:: C o a s t a l R a i l N o w . o r g ::

Put trains before more 101 lanes
Voice From Santa Barbara; Dennis Story

Lewis Mumford had an innate ability to articulate the obvious. He was not an academic, yet was considered one of the world's foremost experts on cities, architecture and the impact of technology on civilization.

He authored more than 30 books, and in 1923 was one of the founders of the Regional Planning Association of America. Mr. Mumford also wrote many essays, one of which was delivered to a Washington, D.C., American Institute of Architects group in 1965. Titled "The New World Promise," this passage resonated with me: "What kind of half-baked planning has deliberately broken down our efficient many-sided transportation network, based on the pedestrian, the railroad, the motorbus, and the private motorcar, in favor of a space-wasting, city-destroying system of mono-transportation, based on the private motorcar alone?"

That balance of modes sounds like the spirit of what 101 In Motion was meant to do. A comment I heard early on in the process was how solutions would be about moving people, not cars. We're now suffering from that lack of balance, but things are changing.

Metrolink built a 400-plus-mile commuter rail system in Southern California, using joint powers authority between five counties, in two years.

Oxnard to Goleta, the most practical route for the proposed commuter rail service, is just 43 miles. Amtrak operates daily inter-city service on this corridor, but not at peak or commuter hours. With already-planned-for improvements to the rail infrastructure completed, an Oxnard-to-Goleta commuter rail service could be up and running as soon as the necessary negotiations and agreements with the required entities are completed. Remember, five counties sat down at the table to create Metrolink in two years. Oxnard to Goleta traverses only two counties.

This commuter rail service, with three trains north in the morning and returning south in the afternoon, has the potential to relieve congestion on the 101 corridor immediately. With the 101 improvement projects slated to begin in the next year, and last 10 years, a commuter rail service would be just in time to avoid the added congestion caused by the construction.

Widening the 101 to the Ventura County line will take another 10 years of road construction, for a total of 20 years -- and when it's done, it'll be obsolete. At least that's what the experts say. Remember, the next problem will be what to do north of Milpas Street, and the added traffic on the newly widened 101 will impact the existing six-lane section, as well as adjacent surface streets. 101 In Motion also explores the need to widen the 101 north of Milpas to eight lanes. With widening south of Milpas estimated at $700 million-plus, I wonder what widening north of Milpas would cost? There are no estimates that I've seen. Also, remember that road estimates are computed in 2005 dollars. What do you suppose it might total when completed 20 years from now?

Commuter rail at $79 million looks like a bargain, and with 101 In Motion's estimate of three to five years for completion would not face the inflationary pressures road costs would.

Since the 101 In Motion rail consultant chose to calculate commuter rail costs using new trainsets and seemingly unnecessary improvements, another consultant has estimated the service could be accomplished for $45 million-$50 million.

Next year, county voters will decide whether to reauthorize Measure D. This half-cent sales tax for transportation projects is needed to fund widening 101, commuter rail, and other transit solutions. A two-thirds vote is needed for passage, and it's important for there to be a near-term solution to 101 congestion, which commuter rail can provide.

So now you see what we're all facing, and why it's imperative that commuter rail service begin ASAP.

Dennis Story is chair of CoastalRailNow.org.

Light at the End of the Tunnel?
Commuter Rail May Still Be Viable Traffic Solution

By Nick Welsh

Commuter train advocates were thrilled to learn that a commuter rail component has been included in three of the final four solutions to the region's mounting traffic woes identified by the politically powerful Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG). However, those same rail advocates groused that the recent SBCAG report on commuter rail understated its benefits and overstated its costs.

Two of SBCAG's final four solutions included combinations of commuter rail, freeway widening, and expanded express bus service. One option looked at commuter rail as the first best option to get South Coast commuters out of peak-hour gridlock, while a second option looked primarily to freeway widening. The party line consensus among politicians and bureaucrats enmeshed in this issue is that no one solution can do the trick; nor is there enough money available to get the job done. To simply widen the freeway would cost the most - $600 million - while adding train service alone would be the cheapest solution at about $100 million. According to SBCAG's consultants, as many as 900 motorists could be taken off the road if two trains left Oxnard for Goleta early each morning and returned home in the evening.

The critical mass needed to achieve some relief, according to SBCAG, is 1,800. Commuter rail advocate Alex Pujo, of Coalition for Sustainable Transportation (COAST), along with rail-friendly City Council candidate Grant House argued that two additional trains are not enough. By running three trains, said Pujo and House, up to 1,200 motorists could be dissuaded from driving to and from work alone. "The formula is simple: increase frequency and you increase riders," House said. He also argued that by purchasing used trains and used-train cars, the $100 million estimated price tag could be significantly reduced. Pujo argued that unlike freeway widening - which would require 10 years of construction - commuter rail can be up and running relatively soon. "We can do it in two years," said Pujo. "If it only took Metrolink two freakin' years to be built, we can do it here."

