Metrolink RER Philosophy

In our previous post, we looked at the potential for a downtown rail tunnel for Metrolink Regional Express Rail (RER) service, which would help turn Metrolink into a complimentary service to the Metro rail network. It would reduce the need to transfer, eliminate congestion on Metro, and greatly improve connectivity for Metrolink riders. With that in mind, we should look at what type of service would best suit each of the Metrolink lines, which vary greatly in the type of land use patterns they traverse.

First, it’s good to identify the goal of what exactly we’re trying to do here. Let’s define that in terms of land use and housing affordability, setting aside the obvious environmental benefit of rail electrification. There are several possibilities with Metrolink RER:

• Provide rapid transit (Metro rail) quality service to places that do not currently have it. This suggests focusing on already dense areas and low income areas, which will benefit more and generate higher ridership.
• Reduce travel times between employment centers and more distant suburbs, in order to increase job opportunities available to people who already live in those suburbs.
• Reduce travel times between employment centers and more distant suburbs, in order to reduce gentrification pressures on inner suburbs.

Some of these goals may be at cross purposes; for example, faster and more frequent service to low income areas may make those places more susceptible to gentrification. There are also several types of rail service that could be provided, each of which suits different purposes.

Type of Service	Stop Spacing	Peak Frequency	Off-Peak Frequency	Best Serves
Traditional US Commuter Rail	3-5 miles or more	15-60 minutes in peak direction	60 minutes or more, if any	Above median income suburbs, low density suburbs
Zone Express	5-10 miles or more	15-30 minutes	30-60 minutes	Distant suburbs, satellite cities
Regional Rail	3-5 miles or more	15 minutes	30 minutes	Dense outer suburbs
Rapid Transit	Approximately 1 mile	5 minutes or less	10 minutes or less	Dense inner suburbs, low income suburbs

With that in mind, let’s take a look at each of the Metrolink lines and come up with a general service philosophy for each. In future posts, we’ll look at detailed infrastructure improvements and schedules for each line.

Ventura Line and Antelope Valley Line

The Ventura Line and Antelope Valley Line share a corridor from LA Union Station to Burbank Junction, about 11.4 miles from downtown, and just north of downtown Burbank. From there, the Ventura Line continues to west East Ventura, about 71 miles from downtown LA; the Antelope Valley Line continues north to Lancaster, 77 miles from downtown LA. From these distances, it should be apparent that the level of service appropriate for the outer reaches of these lines is not sufficient for the inner portions, but the level of service appropriate for inner portions of the lines would be excessive for the outer reaches.

To reinforce that initial thought, let’s look at the density and demographics of each portion of the line. Here’s the census tract level density for the Valley and Ventura County.

The Valley is much denser than even the near suburbs of Ventura County like Simi Valley and Moorpark, and more consistently dense. Panorama City, just over a mile from the Van Nuys Station, is one of the densest neighborhoods in LA.

Here’s the Santa Clarita Valley and Antelope Valley.

With the exception of a few tracts in Santa Clarita, there’s little real density in these areas. In addition, the prospect of significant density being constructed in these areas is pretty low.

Here’s the census tract level median income for the Valley.

Here’s Ventura County and the Santa Clarita Valley.

And here’s the Antelope Valley.

Note that unfortunately I couldn’t manipulate the scales on these graphs, so the Ventura County scale is not the same as LA County. The lowest income tracts in Ventura County are a good bit higher income than the lowest in LA County.

Together the density and demographics suggest the following service patterns:

• The San Fernando Valley is higher density and lower income, and should be served by rapid-transit level service, with infill stations to reduce the stop spacing to about 1 mile.
• Ventura County is lower density and higher income, and should be served by traditional commuter rail service.
• The Antelope Valley is lower density and lower income, and should be served by zone express type service, with trains running express from San Fernando to LA Union Station with only a few stops in between (Burbank and Glendale).
• The Santa Clarita Valley is lower density and higher income, and would be a natural fit for traditional commuter rail service, but will receive zone express type service because of the Antelope Valley.

