Metrolink to switch to RFID tickets

KPCC is reporting that Metrolink and Metro have worked out a solution to the faregate debacle-- All Metrolink tickets will be embedded with an RFID chip to allow passage through Metro faregates.

Didn't we just get rid of expensive, hard-to-manufacture fare media?

A much more sensible solution would be to allow Metrolink riders to pay for their fare with their TAP cards, and set up participating transfer agencies to detect and accept those Metrolink fares. This would also give suburban bus agencies outside of LA county an incentive to start accepting TAP, which I could see unifying the transit system of all of Greater Los Angeles, much like the Clipper card has knit together much of the Bay Area. But, for whatever reason, Metrolink seems as dead-set against using TAP for fare collection as Metro is set on the inane quest to lock their faregates.

That said, it is Metro's dumb decision to spend all this money on turnstiles. I hope they're paying for the new tickets.

Just a quick thought...

but am I the only transit geek that gets annoyed when people call Metrolink "the metro"? Because it happens ALL THE TIME. You get on the train and someone talking loudly on their cell phone says to their conversational partner "Yeah, I'm on the train... you know, the metro... to LA..."

Metrolink is a thing. Metro is also a thing. They are two totally different things. This is a huge pet peeve of mine, and probably only mine.

San Bernardino Transit Center Plans Released

And it looks good! There's a ~1600 sq. m. (~17,000 sq. ft.) building on the site, which will have space for two retail stores, restrooms, a ticket office, and a bike station. 22 bus bays are on the plans (two along Rialto Ave.), along with a stop on the sbX BRT system, a Metrolink station on the south edge, a large public plaza, and a total of 3 (ADA) parking spaces on site. This is a fantastic plan, and a great example of what a small urban transit station should look like.

More from the Omnitrans Blog.

Metrolink's 2nd "Beach Train" Here To Stay

It's July, which means that the Inland Empire-Orange County line is now operating with two round trips per weekend day. This year, however, the service will not be dropped in October, but rather will continue "indefinitely." This from an agency that dropped nearly all IE-OC weekend service just a few short years ago. I'm not sure I'm ready to trust you again yet, Metrolink, but I am glad to see some service returning to the IE-OC line. Please keep it up.

Choice Riders

Oops! It's been a while since I've posted. Sorry, folks, I'll process refunds right away.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about the rhetoric of transit agencies reaching out to "choice riders." You often hear about efforts to entice "choice riders" on to transit systems, by providing special bus service or special amenities that will lure these elusive creatures out of their steel boxes. Quite frankly, I think that this type of thinking is insulting, confusing, and dangerous.

First, it is insulting to the agency's normal rider base. When you separate your ridership in to "choice" riders and everyone else, you're saying that everyone else doesn't have a choice. You're saying that it doesn't really matter what kind of service you provide to those riders, because they'll put up with whatever you give them. This is not only insulting, it isn't true. Even the car-free by circumstance* have choices-- they can choose to walk, to ride a bicycle, to call a friend or family member for a ride, to hitchhike, to call a taxi/Craigslist rideshare person, or (probably most commonly) simply not make that trip at all. And that's the real shame-- transit cuts that impact "no-choice" riders really hurt everyone, because they mean that that person is blocked from participating fully in their community, blocked from perhaps getting or keeping a job, from attending community meetings, from giving their children opportunities for after-school activities and enrichment.

But finally, these "no-choice" riders do have one other choice: they can spend way too much of their meager incomes on an old, unreliable rattle-trap of a car, because your transit service was so bad that it's the only choice they have left to make. That's bad for them, that's bad for the environment, that's bad for society.

Second, it's confusing, because "choice riders" are an ill-defined group. When are these people making their choice? I suppose what I'm really getting at is, am I a choice rider? I'm not wealthy by any means, but I really could afford to own and operate a car. I choose not to, but because of that choice I rely heavily on the local transit system (and Chloe). When you divide the world in to "choice riders" and everyone else, you make the unstated assumption that everyone in your service district either owns a car, or can't afford to own a car. Really, transit agencies should make it a priority to enable the creation and expansion of the middle category: the car-free by choice.