Commuter rail systems in other communities have met with mixed results - one glaring problem has been insufficient transit from train depot to job site. But House noted that 76 percent of the employees commuting from Ventura to Goleta work for large employers who've already committed to providing such transit services themselves or working in conjunction with other employers to do so. House noted that Caltrans is poised to begin 10 years - and $36 million - worth of freeway improvements between Milpas Street and Carpinteria next year. "I don't think people realize what that means for congestion," House said. "We need some alternative in place now, if not sooner."

Paying for much of these improvements will be Measure D funding - a half-cent sales tax Santa Barbarans voted to impose upon themselves in 1989 to pay for traffic improvements. Measure D expires in 2009, and already the politicos and policy wonks are bracing for the fight of their lives as they place it on the 2006 ballot for renewal. "The question is not how much we can get from Measure D, but if we can pass it at all," cautioned House. That's because this time, unlike in 1989, it will need a two-thirds majority to pass. Thus far, Pujo said, road and freeway improvements have consumed 90 percent of Measure D's funds. "If you build for cars, you get more cars," he said.

This time around, Pujo, House, and other alternative transit advocates will push much harder for a bigger slice of the pie. Without their support, they reckon, Measure D won't succeed. But even with it, they concede, it won't be enough.

A long-awaited report on a commuter train service from Oxnard to Goleta has reinvigorated South Coast rail buffs, who would rather talk about trains than lanes any day.

The report was first requested 10 years ago by Grassroots 101, a citizens’ group fighting highway widening south of Milpas Street. It concludes that two trains traveling at rush hour to and from the South Coast would attract 900 daily riders by 2030.

Jonathan Maguire, chairman of the Santa Barbara Planning Commission and vice president of the Coalition for Sustainable Transportation, a nonprofit group founded by former Grassroots 101 activists, said the report was an important first step toward bringing commuter rail to the South Coast.

“It shows pretty clearly the service would be feasible and would improve traffic flow on Highway 101,” Mr. Maguire said. “But I think they’re being very conservative. I think three trains in the morning and three trains would be supported and would be desirable.”

The report was prepared by a consulting firm and released this month by the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, the regional transportation agency. The association is studying four packages of solutions for reducing congestion on Highway 101, and commuter rail is included in three of them At the same time, three of the packages include widening 101 through the SouthCoast.

“We’re very, very happy to see that commuter rail is in a majority of packages,” Mr. Maguire said. “The train can happen in less than five years, a lot sooner than freeway expansion. It’s just a matter of money and working with Union Pacific. I think people have woken up to the fact that whether or not there’s another lane is not very important.”

But many South Coast residents do support freeway widening including Steve Engles, past president of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce and a member of the association’s 101 advisory committee, representing all the county’s chambers of commerce.

“You can negotiate with Union Pacific and bring Metrolink here but it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg,” Mr. Engles said, referring to the commuter rail service that operates between Ventura and Los Angeles. “Who’s going to take the train when it will only run two times in the morning and two times at night? We’re going to put millions of dollars into running a train that 900 people re going to use. That’s a spit in the bucket.”

The association’s report shows that two trains from Oxnard to Goleta would take less than 5 percent of 10 commuters off the freeway, about the same percent that Metrolink attracts. That’s because a lot f people won’t take the train if their homes or workplaces are not within a short walk or bus ride from the station.

Yet studies show that 101 traffic south of Milpas Street would be moving at the speed limit if just 1100 commuters stopped driving alone. For the six-lane section through Santa Barbara and Goleta, 1800 would have to get to work some other way for the traffic to begin flowing again.

“Taking 900 people off the highway at the peak hour is a significant benefit although by itself, it does not get us to where we want to go,” said Michael Powers, the association’s deputy director.

The report estimates the capital cost of a commuter rail service to Goleta at $67 million, including $26 million for two train sets – a locomotive and four coaches. The cost also includes $23 mullion to add parking at the Oxnard and Ventura train stations and to build a station at Rice Avenue for Camarillo commuters.

If the expense of providing bus and shuttle service from the train stations is included, the cost for commuter rail increases to $103 million, association studies show.

By 2030, the yearly operating cost of commuter rail to the South Coast would be just over $4 million. Riders would pay an average $3.20 fare each way and fares would recover about 18 percent of the operating cost. That’s assuming that by 2030, Highway 101 has been widened to include express bus and carpool lanes.

If, however, no such lanes are available, and the free way congestion is just as bad as it is today, about 1,400 commuters would take the train, and fares would recover about 27 percent of operating costs, the report shows.

By contrast Metrolink, which serves six Southern California counties, recovers 43 percent of its operating costs through its fares. In part that’s because Metrolink offers more frequent service to farther-flung destinations. Also, Metrolink travels rent-free on some sections of track.