San Bernardino Line

The San Bernardino Line is an odd duck for Metrolink in that it is the only line that doesn’t share a lot of its corridor with a large volume of freight. It stretches 56 miles from LA Union Station to San Bernardino, traveling through relatively dense areas in the western San Gabriel Valley. The density tapers off east of the 605 but there are still many tracts over 10,000 people per square mile in San Bernardino County, including the distant reaches of the line in Fontana, Rialto, and San Bernardino.

In terms of income, the western San Gabriel Valley is generally moderate income, though there are many low income communities as well. The eastern San Gabriel Valley is higher income, as is the western portion of San Bernardino County. However, incomes are much lower in the eastern portion of the county, with San Bernardino being one of California’s poorest cities.

Again, note that unfortunately I couldn’t manipulate the scales on these graphs, so the San Bernardino County scale is not the same as LA County. Together the density and demographics suggest the following service patterns:

• The western San Gabriel Valley (west of the 605) is higher density and moderate income, and should be served by rapid-transit level service, with infill stations to reduce the stop spacing to about 1 mile.
• The eastern San Gabriel Valley (east of the 605) and western Inland Empire (west of the 15) are moderate density and higher income, and should be served by Regional Express Rail type service.
• The eastern Inland Empire (east of the 15) is moderate density and lower income, and should still be served by Regional Express Rail type service.

Put together this would be something like Seoul Metro Line 1. Since this line exists in almost total isolation from other Metrolink lines and freight service, there are some tantalizing future possibilities – with conversion for through running with the Purple Line being perhaps the most appealing.

Orange County Line

The Orange County Line is one of the most unique and interesting rail lines in the country. It is the core transit line connecting Orange County and Riverside County, with over 5 million people, to downtown LA. It is also a part of the LA to San Diego (LOSSAN) Corridor, an important intercity route and the second busiest Amtrak route after the Northeast Corridor. The southern limit of the line in San Clemente (ignoring Oceanside for our purposes here) is only 65 miles from downtown LA, closer than the ends of the Ventura and Antelope Valley Lines, with major secondary cities in Anaheim (31 miles), Santa Ana (36 miles), and Irvine (46 miles).

However, the 25-mile portion between LA and Fullerton is also part of BNSF’s transcontinental mainline freight railroad, probably making it the highest freight volume commuter line in the country, if not beyond. In addition, while Southeast LA County is densely populated, the portion of the corridor between downtown LA and Orange County largely travels through industrial areas with very low density in the immediate vicinity. Due to the high demand for industrial space in SoCal, the industrial areas along the line are not underutilized, and the prospect for greatly increased density is probably small. Compare density in LA to Orange County.

The densest part of the corridor is Orange County from Irvine north. Note that significant development has been occurring in Irvine and mapped densities there are probably a good bit too low. The densest parts of Orange County, in Santa Ana, approach the density of the densest parts of the San Fernando Valley. South of Irvine there is still some density but the development pattern is more like Santa Clarita.

In terms of demographics, while Southeast LA County is generally working class, the corridor passes through portions that are more middle class or are actually too sparsely populated to generate reliable data.

In Orange County, the corridor generally passes through middle income areas to the north and high income areas to the south. The exceptions are significant working class populations in Anaheim and Santa Ana.

Adding it all up, the patterns suggest a strong Regional Express Rail type service between LA and Irvine, with stop spacing of 3-5 miles and 15 minute peak frequency. Some infill stops are warranted, but not every mile like in the Valley. Infill stops should focus on connections to other strong transit corridors, service to job centers like Irvine, and denser stop spacing in high density areas like Santa Ana.

South of Irvine, density drops, incomes rise, and jobs are more dispersed. This area will already be getting higher intercity frequency if the Surfliner expands as hoped, and probably doesn’t need much more than traditional US commuter rail.

91 Line and IE-OC Line

The 91 Line splits off from the Orange County Line at Fullerton, and continues east to Riverside at 61 miles from downtown LA. From there it continues north to San Bernardino, 71 miles from LA via the 91 Line compared to 56 miles via the San Bernardino Line. The 91 Line takes almost all the freight volume from the Orange County Line, meaning that any major expansion of service would likely require significant new track.

