destination for urban refugees fleeing the crowded asphalt and concrete confines of the San Fernando Valley and the rest of Los Angeles.

Figures from the 1990 census showed that about 5,000 people commuted by car to areas outside the county each day. Not surprisingly, Los Angeles and its suburbs were the most frequent destination.

The roads most often used by these commuters are the Ventura Freeway; California 118, which passes through Simi Valley and winds through to the San Fernando Valley; and California 126, which funnels traffic out to the monstrous Interstate 5.

In recent years transportation officials, hoping to get a head start on what they believe will be a massive influx of residents and commuters in the coming years, have begun an aggressive campaign to establish reliable transit systems.

In 1992, Metrolink began serving county residents with trains running from coastal communities to Los Angeles.

Metrolink, which now costs about $500,000 a year to operate, runs trains from Oxnard through Camarillo, Moorpark, and Simi Valley and serves an average of 575 passengers a day.

Fares, which are based on distance, run as high as $12 for a round-trip ticket from Oxnard to Los Angeles.

The same trip in a moderately efficient car, say a 1993 Ford Explorer, which averages about 20 miles to the gallon on the highway, would cost about $9 in gasoline and about $2.60 average in wear and tear.

With a deal hammered out last week between the Ventura County Transportation Commission and the Union Pacific Railroad, which pledges an additional $400,000 in federal and state funds for capital projects such as tunnel and track repairs, about $1,562 is spent a year for every passenger who climbs on board.

Is it worth it?

“We think so,” said Mary Travis, the county commission’s director of rail operations. “People have to understand that this is just the beginning of the service. We expect to expand it, and by that time more people will begin using it.”

With revenues from Metrolink commuters covering a little more than 40% of the operating overhead, Travis said, the cost of operating the system is relatively low and getting better all the time.

Additionally, she said, the rail system serves those who need it most: commuters who have no other means of transportation, senior citizens and disabled individuals who are unable to operate a car.

“The people who use Metrolink and other transit systems usually don’t have an option,” she said. “This is it. . . . Without it they’d be stuck.”

By summer, the Transportation Commission will be running an experimental, two-year transit program, dubbed the “Conejo Connection,” which will carry commuters by bus from as far north as Oxnard through eastern Ventura County to the Warner Center in the San Fernando Valley.

According to a survey conducted by the Transportation Commission, the L.A. City Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transit Authority, about 8,000 people who work in the Warner Center area live in Ventura County and neighboring L.A. County communities, such as Westlake Village and Agoura Hills.

The survey states that many of those commuters had a strong interest in the type of transit service the Conejo Connection will provide.

The cost of the program, which will include three buses, will be about $250,000 a year and will operate during peak hours in the morning and evening.

About $400,000 of the money needed to seed the project will come from federal funds and the city of Los Angeles.

For residents in the east county who spend their days south of the county line, the Simi Valley Transit system operates several buses to and from the San Fernando Valley.

The system, which has been up and running for the last 18 years, makes about 33,000 trips each year at an annual cost of about $298,000. About 70% of that is funded through federal grants, with the rest coming from the city.

“It’s a commuter service that has been supported reasonably well by the public,” said Simi Valley Transit Deputy Director Ray Turpin. “It provides a link for residents here to get to and from work in an efficient manner.”

It’s no secret that mass transit systems have been lightning rods for criticism.

Most of that criticism has centered on the argument that freeway commuters, regardless of whether they spend an hour parked on the 405 every day, love their cars and fight tooth and nail to keep driving them.

But transportation experts, such as Sacramento-based Dave Amies, say it can work, and from what he knows of Ventura County’s transit system, it works well.

“To some it might be surprising that there’s a mass transit system in Ventura County because there’s no big cities, but that actually works to their favor,” he said. “From what I’ve seen, enough people are using it to make the systems cost-effective for the county and cities to run. And in a few years, with more people, who knows? It could be running in the black.”

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Peeved? Baffled? Miffed? Or merely just perplexed? Street Smart answers your most probing questions about the joys and horrors of driving around Ventura County. Write to: Street Smart, c/o Coll Metcalfe, Los Angeles Times, 1445 Los Angeles Ave., Suite 208, Simi Valley 93065. Or call the Sound Off line at 653-7546. Include a simple sketch if needed to help explain. In all cases include your full name, address and day, and evening phone numbers. Street Smart cannot answer anonymous queries and may edit your letter of phone message due to space constraints.