The report does not analyze how the coming construction on 101 would affect train ridership. This year, work will begin on a $36 million set of improvements for 101 south of Mi1pas. The construction might last five years or more, and that’s apart from any more ambitious widening plans.

“Eight lanes and six lanes would be a decade of construction if they really did it fast,” Mr. Maguire said. “Is everyone up for that? I don’t know, but in the meantime, they can take the train.”

In the short run, Mr. Engles favors installing freeway ramp metering and changing employee schedules to avoid the rush hour. But in the long run, he said, commuters need a better driving experience.

“The problem is that 101 was built as a parkway,” Mr. Engles said. “It was built to meander through the countryside, not to hold the traffic it holds today. I want to widen the freeway from Milpas Street south. Of course, it will fill up with traffic, but you’re going to get rid of the smog in the air.

“People want little old sleepy Santa Barbara, like it was in the ’60s and ’70s. Sorry folks, this is reality: Eventually all of California’s going to crawl.”

It will take commuter trains, freeway widening and $700 million to untangle the traffic jams on Highway 101 through the South Coast for the next 25 years, according to a new regional report.

After more than a year of study, the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, a regional transportation agency, has come up with four solutions for South Coast freeway congestion, down from 34 options it was considering last year.

The report says that two commuter trains traveling at rush hour between Oxnard and Goleta would be the cheapest "fix," with a price tag of about $100 million. But trains alone won't get the traffic moving.

A $600 million highway widening project by itself won't work either, the report shows, and that's with six lanes south of Milpas Street and eight lanes through much of Goleta , reserving the new lanes for carpools and buses.

Earlier proposals for ferries, busways, monorail and restriping have been rejected. Still on the table is a "train-only" option, a "widening-only" option, and two "train-and-lane" options, including one that would build ramp-to-ramp lanes north of Milpas instead of full lanes.

All four solutions would include doubling the express bus service to the North County , where more and more South Coast employees are choosing to live.

The 13-member association -- five county supervisors and one council member from each of the county's eight cities -- is expected to choose one package of solutions in the fall. That solution will likely appear on a countywide ballot in November 2006 as part of the renewal of Measure D, a half-cent increase in the sales tax for roads, highways and mass transportation. In an era when California funding for roads and mass transportation lags behind the national average, it will be increasingly up to the locals to foot the bill.

"This is a big, big decision for our South Coast ," said Jonny Wallis, who represents Goleta on the association board and serves on its 101 steering committee. "We need to make sure the method chosen will work and we have the capacity to pay for it."

Only one of the four solutions still under consideration -- a commuter train plus additional freeway lanes from the Ventura County line to Los Carneros Road -- would totally relieve the congestion that is forecast on the 101 by 2030, the association's report shows.

Right now, 15,000 commuters from Ventura drive the 101 to southern Santa Barbara County daily, and another 10,000 drive in from the North County . That's in addition to more than 100,000 South Coast residents who crowd onto 101 during the rush hour. The result is miles of slow-and-go traffic and an afternoon rush hour that spans two hours.

By 2030, association studies show, Santa Barbara County's South Coast population will increase by 32,000 people; jobs will increase by 39,000, and an additional 10,000 commuters will be coming here.

"We've got this tidal wave problem coming," said Gregg Hart, an association spokesman and a former Santa Barbara councilman. "We need both a lane and a train, just to stay even."

Highway widening, Mr. Hart said, is clearly for the long term: it would take at least 10 years of construction to widen 101 through the South Coast .

That's why some decision-makers, including county Supervisor Salud Carbajal, who represents eastern Santa Barbara and Montecito, Summerland and Carpinteria on the association's 101 steering committee, are turning their attention to cheaper, speedier fixes.

"In the short term, there's no money for expanding the freeway, even if it were the No. 1 solution," he said. "We need to focus on rail and raise our transit system to another level. We need to offer incentives for employers to help commuters get on a bus. There are some things we can do that are very simple."

Rail advocates such as Grant House, a Santa Barbara planning commissioner who is running for City Council, believe a commuter train service could be up and running within five years. Extra lanes on 101, these critics say, would just bring more cars and more congestion to the freeway and downtown streets and parking lots.

"We need some relief and we need it as soon as possible," Mr. Grant said. "We have to understand that the freeways will fill themselves back up again, no matter what you do to them."

But highway advocates, including Councilman Gregory Gandrud of Carpinteria, are equally adamant that 101 expansion must begin immediately, even if it means borrowing the money and contracting out the construction. The new lanes could be high-occupancy toll lanes, called HOT lanes, and their revenues could pay back the loans, Mr. Gandrud said.

"I want them built sooner rather than later," he said. "HOT lanes are a self-rationing method. If you want to drive at peak periods, you have to pay. Commuter rail, as romantic as that sounds, is not going to relieve congestion on the highway. People would have no way to get from home to the train and no way to get from the train to the office. What about stopping at day care or the laundry? There's no flexibility."