There is some density along the line in Corona and Riverside, after a long low density stretch through Santa Ana Canyon. North of Riverside, density drops off until reaching Colton and San Bernardino. Density is greater than Ventura and the Antelope Valley, but less than Orange County or the older suburbs of San Bernardino County.

The line does travel through some lower income portions of Riverside County, with high income areas flanking it on both sides. Incomes are probably lower than the San Bernardino County portion of the San Bernardino line except for the city of San Bernardino itself.

The Inland Empire – Orange County Line (IE-OC Line) shares the whole Riverside County portion of the 91 Line before branching off to the south in Orange County, linking up with the Orange County Line just north of Orange Station and continuing to Irvine. Starting from San Bernardino, Riverside is 10 miles, Santa Ana is 49 miles, and Irvine is 59 miles. With Santa Ana and Irvine as major job centers in their own right, the IE-OC Line serves major suburb to suburb commutes, forming a large wye with the Orange County and 91 Lines.

The setup creates an unusual reverse branching scenario, where service on the legs of the wye can never be as frequent as it is on the trunks. Notably, Anaheim station is located on one of the legs. The Orange County Line is probably stronger than the other two legs of the wye, with the 91 Line/IE-OC Line to Riverside being the weakest of the three trunks.

All taken together, both the 91 Line and the IE-OC Line probably warrant a zone express level of service. That would create Regional Express Rail level of service on the Riverside trunk, which might be too frequent. This could be addressed by having 91 Line trains terminate at Riverside instead of San Bernardino, since the San Bernardino Line will be a much faster ride to downtown LA than the 91 Line for that city. However, it might be beneficial to maintain frequent service between San Bernardino and Riverside themselves.

Riverside Line

What to say about the Riverside Line? I’ve clearly left it for last as the odd man out. The entire corridor from LA to Ontario is UP’s main line transcontinental railroad, meaning any plan for frequent service would require costly upgrades. The corridor is also heavily industrial. West of the 605, it passes through industrial Commerce, with the Commerce/Montebello station getting very low ridership. East of the 605 all the way to Pomona, it passes through the city of Industry, which is flanked by relatively high income neighborhoods. It passes through the huge industrial area of East Ontario and western Jurupa Valley, then through very low density portions of Jurupa Valley on its way to Riverside.

Frustratingly, between Industry and East Ontario, there are two decent nodes (downtown Pomona and downtown Ontario), and Ontario airport. However, given the low potential for the rest of the line, it likely doesn’t make sense to do anything other than traditional commuter rail.

Phasing

Given the existing density and demographics along the system, an electrification program could be phased in over time. Priority should be given to the San Bernardino Line, the San Fernando Valley portions of the Ventura and Antelope Valley Lines, and the Orange County Line to Irvine. After that, the Riverside and IE-OC Lines would follow, and perhaps the Antelope Valley Line. Electrification to the relatively wealthy and low density suburbs in Ventura County and southern Orange County should be the lowest priority unless there are significant changes proposed to land use.

In the future, the whole LOSSAN corridor south to San Diego should be electrified. Service should be frequent enough to justify the cost. I’m less sure about Ventura County and Santa Barbara County, which have much lower populations. As an aside, for air quality reasons, electrification should ultimately include BNSF and UP to points beyond the SoCal Mountains that trap air in the basins. That would probably look something like Lancaster, Victorville, and Palm Springs as limits for electrification.

Given the line’s poor ridership potential west of Pomona, the best thing to do might be to just try to work with UP to get a few more slots, and run a fast express train stopping at Ontario Airport, Ontario, Pomona, Industry, and downtown LA.

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Metrolink Ridership Update – December 2015 Edition

Time for an update on Metrolink ridership, up through FY16Q2 (October – December 2015) data. Here’s the breakdown of data by stations.

Last time, we mentioned that it looked like the declines in ridership had started to level out, and hoped that new Metrolink CEO Art Leahy would be able to get those numbers moving in the right direction. Ridership has started to creep back up at many stations, but the effect of the $2 station-to-station fare on the Antelope Valley Line is undeniable. It still has a long way to go just to get back to where it was, but it’s better than further declines.

