(The following article by Dave Downey was posted on the North County Times website on February 12.)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Thanks to a strong economy and soaring gasoline prices, the number of Californians choosing to board Amtrak trains rather than drive from one region of the state to another reached a record 4.6 million last year, said officials for the national passenger railroad report.
That is how many people boarded trains on California’s three state-supported routes, including the popular Pacific Surfliner that runs between San Diego and San Luis Obispo. The others are the Capitol Corridor train, which ferries between San Francisco and Sacramento, and the San Joaquin, which connects Bakersfield with Oakland.
The three intercity services, funded by a $73 million state grant, combined to record a 5 percent increase over the year before, officials said.
“California is a success story on all three corridors,” said Bill Bronte, state rail chief for the California Department of Transportation in Sacramento, last week.
With 2.5 million, the Pacific Surfliner had by far the most passengers of the three regional routes. Indeed, the Surfliner has become the second-busiest Amtrak corridor in the country, eclipsed only by the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston, which attracts more than 9 million riders a year.
According to Amtrak statistics, the Surfliner has enjoyed steady growth in the last decade, after a brief downturn during the recession of the early 1990s. After declining from 1.8 million passengers in 1993 to 1.5 million in 1996, ridership on the coastal route surpassed 2 million for the first time in 2003, and reached 2.5 million in 2005.
Bronte attributed the Surfliner’s performance in part to the robust California economy and the skyrocketing prices at the pump that have made many Californians think twice about driving. He said it is difficult to assess which factor had the most impact, but it is telling that in the months when gas hovered around the $3 mark, the trains were registering 7 percent to 10 percent year-over-year monthly increases, compared with 5 percent for the year overall.
Alan Hoffman, a San Diego transportation consultant who has studied passenger trains extensively, said people should not be surprised by the growth of rail popularity in car-loving Southern California.
“Fuel is getting way more expensive, traffic is getting worse and you have people who are looking for alternatives,” Hoffman said.
Dispelling a myth
Hoffman said it is simply a myth that Southern Californians won’t hop on trains or buses.
“If transit becomes faster, more direct, more convenient, more reliable and safer, people say, ‘Hey I can use this,’ ” Hoffman said. “That’s true everywhere in the world. The dirty little secret is, people in Southern California aren’t the only ones in love with their cars.”
Amtrak officials also suggested that the numbers dispel a Southern California myth.
“People often think that California is thoroughly addicted to the automobile, and this is evidence that what Californians really love is freedom of travel,” said Marc Magliari, a spokesman for Amtrak in Chicago. “The Pacific Surfliner and other California corridor trains are increasingly popular.”
Magliari said ridership was up in most other parts of the United States as well, and reached 25.3 million for the nation as a whole. That was up from 25 million the previous year.
“This is the third straight year of national ridership increases on passenger trains,” Magliari said. “We would have been even higher than the previous year, if not for the severe storms on the Gulf Coast.”
He said Hurricane Katrina made traveling across the southern tier of the United States difficult for well more than a month.
“Katrina came ashore the last weekend of August, and we didn’t restore any service to New Orleans until October,” said Magliari. “During that time, the train that goes from California to Florida was unable to go past San Antonio, Texas.”
As in California, Amtrak’s popularity surged elsewhere in Katrina’s wake.
“In the latter part of the summer, as gasoline prices reached $3 and higher, there were significant increases in inquiries via our Web site, in phone calls via our 800 number and in ridership on our trains,” Magliari said.
The Pacific Surfliner offers 12 round trips daily between San Diego and Los Angeles. Five of those trains go on to Santa Barbara and two reach as far as San Luis Obispo.
Stops in San Diego County include Oceanside, Solana Beach and downtown San Diego.
According to a work plan for the next decade, Amtrak hopes to unveil the first Pacific Surfliner service to San Francisco in 2007.
Governor’s bond targets intercity rail
That same long-term strategy aims to reduce the average travel time between San Diego and Los Angeles by 15 minutes by 2016. It now takes 2 hours and 45 minutes.
Amtrak also is aiming to boost the fare recovery rate —- the percentage of each trip’s cost that is covered by its fare —- on the Surfliner from the current 58 percent to 65 percent over the next decade. Bronte said the 58 percent mark is already among the best rates in the nation for passenger rail systems. Many commuter trains typically cover well below half their costs from fares.
Bronte noted that the Pacific Surfliner officially is an intercity service, not a commuter train, although it does attract a few commuters who are looking for midday travel options. Commuter rail systems generally provide a lot of trains during the morning and evening rush hours, but tend to provide sparse service at other times, making it difficult for commuters to make midday appointments or go home early.
Nationally, Amtrak received $1.2 billion in federal subsidies last year.
Because the Surfliner is officially an intercity train, it would be eligible for a share of $500 million that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has targeted at intercity rail in his mammoth $68 billion infrastructure bond proposal. The proposal includes a total of $12 billion for transportation, mostly for highways.
The transportation bonds are proposed to be divided into two $6 billion measures, one of which could appear on the June ballot. The Legislature and governor face a March 10 deadline for hashing out a package that could be taken to California voters then.
Magliari suggests that the ridership increases and the chance for additional funding means that the future is potentially bright for Amtrak, which routinely is targeted by some members of Congress for derailing.
“The future is usually brighter than what our critics like to say,” he said.