Supervisor Brooks Firestone, who represents the Santa Ynez Valley and Isla Vista on the association's 101 steering committee, said he supports both commuter rail and highway widening.

"It's very expensive, but it's expensive not to do it. I just don't think we have a choice. We simply have a need to be in the modern world."

Census data from 2000 shows that 70 percent of county residents drive alone to work -- lower than the national average of 76 percent, but high, nonetheless. According to the association's 101 report, if just 1,800 South Coast drivers traveling alone could be persuaded to get to work some other way, the rush-hour traffic would begin moving briskly along at 65 miles per hour.

Would 1,800 people be willing to carpool, take the train or ride an express bus? Would the public be willing to pay for a wider freeway?

"It's inevitable and common sense," said Buellton Mayor Russ Hicks, another steering committee member. "People are going to have to realize they've got to get to those three lanes south of Milpas. But I'm not one who buys in to this four-lane thing in the Goleta area."

Ms. Wallis said, "In Goleta, some people feel that freeway expansion is growth-inducing, while some feel that freeway improvement is necessary to alleviate current and future impacts. It's on both sides of the aisle."

The price tag for 101 widening is high because it covers the entire 20-mile stretch from the Ventura County line to Los Carneros Road . The 101 report shows that if the freeway is widened to six lanes south of Milpas, it also eventually must be widened in some fashion through Santa Barbara and Goleta, where there are presently six lanes -- or the bottleneck at Milpas will simply move north.

Extra lanes for the South Coast 101 have been on the books for more than 20 years. In the early 1990s, the community rejected a six-lane proposal south of Milpas and opted for a scaled-down version.

The "operational improvements," as they are called, will cost $36 million. They include some new ramp-to-ramp lanes, an additional southbound lane between Milpas and Cabrillo Boulevard , a bikeway at Ortega Hill in Summerland and a freeway undercrossing to the Eastside. These projects represent the first phase of 101 widening, and it has taken more than 10 years to design and review them. To fill a gap in state funding, the association will use Measure D funds this September to break ground on the first one, the bikeway and ramp-to-ramp lane at Ortega Hill.

Jack Overall, a member of the Montecito Association who sits on an advisory committee to the Association of Governments, says support for highway widening will depend on whether the public is convinced there are no alternatives.

"You start pushing eight lanes through the middle of Santa Barbara , and it's disruptive and enormously expensive," Mr. Overall said. "The idea of having that kind of construction going on for years through this community is not something anybody would voluntarily choose."

The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments has identified four options for dealing with congestion on Highway 101 between Ventura and Santa Barbara :

Proposal: Add commuter rail and one lane in each direction from the Ventura County line to Patterson Avenue , and reserve the new lanes for carpools, vanpools and buses. Add ramp-to-ramp lanes along southbound 101 between Carrillo and Garden streets and along northbound 101 between Fairview Avenue and Los Carneros Road .

Proposal: Add commuter rail and one lane in each direction from the Ventura County line to Milpas Street , and reserve the new lanes for carpools, vanpools and buses. Drivers traveling alone in the new lanes could be charged a toll. North of Milpas to Los Carneros Road in Goleta , widen the freeway with periodic ramp-to-ramp lanes in both directions.

Proposal: Add one general-purpose lane in each direction from the Ventura County line to Goleta , for a total of six lanes south of Milpas Street and eight lanes between Milpas and Patterson Avenue . Add ramp-to-ramp lanes along southbound 101 between Carrillo and Garden streets and along northbound 101 between Fairview Avenue and Los Carneros Road .

Former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Michael Dukakis on Monday told the county's top elected officials not to spend any money on widening Highway 101, urging them to focus all their energies on a commuter rail service into Santa Barbara.

While the exact cost of bringing a commuter train service to the South Coast is unknown, it is clear that it would be an expensive endeavor, with one preliminary estimate at $65 million just to start up.

"I wouldn't spend another nickel to widen the highway," said Mr. Dukakis, a former Amtrak board member. "When it's all done, it won't work. If you do it, it will be bumper-to-bumper in two years."

More than 150 people attended a four-hour Monday meeting titled "Getting Commuter Rail on Track" at the downtown library's Faulkner Gallery. Elected officials from the cities of Santa Barbara, Goleta, Ventura and the county of Santa Barbara packed the room.

With housing prices in Santa Barbara out of reach for most, many people are moving to Ventura County to find less expensive homes and choosing to commute to their Santa Barbara jobs.

The result: Heavy traffic is choking Highway 101 -- often doubling driving times -- during morning and evening commuter hours.

While sky-high housing prices are nothing new to Santa Barbara, the $1 million median home price is now driving away the middle-class, which is making it tough for government and private employers to recruit and retain workers.

With the traffic problem escalating, officials are scrambling to find solutions.