With that, I’ll let the graphics speak for themselves. Here’s the update of the rolling 12-month averages, broken down by line.

Here’s a look at the top 10 and bottom 10 stations for ridership gained (or lost) over the period from June 2010 to December 2015 (all based on rolling 12-month averages).

Metrolink Ridership Update – March 2015

Time for an update on Metrolink ridership, including FY15Q3 (January – March 2015) data. Here’s the breakdown of data by stations.

As we discussed last time, while ridership has still been declining, it looks like the trend has started to level out. Hopefully, new Metrolink CEO Art Leahy will be able to get those numbers moving in the right direction. The $2 station to station fare pilot program is certainly a step in the right direction. The Antelope Valley Line is the pilot, so downtown Burbank, which is a reasonably large trip attractor, is included. However, the program started July 1, so we won’t see any results in ridership for at least another 4-5 months, when FY16Q1 data become available.

With that, I’ll let the graphics speak for themselves. Here’s the update of the rolling 12-month averages, broken down by line.

Here’s a look at the top 10 and bottom 10 stations for ridership gained (or lost) over the period from June 2010 to March 2015 (all based on rolling 12-month averages). The top 10 and bottom 10 are all unchanged. The best trending stations continue to be in Orange County and Riverside County, while the worst trending stations continue to be on the San Bernardino and Antelope Valley lines.

Metrolink Ridership Update – April 2015

Time for an update on Metrolink ridership, including FY15Q2 (October-December 2014) data. Here’s the breakdown of data by stations.

As we’ll see, it looks like the downward trend in ridership has finally started to level out. Hopefully this trend continues and ridership starts to pick up, as Metrolink works to address equipment reliability issues. Of course, the impact of new Metrolink CEO Art Leahy’s move to a different floor at One Gateway has yet to play out.

With that, I’ll let the graphics speak for themselves. Here’s the update of the rolling 12-month averages, broken down by line.

Here’s a look at the top 10 and bottom 10 stations for ridership gained (or lost) over the period from June 2010 to December 2014 (all based on rolling 12-month averages). The top 10 are unchanged, while in the bottom 10, El Monte, Via Princessa, and San Bernardino replaced Montclair, Santa Clarita, and Pomona North.

Rethinking Metrolink, Part 1

Last summer, after struggling for a few months to try to write something productive about Metrolink, I decided to just listen to ridership data and media stories for a while. Ridership data has not been good; with the exception of the Inland Empire – Orange County Line, all lines have been steadily losing ridership. The malfunctions of ticket-vending machines have been well chronicled, as have the agencies troubles with equipment and its finances.

The first order of business is putting the house in order. That means getting finances and maintenance squared away, so that trains run on time and passengers can pay their fares. The second issue is a bit more meta: what is Metrolink, how does it relate to the geography of development in Southern California, and how can that be improved? The latter issue is the one set before us today.

SoCal Commuter Rail

Conceptually, Metrolink is no different than traditional East Coast US commuter rail systems such as those in Boston (MBTA), New York (Metro North, LIRR, NJT), and Philadelphia (SEPTA). These networks are designed to convey relatively well-off white collar workers from suburbs to a single dominant central business district in the morning and then back in the evening. As such, they are typified by very peaky service, that is, service is quite frequent towards the CBD on weekday mornings and towards the suburbs on weekday evenings, and very infrequent or non-existent at other times.

This is a poor route and service structure for Southern California. Metrolink is arranged to bring people to downtown LA in the morning and home in the afternoon, but downtown LA is just one of many business districts in greater LA. Its traditional industries, government and finance, have seen slow or no job growth. Office vacancy is higher than on the Westside, and downtown’s boom has been almost entirely residential – people who obviously don’t need to get downtown in the morning, because they’re already there! To complicate things, LA Union Station is on the very fringe of downtown, requiring a transfer to the Red/Purple Line to access the business district.