Last, it's dangerous, because it creates two tiers of transit service. Public transit should serve community needs, but it shouldn't do so at the expense of having an integrated network. The idea that there are "choice riders" and everyone else leads to Metrolink Syndrome, where there is a peak-hour peak-direction express transit network (connected to plentiful parking), and a local all-day transit network, and never the twain shall meet. This kind of network planning assumes that, while people might want to ride transit in the city during the work week, they'll always be drivers when they're at home in the suburbs. This is exactly the opposite of what we should be encouraging. I'm all for having park-and-rides as a short-term solution, because the truth is that our transit network isn't yet at the point where it serves everyone's needs effectively (especially in places like Banning and Murrieta, where RTA provides lots of service to park-and-ride lots), but by running express service exclusively to those park-and-ride lots, you send the message that your local transit network and your express network are completely unrelated. Nobody is supposed to take the express bus back from LA and then get on a local bus to go home-- indeed, nobody can.

So let's stop talking about "choice riders" and everybody else, and instead simply focus on providing transit that works for everybody. Good-quality transit will serve the needs of the car-free-by-circumstance, and (if it's good enough) will also entice habitual drivers out of their cars.

*You know who I'm talking about-- the poor, the aged, the disabled, and the young. I refuse to use the word "car-less" on this blog, because I really do think that not having a car is freedom.

That Transit Center report...

Last year, I noted that the Transportation Committee of the City Council had a very, very long stretch without any meetings- and that one important item, the Multi-Modal Transit Center Update, was supposed to happen during that stretch. That was in February. The Transportation Committee met only three times last year, in April, June and September. At the September meeting, the Transit Center Update was finally received and filed.

Taking a look at the report, there are three options on the table, and three construction possibilities if either of the latter two options are chosen. The three options are:

1. No-build. Leave the buses downtown, at the current over-capacity terminal. Obviously, this would be bad.
2. Build a new terminal on Vine St. near the Metrolink station, but only route buses that require a layover there. This would mean that routes that flow through downtown would not stop at the terminal, such as 1, 10, 14, and 16, and the network would be severely broken by a lack of connection points. More bad.
3. Build a new terminal on Vine St., and route all bus operations there.

You can take a look at the document to see the three location options for the new station. All three would include 14 bus bays for general transit use, two of which are large enough for 60' articulated buses, and 4 bays for long-distance buses. Option 1 would use the site purchased by the City Council for the center, across Vine St. from the station, while options 2 and 3 would re-purpose some of the present parking lot for transit operations. This would get buses closer to trains, but in each case the contractor predicts that a parking garage would be "required." While nothing is final yet, I believe Option 1 is the likely candidate.

So, while the transit center project is moving like molasses, it is still moving.

A parking garage, by any other name...

Since we're on the topic of California's planning and development processes, I think I'll take the time to talk about another pet peeve of mine: the misappropriation of transit and air-quality improvement funds to fund automobile projects. This problem is endemic throughout suburban America, and a great number of recent projects in Riverside highlight the issue. The Magnolia Ave. grade separation, for example, was paid for in part by funding received by the city for air quality improvement. (The City of Riverside portion is CMAQ funds.) The Colton Crossing project was sold in part by referring to the benefits it would bring to transit users, although only 7 passenger trains a day (compared to hundreds of freight trains) use that particular section of rail. While funding documents for the upcoming SR-91 HOV project are not yet easily accessible on the Internet, the benefits to transit customers are already being touted by project boosters- despite the fact that only 5 buses a day in each direction will use the lanes. The entire SR-91 Improvement Project, which will cost several hundred million dollars, will be used by only 10 buses in each direction per weekday, and only 4 on weekends. Making it easier to drive will, of course, only lead to increased congestion and the withering of alternative transportation.