The idea of creating a commuter rail service to bring people from Oxnard to Goleta, with stops in between, has the most momentum, but such a plan could be decades away -- as far away as 2030, according to preliminary estimates by the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments.

Further complicating matters, the traffic problem is tangled in a broader political debate over what is the best way to relieve congestion.

Some argue that highway widening is the answer, while others contend that luring people out of their cars is the only true solution to solving the problem long term.

Mr. Dukakis, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 1988, spoke for about 20 minutes, peppering his talk with humor. He delighted the crowd, most of whom support commuter rail service.

"When you get a retired politician a platform, it's kind of dangerous," he quipped.

At times, the Democrat took soft jabs at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's borrowing to help balance the state budget and of President Bush's federal budget priorities.

On Monday, Mr. Bush announced plans to eliminate $1.2 billion in federal operating subsidies to Amtrak, which was created by Congress in 1971.

Mr. Dukakis recalled his work in Boston to expand commuter rail and said that there needs to be a new way of thinking in Washington.

"The interstate highway system does not work at 5 o'clock in the afternoon in any metropolitan area in the country," he said. "I don't think people in Washington understand that traffic and congestion are driving Americans nuts."

Mr. Dukakis was greeted warmly by the audience. Speakers also included officials from Metrolink, the San Diego North County Transit District, Ventura, Caltrans and Amtrak.

Most of Santa Barbara's political establishment is behind the idea of establishing commuter rail service. But there are many complications. The largest is figuring out a way to pay for it. The Association of Governments estimates that it could cost as much as $65 million just to start the service and another $3 million annually to run it.

One idea is to get voters to reapprove Measure D, a half-cent sales tax to help pay for roads and transit, which expires in 2010.

"Local funding is going to be required to make this happen," said Jim Kemp, the executive director of the Association of Governments. "Unless we extend Measure D . . . commuter rail simply isn't going to happen."

Mr. Kemp's group is behind a plan called 101 in Motion, which aims to solve the region's traffic woes through a combination of solutions, including widening parts of 101 to eight lanes, commuter rail and carpool lanes. Mr. Kemp said that while commuter rail service is a popular idea, there are many serious challenges.

"It takes more than advocacy to fill trains," Mr. Kemp said. "Many people will not ride the trains. We know that."

Amtrak officials, however, pointed to the success of Amtrak lines throughout the state.

"People think that Amtrak is just Boston, New York, Philadelphia and D.C.," said Liz O'Donoghue, director of Amtrak's Corridor Strategy West. "The growth in California is incredible."

She said that California is second only to New York in terms of statewide ridership.

But Ms. O'Donoghue said Santa Barbara needs to start planning now. She suggested the city conduct a potential ridership and market analysis; study the current infrastructure; work with other regional agencies; and consider ways to pay for the service.

City Councilman Dan Secord agreed, adding that getting voters to approve the Measure D sales tax is essential.

"If we don't have Measure D authorization," Dr. Secord said, "we are well and truly screwed."

Alternative transportation advocate Dennis Story praised Mr. Dukakis and hopes the commuter rail discussion doesn't end with his speech.

"I would like to invite you back again and again to make this happen," Mr.Story said.

Santa Barbara County Supervisor and SBCAG Chair Naomi Schwartz, Santa Barbara County Supervisor Susan Rose, Carpinteria Mayor Richard Weinberg, Lompoc Mayor Dick DeWees, Carpinteria City Council Member Donna Jordan, Goleta City Council Member Jack Hawxhurst, Santa Barbara City Council Member Dan Secord, Santa Maria City Council Member Marty Mariscal.

These old perspectives are changing, however, as we find that Santa Barbara is increasingly connected to Ventura County. Decisions made by local governments to our south affect our own community's quality of life.

We no longer can afford to ignore changes that are taking place in the rest of southern California. Port expansion plans in Los Angeles and Long Beach, the need for more freight line capacity from coastal ports to inland warehousing and distribution centers, the increasing demand upon regional airports, the jobs-housing imbalance between Santa Barbara County and Ventura County all affect our own community's future.

Recognizing this changing reality, a wide range of local elected officials from Santa Maria, Lompoc, Carpinteria, Santa Barbara and Goleta met recently with our elected counterparts from Ventura County and southern California to discuss issues of mutual concern.

This unprecedented summit meeting brought together for the first time elected leaders from the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, Ventura Council of Governments, Ventura County Transportation Commission and the Southern California Association of Governments to begin seeking common ground on issues of regional significance including housing, jobs and transportation.

Our discussions confirmed how important it is that we collaborate on numerous issues given the inter-relationship of the transportation and planning issues facing our regions.

Local governments enjoy tremendous public support because of the high visibility and accountability of local decision making. Unfortunately, local communities are no longer islands where local actions alone can buffer us from the effects of outside events.

