(The following article by Phil Pitchford was posted on the Press-Enterprise website on March 9.)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Metrolink service in the Inland area is poised for further expansion this year with new weekend service to Orange County and further work on the planned Perris Valley Line.
The expanded service on the Inland Empire-Orange County Line is expected to include weekend trains by late May. The route has been used in past summers for the weekend Beach Train program, later dubbed SummerLink. Planned are three permanent roundtrips between San Bernardino and Oceanside on Saturdays and two on Sundays.
Exact schedules are still being developed, but four of the trains are expected to leave the Inland area in the morning and return in the afternoon from Oceanside. The fifth train, on Saturday, will leave Oceanside in the morning and return there at night.
The weekend service is a joint effort of the transportation agencies in Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties. Weekend service already is available on the San Bernardino Line between downtown Riverside and Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, but this would be the first permanently scheduled Metrolink weekend service between Orange County and one of its neighbors.
Passenger trains are not expected on the Perris Valley Line until at least 2008, but transportation officials are planning an outreach effort now. This will be the first time since Metrolink started in the Inland area in 1994 that new service has dramatically increased rail traffic on existing tracks, Standiford said.
Some meetings have been held, and more public outreach is expected later this year and in part of 2007. The commission approved two $140,000 contracts Wednesday with public-relations firms — O’Reilly Public Relations of Riverside and Moore Iacofano Goltsman Inc. of Pasadena — to help.
The tracks that the Perris Valley Line will use now serve a few freight trains daily and no passenger trains. The tracks roughly parallel Interstate 215 between Perris and Riverside, then run near UC Riverside, the University neighborhood and Hyatt and Highland elementary schools.
The tracks are less than 20 feet from the playground at Highland, and although the playground is fenced, most students are used to seeing few trains on those tracks, principal Tena Petix said.
“So far, I haven’t received any information about it,” she said. “I certainly hope that Highland and Hyatt elementary schools are included.”
Many residents of the University area are concerned about the planned service, said Denise Allen, who has lived in the area for several years.
“I think it will lower the quality of life but ultimately raise our property values,” Allen said. “People are going to want to live close to the line and work in LA.”