The project that prompted this post, however, is a particularly egregious example. It's not located here in Riverside, but in Baldwin Park. The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports on the City of Baldwin Park's plans to build a "transit center" adjacent to the present Metrolink station. (I should mention that, as a station on the San Bernardino line, the Baldwin Park Metrolink enjoys some of the most frequent service in the system.) After reading the article, however, I got the impression that this new "transit center" was only tangentially related to transit. The article gushed over the brand new, 500-stall parking structure that would be linked to the train station, and lamented the plight of commuters who currently have to walk two whole blocks to park their personal vehicles (for free!) and access the train. I thought that this might have simply been local media bias, however, so I checked out the project documents. Perhaps there would be an improved bus terminal, or some other improvement worthy of the "transit center" name.

As I feared, the project will add very little in the way of actual improvements to transit service in the area, besides train-adjacent parking. A few bike racks and a possible bus driver's restroom, as well as a transit information kiosk, will be added. Bus riders will still be dropped off on the street, and those unlucky enough to be heading westbound will have to find somewhere to cross the street to access the new pedestrian bridge. (No pedestrian traffic signal is indicated in the project documents.) Also, of the six levels of parking, the project documents suggest that only two will actually be dedicated to transit users.



I don't have anything against park-and-ride facilities per se, and they do serve a purpose in getting regular work commuters on to specialized commuter transit. However, funding for our transit systems is scarce. Park-and-ride facilities actually undermine the goals of local transit agencies, as they allow commuters to take advantage of the benefits of transit for their work trip, while incentivizing their auto use for all other trips they make. Our cities should be focusing on transit projects that reduce automobile dependence, rather than cementing it.

This project is being paid for by a Federal Transit Administration grant, but it is a lot more about getting a sparkly new downtown parking garage for the City of Baldwin Park than it is about transit.

Metrolink's Toy Express

Metrolink's Holiday Toy Express will be stopping in Riverside on Saturday. The festively-lit train will be collecting unwrapped toys for low-income families. The train will be at the Riverside-La Sierra station at 5pm (17h00) on Saturday night, collecting unwrapped toys and providing a light show for the other side of Riverside. It won't be stopping at Downtown this season, so if you'd like to make a donation, this is your chance. For other options, see the full Holiday Toy Express schedule.

RTA #15, Metrolink 91 and IE-OC lines.

The Transportation Toolbox

I alluded to this post in my earlier Declaration of Independence- from the car, that is. I want to talk about the versatility of the automobile, and the choices people make about transportation often without thinking about them. I want to do this by looking at what a typical auto addict's transportation toolbox, and how it compares to a more balanced one. (Spoiler alert: I'm going to use mine for the "more balanced" column.)


Auto Addict's Transportation Toolbox:



Automobile. 
Used for: The vast majority of trips, from the corner store to the daily commute to the occasional cross-country road trip.



Aircraft. 
Used for: Moving people for most long-distance trips, generally around a thousand km and up.

Not a lot of diversity here. Now, granted, a lot of people will engage in a walk from time to time, and there are quite a few recreational hikers and cyclists out there... but, for pure transportation, this is roughly what many Americans' lives look like, especially in suburbia- and especially for what used to be called "the middle class."  The design of many tract developments especially almost necessitates a toolkit that looks like this, as it often walls people off from walking, cycling and taking transit. Furthermore, for long-distance transportation, many are entirely unaware of our national rail system and (despite encouraging changes in the northeast and in Chicagoland) disinclined to use long-distance bus service.

Let's now take a look at what my transportation toolkit looks like. Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect, but it should be clear that an awareness of one's transportation options allows a better matching between the job at hand and the tool used to do it.

Car-free Transportation Toolbox:



Walking.
Used for: A small number of very short trips, often with company. Honestly, I don't walk too much, but I do on occasion. As I've mentioned, we have a fairly nice shopping centre within five minutes' walk of our apartment, and so sometimes the wife and I will walk there for shopping or a nice dinner.


Bicycling.
Used for: Most trips within a 10 mile radius that I take alone, including moderate cargo hauling. My bike is my go-to transportation tool, and serves the majority of trips I take. You'd also be amazed at the amount of cargo I can haul on the back, with nothing more than panniers and a rear rack. (I'm drooling over the amazingly versatile Burley Travoy trailer, but haven't plunked down the money yet.) Sadly, my wife is difficult to coax on to the back of a bicycle, so it's rare that we pedal places together.