To protect community character and quality of life we need to actively engage our local communities in understanding how the newly emerging interconnectedness of the world economy is driving change in southern California, and then we can develop strategies that are compatible with our region, but protect our own local interests.

Among the items raised at the meeting were: exploring various approaches to alleviate worsening traffic congestion on the 101, strategies to achieve a jobs/housing balance amid a growing population and trans-migration between counties in the region.

Other key issues included the possibility of extending the Metrolink commuter train system from Ventura into Santa Barbara County, increasing other transit services between Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, such as the Coastal Express bus, and integrating Santa Barbara County into Intelligent Transportation System technologies to improve the efficiency of traffic flow on the 101.

Participants agreed that by advocating for legislation and funding as a united region we will be much more effective in working with Congress and the state Legislature to ensure our region has the resources and policies to preserve our long-term prosperity and high quality of life.

As part of this cooperative approach, leaders acknowledged the need to educate their communities about the benefits of regional planning and advocacy.

Nearly 100 years ago Santa Barbara and Ventura County separated into two counties. The dividing line between the two counties won't be erased but the challenges of the 21st century demand continued dialogue across county and regional lines.

The same connections exist with our northern neighbors in San Luis Obispo County and deserve similar attention. Dramatic change is occurring all around us. We can either deal with this change reactively or begin working together to meet the challenges ahead.

Bumps on road to better 101
Planners OK changes to smooth traffic flow on clogged stretch of highway

Big changes designed to unclog traffic are coming to Highway 101 between Milpas Street and Hot Springs Road, but road construction will make commuting worse before it gets better.

The city's Planning Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a Coastal Development Permit, paving the way for the California Department of Transportation to make dozens of tweaks to the highway, ramps and nearby streets.

Much of Thursday's nearly five-hour meeting zeroed in on the subject that has Santa Barbara's alternative transportation contingent wildly excited: commuter rail into Santa Barbara from Ventura.

At the meeting, Caltrans agreed to study what it would entail to provide commuter service during the 101 construction project and then report the findings to the city. In addition, Warren Weber, chief for Caltrans' Division of Rail, agreed to convene a meeting early next year to talk about rail.

Because the 101 construction project will last four years, and highway shoulders in many parts will be reduced or eliminated, city officials are anticipating major traffic jams along a stretch of highway that is already bumper-to-bumper during morning and evening commuter hours.

Officials see commuter rail service as one way to reduce the traffic nightmares, with some estimating potential 10-mile backups coming into the city.

"If not now, then when?" said alternative transportation advocate Alex Pujo. "We would like to see it in our lifetime."

While the study doesn't sound earth-shattering, it is a significant departure from Caltrans' attitude from the past.

"This is a big step forward," said planning commissioner Grant House, an advocate for commuter rail and who received two ovations from the audience because it is his last commission meeting after eight years.

"We maybe can't accomplish it with this project, but it's the next step," he added.

Community Development Director Paul Casey also was surprised with Caltrans' willingness to seriously study the matter.

All of the changes to Highway 101 are intended to speed up traffic flow on the badly congested roadway and improve pedestrian pathways in the surrounding area.

The project won't begin until late 2006 or early 2007, and will cost $37 million. It still must undergo various phases of design review.

Some of the changes include adding a third southbound lane between Milpas and the Cabrillo Boulevard/Hot Springs Road exit; adding auxiliary lanes -- exit lanes such as the one between Garden and Milpas; replacing Sycamore bridge above Cabrillo Boulevard; installing a roundabout at Cabrillo and Hot Springs Road; and improving pedestrian pathways, including a tunnel under the highway at Cabrillo Boulevard.

Plans also call for sound walls by the Santa Barbara Zoo and next to the municipal tennis courts.

The idea of a rail service tied into the Caltrans project prompted concern from Jim Kemp, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, a group that is working on a separate highway project called "101 in Motion."

Mr. Kemp said successfully pulling off rail service is going to take time, effort and money -- extensive details that will need to be worked out. Commuter rail is also one of the options being studied in his 101 in Motion plan.

"We all know this is a complex project," Mr. Kemp said. "It's not something we're going to shoehorn in overnight."

Business owner John Dixon said he thinks the project is a good one, but expects it to hurt his sales. He said construction of the Milpas roundabout a few years ago badly reduced revenues at his lower Milpas Street grocery store.

"I certainly look forward to the end more than the beginning," said Mr. Dixon, owner of Tri-County Produce. "It's going to be great when it's all done. I hope we're all happy."

CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE: The wonderful thing about children is they open your eyes to worlds you would otherwise never know. Like the guilty pleasures of offing innocent bystanders in video games like Grand Theft Auto. Or moments of mandatory meditation that come with spending quality time on the 101 parking lot as you attempt to shuttle your bambinos from school to lessons. Certainly, without kids, I would have remained lost in the snug, self-satisfied bubble inhabited by all bicycle commuters and never discovered the inner Zen of gridlock. I was contemplating all this the other day as I tried getting on the 101 from the Mission Street onramp and found one of those gargantuan earth-hauling trucks directly in front of me. I finally managed to escape his sooty backdraft somewhere around Fairview, though not before being forced to make a sizable contribution to the family's profanity jar.