In contrast to East Coast cities, LA is polycentric. This creates both challenges and opportunities for a rail service like Metrolink. Peer systems in regions that also have major business districts outside of the central city would include:

• Caltrain, which serves both a traditional downtown in SF and a significant reverse commute to Silicon Valley.
• Paris RER, which serves an enormous peripheral business district (La Defense) that puts Century City to shame.
• Seoul, which has numerous business districts both in the city proper (such as Yongsan, Gangnam, and Jongno) and outside (such as Incheon and Songdo). Seoul also has truly integrated subway and commuter rail lines like Line 1, baffling many a US observer.

What Lines Does Metrolink Have?

Metrolink’s lines have different characteristics, both amongst themselves and from many other commuter rail lines. The lines currently operated by Metrolink are as follows:

• Ventura Line: this line travels from downtown LA past Glendale and Burbank, then through the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County. Its entire route is shared with Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner, which runs from San Luis Obispo to San Diego. There are some daily freight trains on the line, but nothing out of the ordinary.
• Antelope Valley Line: this line travels from downtown LA, sharing track with the Ventura Line past Glendale and Burbank, north through the San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita. It crosses the San Gabriel Mountains through Soledad Pass to the Antelope Valley communities of Palmdale and Lancaster. Again, there are some daily freight trains on the line, but nothing out of the ordinary.
• San Bernardino Line: this line travels east from downtown LA through the San Gabriel Valley and southwest San Bernardino County to San Bernardino. Freight traffic is minimal on this line, consisting almost entirely of local service.
• Riverside Line: this line travels east from downtown LA through the City of Industry, Ontario, and northwest Riverside County to Riverside. This is UP’s Los Angeles Subdivision, which together with UP’s Alhambra Subdivision serves over 50 freight trains per day, including both long distance and local traffic.
• 91 Line: this line travels southeast from downtown LA to Fullerton, then east and northeast to Riverside and San Bernardino. Freight volumes are between 40 and 50 trains per day from LA to Fullerton, increasing to nearly 70 trains per day between Riverside and the infamous, and now defunct, Colton Crossing.
• Orange County Line: this line shares track with the 91 Line from downtown LA to Fullerton, and then runs southeast through Orange County all the way to Oceanside. There is some freight traffic south of the split with the 91 Line, but nothing out of the ordinary.
• Inland Empire – Orange County Line: this line runs from Riverside to Oceanside, almost entirely on the same track as the 91 Line and Orange County Line.

The freight volumes on the Riverside Line and 91 Line are an unusual condition for a commuter rail operation. Most East Coast lines don’t compete with freight volumes anywhere near this high. The comparable lines would be Chicago Metra’s UP West, BNSF, and Heritage Corridor Services. Impressively, the UP West and BNSF Lines provide at least hourly service (with a few exceptions) from early morning to late night, even to shockingly low density places like Elburn and La Fox. These lines have many areas of triple track, with more planned, but freight congestion is apparently still an issue. The Heritage Corridor runs only three round trips per day.

What Areas Does Metrolink Serve?

Metrolink serves many different parts of the region, with different travel demand and therefore differing transit needs. As I see it, the Metrolink service region can be broken down as follows:

