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Editorial: Ride the rails into the future
Crash provides transit lesson
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Monday, regular Interstate 5 travelers experienced, and thousand of others saw, what traffic could look like if hordes of motorists simply parked their cars and used public transportation.
A fiery, chain-reaction accident last Friday, killed three people inside a tunnel used by truckers. It forced the closure of a stretch of the interstate through the busy Newhall Pass, and transportation officials warned that the road could be shut down for days.
That was enough to send motorists scrambling to find new ways to get to work Monday morning. Many of them — more than 7,000, by some estimates — decided to take the Metrolink commuter rail line, which added extra cars and ran nonstop service between downtown Los Angeles and Santa Clarita.
So, when officials unexpectedly reopened the roadway early Monday, traffic was light and flowing smoothly, a rarity on the interstate that normally carries 225,000 cars and trucks a day, many just inching along bumper to bumper during rush hour.
"Traffic is moving wonderfully," John Lutz, a California Highway Patrol spokesman, told reporters as he viewed the wide-open interstate Monday morning.
However, with the news the roadway was reopened, motorists returned Tuesday to their cars and SUVs, and gridlock returned, too.
What Mr. Lutz was describing Monday morning was what rush-hour freeway travel could be if Southern Californians would just abandon their cars, if only for a couple days each week, and give public transportation a try.
It would do wonders for stress levels, not to mention cutting down on pollution-generating car trips, saving gasoline, reducing household expenses and time. A recent report showed Ventura County drivers each wasted nearly a full week of work sitting in rush-hour traffic in 2005.
Imagine how many more hours would be lost, especially during rush hour, without the Metrolink rail system. When it began in 1992, Metrolink had a daily ridership of 2,500. Today, the system has seven lines, 54 stations and serves more than 42,000 riders daily.
As our population continues to increase and needed road projects stack up for lack of funding, we must each embrace greater use of trains, buses and carpooling to reach our places of work or face even more hours sitting in traffic.
We saw the future Monday morning on Interstate 5, and it's public transportation.
Posted by metrolinktrainrider on October 21, 2007 at 9:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
While some commuters may have taken Metrolink on Monday, October 15th, an estimate of 7,000 is wildly out of line with reality. It would be physically impossible for Metrolink to accommodate that many new riders in a single day, even with a couple cars added to its regular trains. And the two "additional" trains were mid-morning trains long after rush hour.
The reason for Monday's light traffic was more likely that, as CHP Officer Lutz explained on Tuesday, "Everyone who did not plan to go to work Monday went back today." And as Denise Tyrrell, the Metrolink spin doctor, had to admit, "[Metrolink ridership] wasn't as high a number, but it was more than usual."
The reason most Southern Californians will never abandon their cars is that public transportation in Southern California, to put it mildly, sucks.
While Metrolink was all over the news with its public relations opportunity for Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley commuters this week, that same Monday Metrolink stranded about 500 Los Angeles-bound passengers on its Riverside line when it cancelled (and then later uncancelled) its 407 train (8:00 a.m. arrival at Union Station).
To do the environmentally sound and good citizen deed of using public transportation, current Metrolink riders have to put up with this kind of stress and aggravation on a regular basis. Our memories are short, but I'm sure you can recall that just the prior week, on October 10th, Metrolink stranded over 10,000 homeward bound passengers at Union Station for hours when a switching malfunction occurred.
Metrolink riders endure delays of varying lengths on a regular basis, missed connections, inconvenient schedules, speed restricted tracks, crowded, and sometimes noxious, passenger cars, spotty to non-existent transit connections, indifferent station security, almost complete lack of or decrepit facilities at many stations, parking fees at more and more stations, and an operating agency (SCRRA) that couldn't care less about the rider experience.
And for all the sacrifices that train commuters put up with, they are thanked with a three-year, 20% fare increase that began in July so that Metrolink can add a half dozen trains to the heavily discounted weekend excursion service.
Is it any wonder that Southern Californians won't abandon their cars?
Until the politicians that run the public transportation agencies for their own self-serving interests start putting the passenger first, most Southern Californians will continue using their cars despite the fact that their taxes continue to fund these agencies to the tune of billions of dollars a year.
Richard
http://www.metrolinktrainriders.com/
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