A subset of San Bernardino County transit officials this week expressed a combination of enthusiasm and dismay at a development that has forced their renewed recognition that the governmental collective devoted to regional transportation issues has as a body consistently squandered an eminently promising prospect of alleviating Southern California’s most vexing commuting challenge.
On Monday, July 8, the California State Transportation Agency earmarked just under $500 million to be used to extend the Gold Line, what is already the world’s longest light-rail passenger extending from its Pacific Ocean terminus in Long Beach nearly to the eastern end of Los Angeles County, into San Bernardino County. There was also indication given that another installment of $298 million from the state will be provided to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to fund the final phase of the final 3.2-mile extension of the rail line from Pomona to Claremont and across the county line into Montclair being undertaken by that entity’s sub agency, the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority.
While virtually all of Los Angeles County’s and a good share of San Bernardino County’s transportation officials hailed the provision of the funds, the most ardent supporters of the Gold Line in San Bernardino County bemoaned the lack of resolve among the larger collection of transportation officials in their jurisdiction which has manifested over the last five years, preventing what they said was an infusion of state and federal dollars that would have ensured the Gold Line would be extended all the way to Ontario Airport by mid-2028. Because of that lack of resolve, they say, the light rail extension will not make it to the aerodrome until the early-to-mid 2030s, if at all.
At the core of Southern California’s, and most particularly, San Bernardino County’s, transportation conundrum is the reality that the 545.6-mile public commuter rail system, known as Metrolink, that individuals among the collective of governmental officials overseeing transit issues created in the early 1990s under the aegis of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, has, more than three decades after its inception, proven itself to be inadequate in a way that most officials, potential users of the system and the general public consider to be an utter failure.
Though the intent from the outset was to generate a user base for the system that would fill the trains to capacity, such that the ratio of fuel consumption to passenger would be less than that achieved with transporting the same number of people to their various destinations while substantially reducing the number of motorists using the freeway and road system in the region, Metrolink never came close to achieving that goal.
Significantly, the spectacular way in which Metrolink missed its goal of shifting a significant number of Southern California’s commuters of of the freeway system and onto the rail system served to poison entirely, in the minds of not only the commuters themselves but in the vast majority of their political leadership, the concept of commuter rail transportation.
Yet, unrecognized by the vast majority of the population are two fundamental flaws in the design/concept of the Metrolink network. Metrolink was designed to run on a single existing rail line previously built to accommodate fright trains, which runs between Metrolink’s various stations. Thus, the diesel-powered Metrolink must share its track with cargo trains that run at four various times per day. Moreover, the Metrolink trains themselves run in both directions on the single track, such that travel in one direction cannot take place during the same time period that travel is taking place in the opposite direction. Practically speaking with regard to that portion of the Metrolink system running between Los Angeles County to the west and San Bernardino County to the east, this has meant that Metrolink in the morning rush hour offers no eastbound service and in the laste afternoon/early evening rush hour offers no westbound service. The shortest time between departures from San Bernardino into Los Angeles is no less than 20 minutes in the morning rush hour and the shortest time between departures from Los Angeles to San Bernardino in the late afternoon/early eveninng rush hour is no less than 20 minutes. Metro link charges $10 for a one-way ticke tfrom San Bernardino to Union Station in Los Angeles and $20 for a round trip ticket. Consequently, Metrolink is not heavily used and it does little or nothing to alleviate heavy traffic on the freeways into and out of Los Angeles on a daily basis.
Indeed, San Bernardino County residents have long been inured to observing the Metrolink at multiple crossings throughout the county carrying only a handful – fewer than a dozen and as few as one or two – of passengers, despite each car having a 140 rider capacity and the engines typically pulling at least three and more commonly four five or six cars.
Conversely, the Gold Line utilizes not a single but dual tracks, one track dedicated to movement in one direction – primarily west – and a second track dedicated to movement in the opposite direction – primarily west. The Gold Line runs from Union Station to Chinatown to Lincoln Hieights/Citrus Park to Heritage Park/Arroyo to to Southwest Museum to to Highland Park to Soth Pasadena to to Fillmore to Del Mar to Memorial Park to Lake Street in Pasadena to Allen Street in Paadena to Sierra Madre Villa to the Gold Line Bridge near Arcadia to Monrovia to Duarte to Irwindale to Downtown Azusa to the Azusa Pacific Campus/Citrus College entrance to Glendora to San Dimas to La Verne to Pomona and ultimately will move to Claremont and then Montclair. A Gold Line ticket costs $2.20. The Gold Line uses lighter cars and more fuel-efficient engines, with staggered departures and arrivals of as little as every eight minutes. The Gold Line is thus heavily used, and its cars near capacity on virtually every run. A deviation from this usage pattern occurred during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but has now ceased.
Shortly after the Gold Line achieved its initial round of success following the completion of its first 13 stations in 2003, a commitment was made to extend the line further eastward, a consensus emerged among officails with the California State Transportation Agency, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Gold Line Extension Authority and San Bernardino County Transportation Agency, then known as the San Bernardino Association of Governments, to ultimately push the Gold Line to Ontario Airport in San Bernardino County and, conceptually, beyond that.
Looking forward…