• Ventura County: located too far for commuting to downtown LA to generate high ridership. Simi Valley has less than 400 boardings, and Moorpark less than 250. Stations further west do not even achieve 100. These stations can probably be adequately served by improved Pacific Surfliner service and perhaps some express bus.
• Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley: the three Santa Clarita stations combined pull about 1,000 riders, but Santa Clarita doesn’t have a central business area that could serve as an anchor. The stations are not in particularly dense areas and function as park-and-ride style transit. The Antelope Valley stations are much further away, with each having less than 400 boardings. With the expansion of HOV lanes on the 14 and the 5, many of these riders could be served by peaky transit express bus, which both Santa Clarita Transit and Antelope Valley Transit already operate in direct competition with Metrolink. (Plus, Lancaster Mayor R Rex Parris is not exactly Metrolink’s best friend.)
• San Fernando Valley: given that the Valley is mostly relatively dense suburbs, the Metrolink stations there achieve appallingly low ridership. Why would you get on Metrolink at Van Nuys, where there are only 22 round trips per day, and pay $7.25 one way when the same trip on Metro services would cost $1.75 with much more frequent services? High-cost infrequent commuter rail is not the right type of service for the Valley; service here should run on rapid transit schedules with rapid transit fares.
• Burbank Airport – Irvine corridor: this is the highest intensity corridor served by Metrolink, including Burbank, Glendale, downtown LA, and the major Orange County cities (Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Irvine). The curveball is that the heart of the corridor – downtown LA to Fullerton – happens to be BNSF’s main line from the ports to the rest of America. It serves high freight volumes and is abutted by large industrial zones. Thus, while the portion north of LA might be appropriate for rapid transit frequencies, the southern portion isn’t, because abutting land use doesn’t support it and freight traffic won’t allow it. However, the entire corridor is suitable for regional rail service. As Paul Druce of Reason Rail has noted elsewhere, the reverse commute potential on this corridor is just as strong as the normal direction.
• San Gabriel Valley and San Bernardino County: the western San Gabriel Valley is similar to the San Fernando Valley, and might warrant rapid transit frequency. Further east, the San Bernardino Line continues through established suburbs to San Bernardino, a major node in the Inland Empire. With decent anchors at both ends and a minor node at Claremont in the middle, the San Bernardino Line should warrant relatively frequent service.
• City of Industry & Riverside Line: the Industry station gets about 1,000 boardings per day, though this is a 30% decline from 2010. This is sort of a super express to downtown LA since there’s only one stop in between. None of the other stations on the line achieve inspiring ridership. However, the lack of HOV lanes on the 60 west of the 605 suggests that it would be hard to replicate this service with bus.
• Corona – San Bernardino Corridor: this corridor parallels the 91 and the 215, two congested Riverside County freeways. Corona is a minor node, and Riverside is a major business district for the Inland Empire. The density along the corridor isn’t bad, but it’s much shallower than the San Bernardino Line, thanks to anti-development cities like Norco, Jurupa Valley, and Riverside. This corridor is suitable for regional rail, though not with the same level of service as Burbank – Irvine.
• South Orange County: south of Irvine, Orange County development is similar to Santa Clarita and much of Ventura County in that there aren’t any major business nodes. The stations get relatively low ridership, with less than 400 in Laguna Niguel, and less than 200 in San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano. Oceanside gets a surprising amount of ridership, perhaps due to connections to Sprinter and Coaster services. However, this region could probably be served by improved Pacific Surfliner service.

Missing Links

If you want to run rapid transit style services in the San Fernando Valley and western San Gabriel Valley, you don’t want to dead-end them in downtown LA, because it would result in unbalanced demand. So what would you connect them to? There are lots of good options to be discussed; here’s one:

• Chatsworth – Santa Ana: the existing out-of-service rail corridor between downtown LA and Santa Ana is high on the Measure R2 wish list; connecting it to the Chatsworth to downtown LA service would balance the line. This line would relieve the Orange Line in the Valley, and provide transit to dense cities like Maywood, Bell, Cudahy, and the Gateway Cities. This would be the highest priority.
• Sylmar – Long Beach: this would overlap with the Chatsworth – Santa Ana service from Burbank to Paramount. The northern section would provide frequent service to San Fernando, while the southern section would help relieve the Blue Line. This would be the second priority.
• Purple Line to El Monte: this would balance the Purple Line and provide a one seat ride from the San Gabriel Valley to the Westside. It would be the most technically challenging expansion. While the first two lines could be built with standard DMUs (or future EMUs) compatible with other equipment on the liens, Purple Line vehicles have different dimensions that would complicate design. Such an option would have to be accomplished by rerouting Metrolink regional rail to the Alhambra Subdivision from downtown LA to El Monte, or with a technological trick like platform extenders.
• Conceptual Red Line extensions: these don’t involve the Metrolink lines, but are shown for discussion. An extension north would connect to the Sylmar – Long Beach Line. An extension southeast would provide rapid transit to East LA, Montebello, Pico Rivera, and Whittier. If north-south rapid bus services were implemented on major roads like Atlantic or Lakewood, they would offer transfers to this line, eliminating need for transfers to the LA – Fullerton section of the regional rail line.