Local Bus.
Used for: A lot of around-town trips, especially during inclement weather, as well as some longer-distance trips that would be difficult to manage on a bicycle. I also used the RTA to haul food for 80 Occupiers downtown earlier, so it's occasionally useful for certain specialized types of cargo. I can also, occasionally, manage to get Dani on to a bus, so we've been known to go out together via transit.


Commuter Rail.
Used for: Pretty much every trip I make to LA or Orange County (though I sometimes use the bus to the OC). Also occasionally the first step in longer-distance rail trips, leaving from LA Union.

 
Scooter.
Used for: Most trips my wife makes, along with a lot of trips that the two of us makes. It will haul the both of us, and not a whole lot more, so it's not generally used for more than light shopping.


Zipcar.
Used for: Shopping trips, mostly. It's also a great backup when one of us has the scooter and the other one *has* to get somewhere quickly, or when we were dealing with car breakdowns.


Long-distance Rail.
Used for: Any long-distance trip that it makes sense for, including my 30-day 25-state 4-province Amtrak trip. Travel by train is my favourite way to travel- especially if I can afford sleeper.


Long-distance bus.
Used for: Trips where the train can't hack it. Sometimes, I use Greyhound as a supplement to Metrolink and other intra-regional services. Other times, it's used for long highway trips. One must be careful when trying to take the Hound to Vegas.




Aircraft.
Used for: Long-distance domestic trips where time is a factor, as well as international trips (which I haven't taken enough of...).

Once you get away from the car-centric paradigm of transportation, a whole range of transport options opens up to you- and it's important, for all of the reasons that readers of this blog already know, that we restore balance to our transportation system.

NOTE: The photos of the car, ZipCar, airplane, Greyhound bus, and hiking boots are not mine. They are used under Creative Commons licensing, and the photographers are credited in the alt text.

Simple Truths

I'm in a ranty mood today, so here goes. What follows is a short list of simple truths about alternative transportation that are nevertheless ignored by many denizens of Riverside:

• The bus is not smelly or dirty, generally speaking, nor is it full to the brim with borderline psychotics.
• Bicycle lanes are intended for the use of bicycles. Not joggers, strollers, skateboards, or kick scooters, but bicycles.
• Sidewalks are intended for the use of pedestrians, skateboards, kick scooters, etc., but not bicycles.
• The back of the bus is going to the same place as the rest of the bus- which means it's a-okay to stand back there, rather than smoosh together so tightly that nobody can board.
• Board at the front door, exit at the rear.
• SUV-sized strollers don't fit well on buses, especially at rush hour.
• Metro does not serve Riverside.
• Bicycle lanes, just like nearly every other kind of lane, travel in one direction only. In fact, they're even painted with helpful little arrows to remind you of which direction that is.

More Delays?

Thanks to a group called Friends of the Riverside Hills, who filed a lawsuit challenging the EIR, the Perris Valley Line will be delayed yet again.

I think it's telling that the bulk of links that come up on Google for this organization are litigation-related.

Reminder- No Labour Day Bus Service!

Best of luck getting to those barbecues, folks. There will be no bus service on Labour Day- which is tomorrow, Monday the 5th. Both RTA and Omni are shut down. Riverside Special Transportation (for seniors and the disabled) is also not running. Metrolink is only operating the Antelope Valley Line, on a special holiday schedule. OCTA and Metro will run on holiday schedules, while Foothill will run on a weekend schedule.

If you need to get around Riverside, the bike lanes will be open. You can also pick up a ZipCar at UCR, if you can snag a reservation. Riverside's three cab companies are available at:

Company	Tel.
AAA Inland Empire Cab	1-888-333-TAXI (8294)
Yellow Cab Riverside	951-286-6666
Happy Taxi	951-781-TAXI (8294)

For inter-city transportation, Greyhound serves San Bernardino, Claremont, Santa Ana, Anaheim and LA. Amtrak also has one train daily to LA, leaving at 5:53am from the Riverside-Downtown station (south platform, over the bridge) and returning at 8:03pm.