The fact is, I have seen the future and it looks a lot like the back of that truck. While leafing through the four-volume environmental impact report for Cottage Hospital's mega-mondo expansion plans — the biggest proposal to hit the South Coast since the construction of the County Courthouse — I came across some startling statistics. The first two years of construction will require the transportation of 6,800 truckloads of dirt and demolition debris. These trucks are not small, sprightly things. Each one is big enough to register on Cal Tech's Richter scale and generate its own weather patterns. On a good day they can rumble from 0 to 60 in about the time it takes to watch Titanic. During the first two years of construction, Cottage projects about 37,600 trips of other construction-related trucks — also big, just not gigantic — plus about 47,750 worker trips to get to the construction site. The workers, it should be noted, will be shuttled from the parking lot at Earl Warren Showgrounds. If those numbers make your eyes burn and your lungs ache in anticipation, the following four years promise to be even more intense. During that period, there will be 5,400 earth-moving trips, 55,150 construction truck trips, and 156,220 construction worker trips. In the interest of full disclosure, there are two more construction phases after that, but I stopped reading. While these numbers can be crunched to seem less alarming — only 134 average daily trips, for example — just imagine how scary Mission Street between the freeway and Bath Street already is. When construction starts, you'll need an armored Humvee to brave that trek. And while you can drive Las Positas without taking your life in your hands, it already is a certifiable traffic nightmare.

It's disturbing enough that the Cottage construction is scheduled to last close to a decade. But somewhere around 2007, Caltrans is supposed to begin construction on a series of necessary road improvements between Milpas Street and Hot Springs Road that will last at least three years. In 2008, similar work will begin in Carpinteria. Caltrans officials have assured me that, barring unforeseeable emergencies, they will keep two lanes open both ways during daylight hours, and only close lanes at night. That's good, but it's also true that we will lose our emergency shoulder during this time. Drivers will find themselves cinched in tight, confined by those concrete K-rail barriers you see in L.A., which typically are adorned with more tire marks than any sane person would care to contemplate. As recent accidents demonstrate, it doesn't take much of a fender-bender to tie up traffic between downtown Santa Barbara and the Ventura border. Once construction is underway, it's only going to get worse.

Call me perverse, but I'm actually hoping the Cottage-Caltrans collision creates the proverbial perfect storm. Maybe it will take something that bad for us to get our heads out of our tailpipes and start thinking seriously about other ways of getting from point A to point B. One of the more screamingly obvious ideas is commuter rail, though to date the idea remains very much an orphan seeking desperately to be adopted by the powers-that-be. How futuristic and whacky can it be if Ventura County is part of Metrolink, which provides commuter rail service to no less than five counties? Don't we have 16,000 people who commute from Ventura to Santa Barbara every day? Yes, there are real challenges. But consider this: It took Metrolink two-and-a-half years to get up and running. The Highway 101 improvements Caltrans is now talking about starting in 2007 were first approved in 1995. All you freeway-widening freaks should keep that in mind. Why wait until the next century for relief when it's right around the corner? Or it could be. Caltrans officials will be in town this Thursday to tell the city planning commissioners why they were wrong to ask for commuter rail service as mitigation to the proposed freeway improvements. It promises to be a wonk-fest showdown of the first order, with both sides politely blasting each other with a host of acronyms comprehensible to only a few. The bottom line, as always, is money. The commissioners will try to squeeze a few hundred thousand out of Caltrans to fund a study that shows — in sufficient technical detail — just how commuter rail service can be extended from Ventura to Goleta. There are other rail studies on the drawing boards, but nothing that accomplishes that goal. Maybe the good folks from Cottage Hospital will show up and lend a hand. After all, if a power elite exists in Santa Barbara, some of its members sit on the Cottage Hospital Board of Directors. Maybe if these guys start twisting arms, Caltrans will listen. If not, the board will still have the helipad — approved for the new and improved Cottage Hospital. As for the rest us, we'll be at home playing Grand Theft Auto, killing bystanders innocent and otherwise — even those of us without children.

A start on the right track
Voice of Jim Kemp Executive Director, Santa Barbara County Association of Governments

On Wednesday, a new Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train will begin service between Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo with stops at all Santa Barbara County train stations.

The new service provides a fifth daily Surfliner train from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara/Goleta and a much needed alternative for drivers using the South Coast 's congested Highway 101.

Train travel in Southern California is on the rise. More than 7 million passengers rode on Coaster, Metrolink and Amtrak trains last year.