Combine this with a couple north-south transit routes on the Westside and in the Valley, like say Reseda/Lincoln Blvds and Van Nuys/Sepulveda Blvds, and you’ve got a pretty solid rapid transit network for Los Angeles.

Regional Rail Services

San Fernando to Irvine is the obvious main corridor for regional rail. That leaves a set of three lines – San Bernardino, Riverside, and 91 – that don’t lend themselves easily to through-routing. C-shaped routes tend to perform poorly because the potential to serve trips passing through the central area is very low. Again, there are many options; here’s one:

• Through-route the San Bernardino Line and 91 Line into the second regional rail line. Yes, this creates a very tight C, almost a closed loop. This could be mitigated by various means, explored in part 2.
• Do what you will with the Riverside Line – replace with express bus or keep running it as a super express, whatever you see fit. There’s no reason it has to provide the same frequency or fare structure as the other lines.

The Reveal

At long last, here’s a map of all this:

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I drew this in Scribble Maps, my first time using that tool. I’m curious what people think. It’s relatively easy to draw, add text labels, and edit things, but the text labels don’t scale when you zoom out, so it’s hard to see everything all at once.

Here’s a more conventional map of this improvement, drawn in my old friend AutoCAD. The regional rail lines are shown in tan, Pacific Surfliner in Amtrak blue. Where the routes overlap, blue is shown on top of tan. All other lines are subway, light rail, or BRT, as you like it.

I’ve also thrown in proposals from some other posts (Westside transit, more Green Line stations) to give an idea of what this all looks likes together.

Scheduling

The rapid transit service would obviously run with low headways, so there’s not much to say there. The regional rail component is where it gets interesting. In Part 2, we’ll take a look at different options for the regional rail lines.

Metrolink Ridership Update – September 2014

Time for an update on Metrolink ridership, including FY15Q1 (July-September 2014) data. Here’s the breakdown of data by stations.

Here’s the update of the rolling 12-month averages, broken down by line.

Ridership continues to be on a troubling downward trend.

Here’s a look at the top 10 and bottom 10 stations for ridership gained (or lost) over the period from June 2010 to September 2014 (all based on rolling 12-month averages). The top 10 and bottom 10 stations are unchanged, except for Anaheim Canyon entering the top 10 and Fullerton dropping out, and Rancho Cucamonga entering the bottom 10 and Via Princessa dropping out. These are both bad changes, because Fullerton and Rancho Cucamonga are higher ridership stations than Anaheim Canyon and Via Princessa.

Since June 2010, 43 of the 54 stations (excluding LA Union Station) have lost ridership, up from 42 of 54 at the last update. Fullerton has now gone from having an increase in ridership to a loss. 17 stations have lost more than 20% of their ridership in the last 4 years, up from 12 at the last update. With the exception of Pomona Downtown, every station that’s gained ridership is either in Orange County or on the 91/OC-IE Lines.

Metrolink Ridership Update – June 2014

Note: the graphs in the previous Metrolink ridership update post contained a data entry error on my part. The trends and conclusions are the same; however, please do not use or compare with that data.

I’m updating my look at Metrolink ridership every three months, as they update ridership data published on their website. Here’s the breakdown of data by stations.

Here’s the update of the rolling 12-month averages, broken down by line.

These numbers are bad any way you look at it. The lines that had been performing decently well and even gaining ridership (Orange County, Orange County – Inland Empire, and 91 Lines) have slipped a little recently. The lines that were already struggling (Riverside, San Bernardino, Antelope Valley, and Ventura Lines) have gotten worse, if anything.

Here’s a look at the top 10 and bottom 10 stations for ridership gained (or lost) over the period from June 2010 to June 2014 (all based on rolling 12-month averages).

Since June 2010, 42 of the 54 stations (excluding LA Union Station) have lost ridership. Twelve stations have lost more than 20% of their ridership in the last 4 years. With the exception of Pomona Downtown, every station that’s gained ridership is either in Orange County or on the 91/OC-IE Lines.