Good luck!

Art for Transit Geeks

Via Curbed LA, a new art installation is going in at LACMA:



Not only is this sculpture every little kid's dream- seriously, thousands of matchbox cars and several toy trains thrown in for good measure- but the artist notes that he's trying to make a statement about the coming end of the car-centered city. The crowded lift ramps evoke traffic-snarled freeways, and the noise (judging from the video) echoes the aggravating din of car-choked city centres.

LACMA is transit-accessible! Take the Metrolink in to LA Union Station, followed by the Purple Line to Wilshire/Western and the 720 to Wilshire & Fairfax. Admission is $15, $10 students and seniors, free on second Tuesdays. This might be a great outing for Metrolink's new Weekend Pass, just $10 for the whole weekend including local transit transfers.

The Rail-Bus Divide

I have written before on this blog about a problem faced by transit activists in promoting bus transit. Travel by bus is highly stigmatized, at least in the United States, and even people who are environmentally conscious may not be persuaded to ride a bus. (I'm looking here, of course, at my fellow middle-class white liberals.) This stigma is a cultural one, but it is also perpetuated by policy decisions in many places where buses and rail connect with one another. In order to have an effective public transit system, we need to allow people to travel easily regardless of mode. Some places do this better than others, and some do it much worse.

Of the places where I've been, the west coast cities of San Francisco, Portland and Vancouver probably do the most to minimize the bus-rail divide. San Francisco's Muni runs both light rail and bus services, and the two are treated equivalently as far as fare policy is concerned. In many cases, the decision to run a bus rather than a train on a given route seems to be determined by the city's famous hills, rather than ridership demand, and bus frequencies compete with- and often overtake- rail frequencies. Bus and rail are shown as similar-weighted lines on the same system map, as if either is an equally valid choice for travel. Downtown, Portland does much the same thing. Buses and light rail run along the same transit mall, are shown on the same map, and accept the same tickets. Outside of downtown, TriMet's system more resembles Vancouver's TransLink, where rail is used as a long-distance trunk line, connecting to buses at each station. The connections are always well-signed, with clear explanations of where each bus goes.

Roughly in the middle of this scale are Chicago and New York. Each runs an extensive rail system, and an even more extensive system of bus lines. If you're downtown in either city, you can't help but see at least a transit bus or two, and Chicago's El is prominent anywhere you look in the Loop. Fares on bus and rail are the same, and passes cover travel on both. However, if you are at a rail station, the only lines you will see on a system map are the rail lines. New York's famous Map shows only bus connections to the two airports. Even New York bus riders would be hard-pressed to find one of the elusive borough system maps, which show both rail and bus service. (When I was in New York this summer, I spotted one on a bus- but it was a Staten Island map. We were in Brooklyn. I have heard they are available at local libraries, if you ask.) Chicago has a bus/rail system map, which is impressive indeed, but it is posted only at bus stops- in effect saying that you needn't know about bus lines until you've already indicated your willingness to ride a bus. (Chicago's bus numbering scheme leaves something to be desired as well- 151 is a frequent line along Michigan Ave., while 17 runs a handful of trips on the edge of CTA's service area.) Both New York and Chicago, however, are well-integrated when compared with our nations' capital.

Washington, D.C.'s major transit operator is WMATA, also known as Metro. Like many big cities, Metro operates both an extensive bus network and a rail system. However, the agency seems to do its best to ensure that these two systems are not integrated. As a tourist in DC, every pamphlet seems to have Metro Rail stations or maps listed. Metro offers a day pass for tourist travel, allowing unlimited use until the end of the service day for a flat $9. There's also a weekly pass, a "short trip" weekly pass (which covers only a certain distance during rush hour) and a regional smart card. However, there is no pass that you can buy which will cover a combined trip by rail and bus. (Critics may say that this is because Metrorail uses a distance-based fare system, but the other major distance-based rail system, San Francisco's BART, offers monthly flash passes for connecting operators and discounted transfers to local bus and rail systems. Our own Metrolink offers distance-based passes which include bus service.) Furthermore, there are no bus maps in the stations, and bus maps at the stops include only schematics of the route they serve. Even the D.C. Circulator, which seems to be an attempt to specifically alleviate the stigma of city buses, is not well-mapped nor integrated with Metrorail fares.

