Train Seats With a View -- of Traffic They’re Not in

There was a time, not long ago, when telling Rosie Acosta to stop driving her car would have drawn a laugh.

The lifelong Angeleno simply could not have imagined it. Even though she intensely disliked congested freeways. And even though she spent up to two hours every morning and another two hours every evening commuting between her home in La Puente and her job in Glassell Park.

“My son kept telling me to take the train ... but I refused to take it. I thought it was a waste of my time. I felt like I had to have a car,” said Acosta, a receptionist for a construction materials company. “Boy, was I wrong.”

These days, Acosta has cut her commute time in half by joining a growing number of Southern Californians who ride Metrolink to work.

Over the last year, ridership jumped by 9%, to 39,262 trips on an average weekday, according to the commuter rail agency. In the three years prior, from July 2000 to July 2003, ridership grew by 2.4%, 5.1% and 3.8%, respectively.

Some Metrolink trains have grown so packed this year that riders have been standing in the aisles or sitting on the steps between the upper and lower compartments.

The agency has ordered new trains, but they may not arrive for more than two years, officials said.

To ease crowding in the meantime, Metrolink recently leased 12 rail cars and one locomotive from Seattle’s Sounder commuter rail agency. The addition brings Metrolink’s total fleet to 155 cars and 39 locomotives.

Metrolink has not conducted a survey to explain the recent surge in its popularity. But agency spokeswoman Sharon Gavin, who commutes by train and talks with riders every day, has some theories.

The high price of gasoline could be a factor. Population growth in the Inland Empire might also be playing a role.

Some of the most crowded trains have been on Metrolink’s San Bernardino and Riverside lines, both of which run to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles.

But more than anything else, Gavin said, riders increasingly seem to despise driving to work.

“They’re tired of dealing with traffic,” Gavin said. “It’s more of a lifestyle choice than anything else.”

According to the Texas Transportation Institute, the average commuter in the Los Angeles metropolitan area -- which has the worst congestion in the nation -- spent an additional 93 hours sitting in a car in 2002 because of traffic delays.

Mary Noel, who lives in Glendora, tries to ride Metrolink to work whenever she can because it’s more comfortable and cheaper, she said.

When she uses transit, Noel drives to Metrolink’s Covina station, takes a westbound train to Union Station and transfers to the Metro Red Line subway, which has a downtown station a block from her office. The trip takes 45 minutes, she said.

A few times a month, when the parking lot at the Covina station is full, she drives 1 1/2 hours through stop-and-go traffic to work.

“And you pay for parking downtown, and your gas,” said Noel, a technical assistant for an insurance company.

Aware of the parking shortage, the city of Covina -- which provides parking for its Metrolink station -- is building a garage at the parking lot, with more than 600 spaces, twice the current capacity, Gavin said.

Metrolink, which opened in 1992, runs seven lines over 388 miles of tracks in Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties.

The average Metrolink trip is 36.4 miles. About 65% of riders previously drove alone or in a carpool, according to a passenger survey.

Acosta’s conversion came about suddenly.

Two months ago, she was driving home through rush-hour traffic on the San Bernardino Freeway, when a big rig rear-ended her, she said. Now she drives the five minutes from her home to the Metrolink station in Baldwin Park.

“It takes all the stress from me,” she said.

Her only regret is not having a car at lunchtime to run errands or go to the mall near her work.

But, she said, when she looks out the train’s window, she thinks: “I’m so glad I’m not out there -- all those poor people in traffic!”