The drop in ridership is troubling, as is the seeming lack of concern about it. I haven’t seen it mentioned in the media. I don’t know the cause, though the steady stream of equipment failures and missed trains that you read about in the @MetrolinkDiary Twitter feed can’t be helping – the first step to running any transit service is to run reliably. If the region is going to invest more money in regional rail, we need to understand what’s going wrong, and how the service can be improved to better serve riders.

Metrolink Ridership Update – December 2013

Note: the graphs in this post are incorrect due a data entry error on my part. The trends and conclusions are the same; however, for accurate data, please use the June 2014 ridership update.

I’ve been trying, and struggling, to write a post about Metrolink for a while. I just couldn’t put anything together that I thought might add to the conversation. It finally dawned on me that I was putting the cart before the horse (and horses don’t run in push-pull operation). The first thing to do is just watch, listen, and learn about the existing state of affairs. So, here’s the first installment of looking at Metrolink ridership. Let’s see what’s going on.

Metrolink publishes quarterly ridership data, with the quarter ending in December 2013 being the most recently available data. The data is broken down by station, so we can see which stations generate the most ridership.

The highest ridership stations are dominated by the OC Line, Riverside Line, and San Bernardino Line. As you’d expect, Glendale and Burbank make a good showing as well, though maybe not as good as you’d think considering how well Irvine and Tustin perform. What surprised me the most? Industry! Though in hindsight, a ride from the big honkin’ park-and-ride in Industry to Downtown LA, with only one stop in between, is probably not a bad deal compared to the 60. Oceanside also surprises to the high side.

At the other end, the Ventura Line and Antelope Valley Line perform poorly – perhaps shockingly poorly in the case of the stations in the Valley. Van Nuys doesn’t even hit 200 boardings, and Sun Valley not even 100. The Ventura County stations beyond Moorpark (Camarillo, Oxnard, and East Ventura) generate very low ridership that calls the benefit of those far-flung stations into question. The distant Orange County stations (Laguna Niguel, San Juan Capistrano, and San Clemente) similarly disappoint. Commerce is comically low, since there’s little parking and the surrounding area is thoroughly industrial.

The data available on Metrolink’s website stretches back to July 2009, which lets us construct a rolling 12-month average for all stations starting in June 2010. Here’s the time series data, broken down by line.

There’s a disturbing downward trend on many of the lines, especially the Antelope Valley Line and San Bernardino Line. On the other hand: Tustin and Irvine!

Here’s a look at the top 10 and bottom 10 stations for ridership gained (or lost) over the period.

Other than Downtown Pomona sneaking in at number 10, the top ten is all the Orange County Line and the 91 Line. And again: Tustin and Irvine! Who says Orange County can’t generate any transit ridership? (Note: I used absolute change rather than percentage change, since percentage favors the low ridership stations. If you used percentage, Orange would drop out, and Commerce – which picked up all of 8 riders – would be in.)

Now the bad news.

No two ways about it, that’s ugly. Five stations have shed over 20% of their ridership, with three more not far behind.

The silver lining is that there’s a pattern to ridership changes. The Orange County Line and the 91 Line have been the big winners, and the San Bernardino Line and Antelope Valley Line have been the big losers. There should be an opportunity to figure out what’s going right down in OC, and what’s going wrong on the AV & SB Lines. It could be as simple as the fact that OC & Riverside are doing a little better economically than LA & SB. But it should be explored.

For one thing, there’s a bunch of new riders in Orange & Riverside Counties. Somebody ought to ask them what they were doing before and why they decided to take the train. On the flip side, there’s a bunch of people who used to ride the AV Line and SB Line, or board at Industry, but aren’t doing that anymore. Obviously, they’re a little harder to find than the folks who are on the train, but it’s worth trying to figure out why they stopped riding.

From there, we can start to think about how to capitalize on the momentum on the Orange County Line and 91 Line to keep increasing ridership. And we can try to figure out why three lines that serve the densely populated San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys aren’t serving people as well as they should, and what we might do to make those lines more useful.

What do you think? What trends do you see in the ridership, and what challenges and opportunities are there?