Readers React: To get more riders, Metrolink should lower fares

To the editor: What I found most interesting in this article were the explanations given by Metrolink officials for the rail system’s declining ridership. They should have delved more into the price of gasoline. (“Metrolink’s annual ridership continues to drop,” Sept. 7)

Ridership surges when gas prices go up and declines when gas prices drop. Gasoline prices are staying steady or declining now because since 2007, people are driving less, moving closer to their jobs, driving more energy-efficient vehicles and using transit more.

The comments by officials about ridership growth on the weekends due to the $10 pass make my case that ridership is price sensitive. One way to greatly increase ridership on the weekends would be to add frequencies to existing services and schedule these trains to connect with each other so people can transfer to more places with the weekend pass.

In any business when you have excess inventory — and seats are the inventory of transportation — it’s time to have a sale.

Noel Braymer, Oceanside

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To the editor: Metrolink doesn’t get it. All this talk of American ingenuity is nonsense when you can’t run a train on time every day at every station. The Japanese, Germans, French, Spanish, Dutch and British all do it, even with trains that go much faster.

Oh, by the way, Amtrak, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Panera all have free Wi-Fi, and Metrolink doesn’t. It should get out of the Stone Age and sell ad space inside its cars too.

Robert Bubnovich, Irvine

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