Most of the time during our vacation, Dani and I rode rail lines. They tend to be better-advertised, more predictable, and more frequent (as a class) than bus lines, and so they are often the default choice of somebody who doesn't know the system well. In every other city, however, we used buses at least a few times- while the networks were not as integrated or as legible as they should be, they were integrated and legible enough to be useful to even brief visitors such as ourselves. In D.C., however, we didn't ride even a single solitary bus. There were times when I very much wanted to, even- because of the layout of Metrorail in downtown D.C., a trip that should have been 5 minutes on a bus was nearly 30 on three different trains. However, the fact that I had paid for the rail day pass and didn't have change for the bus kept me underground, wasting my time. Policies like this, which actively segregate "rail riders" from "bus riders," make a transit system unnecessarily complicated and fail to leverage existing transit infrastructure. D.C. Metrorail has a severe crowding problem during the morning rush- how much of it could be solved by letting riders choose the bus instead?

By the way, a commenter earlier mentioned to me an interesting development in the field of bus-rail integration right here in SoCal. Along with six new intra-county OC Line trains (which, I believe, represent the first non-IEOC Line trains not to stop at LA Union Station), OCTA is now promoting the "OC Link" pass. For only $7 on weekdays, riders get a day of access to any OCTA local bus and any Metrolink train within Orange County. This is a commendable venture, allowing riders a quick, inexpensive way of making intermodal journeys and using spare capacity on LA-bound Metrolink trains. I'm still disappointed in RTA's one-transfer-only Metrolink policy, and they're certainly a long way away from something like this. (I should mention that I proposed a similar agreement for RTA some time ago.)

PV Line Approved!

Inland News Today reports that RCTC approved the final environmental impact report for the Perris Valley Line Metrolink extension. They expect federal approval "within weeks" and construction starting by the end of the year.

Of course, the PVL will do very little to shift mobility patterns out here in Riverside County. Commuter rail is really a tool to reduce inner-city traffic, and to provide for a smoother commute for suburb-CBD trips. Still, more transit is more transit, and I will look forward to riding the rails to the Orange Empire Railway Museum- the Perris depot has been designed to provide a cross-platform transfer to their excursion trains.

New Metrolink Fares

As I covered earlier, new Metrolink fares are coming. The new 7-day and weekend passes will become available on July 1st. The Family & Friends 4-Pack will be discontinued on the same day, while the 10 Trip tickets will be phased out by this fall.

Transit-Friendly Flying

As you all are doubtlessly aware, Burbank-Bob Hope Airport is the only airport in the region directly served by rail. Metrolink and Amtrak both stop mere steps from the terminal. According to LAist, Jet Blue has decided to take advantage of that fact.

Your same-day JetBlue boarding pass is now good for a Metrolink ride to and from the airport. From what I can tell, that means "from anywhere in the system to/from the airport," but I'll edit this post when I have better information.

Sadly, JetBlue's main hub in the region is the Long Beach Municipal Airport. If you've never used it, it's a fantastic little airport- few passengers, short security lines, little delay- but it's one of the most difficult to get to on transit from the IE. Still, this provides some options for car-free travelers looking to get away.

Metrolink Fare Changes Approved

The fare changes that I reported on in this post have been approved by the Metrolink Board. Specifically, the 10-Tripper and Friends and Family 4 Pack have been eliminated. In their place, a 7-Day pass and a $10 Weekend pass have been instituted. Also, college students will now receive discounts on one-way and round-trip tickets, as well as on monthly passes and the new 7-Day pass.

Take photos of the Metrolink validator machines- they're on track to disappear.

Service Changes

Just a quick reminder: both RTA and Metrolink are now operating on new schedules. RTA switched on Sunday, Metrolink on Monday. Read the summaries of the changes here (Metrolink, RTA).

Changes Coming at Metrolink

It hasn't made a huge splash in the blogosphere (likely overshadowed by CicLAvia), but Metrolink has been up to all sorts of stuff lately. There are schedule changes coming May 9th, which bring not only expansion but a few long-awaited express trains. (None serving Riverside, but I've always said that the Riverside Line felt like an express anyway.) The agency has apparently caught both Dodger and Angel Fever, providing special service on several lines to both teams' home games. Lastly, the Board is looking for feedback from customers on a shakeup in fare policy, which would eliminate the 10-Trip pass and enact several measures to improve weekend ridership. Let's take a look, shall we?

Service Changes
On Monday, 9th May, Metrolink will be implementing some service changes. Most of these are minor schedule modifications, and there are (thankfully) no service cuts. Among the items affecting Riverside:

• Train #408 on the Riverside Line will run 5 minutes earlier, presumably to accommodate one of the new morning express trains at Union Station.
  
• Beach Train service, adding an extra round trip on the IE-OC line on weekends, will be published in the schedule. Service will run 2nd July-9th October.

Of course, the big news is the introduction of express service on the Antelope Valley and San Bernardino Lines. On the SB line, one train a day in each direction will run express from San Berdoo, stopping at Rancho Cucamonga, Covina and Los Angeles in the morning- and the same in reverse in the afternoon.

Beyond the express service, there are also two more local-stop round trips being added to the SB Line next month. Of course, schedules have also been re-jiggered extensively, both to accommodate the screaming-fast express trains (60m SB-LA!) and to improve transfers at LA Union. If you ride the SB Line- and you should, it's awesome- you should get a new schedule book or pamphlet.

Fare Policy Changes
Metrolink has been thinking creatively about ways to reduce the costs of providing service- and it shows. One possibility they've come up with is the elimination of the 10-Trip Ticket. You may say that this doesn't sound terribly cost-saving, but if you've seen a Metrolink 10-Trip ticket before you can probably follow this logic. First, the 10-trippers are printed on thick, specially-cut paper stock, which is entirely different from every other ticket they sell. This special (and expensive) ticket stock is then fed into the little validator machines you see on the train platform- each and every train platform. Those machines then have to be maintained, emptied of paper clippings, filled full of ink, repaired, etc. Metrolink estimates that they could save $300,000 a year by eliminating the tickets.

What, then, happens to 10-trip riders? Well, if you're like the majority of riders with a 10-trip, you use it to ride the trains for one (work) week- 5 days x 2 trips daily. In lieu of the 10-trip ticket, Metrolink would offer a 7-day pass, which would not only provide a savings over a weeks' worth of round trips but would also allow riders to enjoy a stress-free weekend getaway at no additional cost. Also, since the 10 tripper is currently the cheapest way to get a student discount ticket, Metrolink would extend student discount fares to all ticket types.

Unfortunately, those who (like me in the past) ride infrequently but still like getting a discount would be left out in the cold, especially if they're not (like me) college students. Metrolink estimates that this is a very small percentage of their ridership, who would take a very small 5% fare increase. In my opinion, it's a pragmatic solution- but Metrolink wants your opinion as well. You can submit comments via the web, or in person at the May 13th board meeting. (Click the link for details.)

Baseball Service
Lastly, Metrolink has caught baseball fever, big time. Special service will be provided for most weeknight Dodger games (excluding Memorial Day and the 4th of July) on the San Bernardino, Antelope Valley and Ventura Lines. Train fare and tickets start at $20. An express bus connection at LA Union Station is free with your Dodger ticket (and charges standard LA Metro fares otherwise.)

If you'd prefer your baseball in the American League, Angels trains will be provided for all weeknight games that start at 19:05. Trains will run along the Orange County Line, from Los Angeles and Laguna Niguel, terminating at Anaheim before the game and reversing the trip afterwards. The Anaheim train station is at Angels Stadium.

Note also that REGULAR METROLINK TICKETS ARE VALID on these special trains- so if you happen to need a late-night ride home from Los Angeles during baseball season, you might get lucky and catch a Dodger train.