The Pacific Surfliner corridor between San Diego and San Luis Obispo is the second busiest Amtrak line in the country. Boardings at the five Santa Barbara County train stations in Carpinteria, Santa Barbara , Goleta , Lompoc and Santa Maria/Guadalupe increased an average of 25 percent last year.

Although Amtrak won't work for everyone because the schedules don't match traditional commute times, the Pacific Surfliner might allow some of the thousands of South Coast area workers commuting from Ventura County every day the option of leaving their cars at home and bypassing the 101 traffic jams in the comfort of a train.

The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments worked with all its partner agencies including Amtrak, Caltrans Division of Rail, Ventura County Transportation Commission and San Luis Obispo Council of Governments to bring the new Pacific Surfliner service to Santa Barbara County.

Locally, the Car Free Santa Barbara consortium, comprised of representatives from a wide range of local tourism promotion organizations and lead by the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District, has been promoting Santa Barbara to visitors as a travel destination that works very well without the need for a car. The new Surfliner service will make our community an even better car-free destination.

Many people also are discovering that the Coastal Express bus service is a great way to reduce commuting costs and get relief from the aggravation of traffic congestion.

The Coastal Express, which is run jointly by SBCAG and VCTC, operates seven days a week and provides 26 trips -- 12 northbound and 14 southbound -- on weekdays between Ventura County and Santa Barbara. For a $2 fare -- $75 unlimited-ride monthly pass -- riders can read, do office work or catch up on sleep while traveling on modern quiet coaches with comfortable individually ventilated and lighted reclining seats.

SBCAG is leading efforts to find long-term solutions to the South Coast 's growing congestion and traffic delays through the 101 in Motion project. Through 101 in Motion, a wide range of congestion-relief ideas are being evaluated, and a plan for improving mobility in the South Coast is being developed.

Clearly, 101 will have to be improved. The freeway's 1950-era design features -- narrow shoulders and bridges, short on- and off- ramps, and the infamous bottlenecks at Milpas Street and the county line -- can't handle current traffic volumes and speeds. But the scale of the traffic problems both now and in the future will require more than just improving the freeway and local interchanges.

Not everyone wants or needs to drive 101 during peak periods. Some commuters will choose alternatives like trains, buses and vanpools if they are convenient and save money.

Some might commute during off-peak traffic periods if their employers permitted them to use alterative work schedules.

In fact, some employees might do their work from home computers avoiding commute trips and traffic congestion altogether.

Providing a sustainable solution to the growing congestion on Highway 101 and its impacts on our economy, safety and quality of life demands that we improve 101 and provide transportation alternatives, which build on the success of the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner and the Coastal Express.

The community must agree on which alternatives will work best, and then make them succeed by using them. If you would like To learn more about the effort to reduce congestion, visit www.101inmotion.com or call (866) MOVE-101.

A new Amtrak Surfliner train will begin running next week from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo , officials announced Monday.

The train is scheduled to leave Union Station in Los Angeles at 7:30 a.m. and arrive in Ventura at 9:35 a.m. It would reach Santa Barbara by 10:15 a.m. and San Luis Obispo around 1 p.m., said Patrick Merrill, the manager of capital projects for Caltrans' rail division.

"We're hoping some people will be able to flex their schedule enough to use it," Mr. Merrill said.

The new Amtrak train will be the third to run between Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo and the only one leaving Los Angeles before 9 a.m. Service will begin on Nov. 17. On its southbound trip, the train will leave San Luis Obispo at 1:20 p.m. and Santa Barbara at 4:00 p.m. It will arrive in Ventura at 4:45 p.m. and Los Angeles at 7:10 p.m.

The service is the culmination of a two-year effort to add a Surfliner train at hours that might provide some relief for commuters on Highway 101 between Ventura and the South Coast .

Caltrans had wanted to schedule an earlier train, but it was impossible because of the large number of morning trains traveling southbound to Los Angeles on the same tracks, Mr. Merrill said.

State Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, said a jurisdictional morass held up the additional service for two years, as negotiations bogged down between Amtrak and Union Pacific Railroad, the owner of the tracks.

"Sometimes that first step is the hardest," Ms. Jackson said. "Name a problem: it happened."

Because Amtrak gets a third of its funding from the federal government, it must service the general public and not just commuters. Where Amtrak does operate commuter trains -- between Los Angeles and Ventura , for example -- local cities and counties must foot the bill.

The Los Angeles-San Luis Obispo Surfliner will be paid for with a recent increase in ticket sales on other Amtrak trains in California , Mr. Merrill said.

The public is invited to ride the inaugural Surfliner train on Nov. 17 for part or all of the route. Reservations are not required but are recommended for the inaugural ride. A ticket is required. Festivities are scheduled at train stations in Los Angeles , Oxnard , Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Amtrak reservations may be made at (800) USA-RAIL or www.amtrak.com.

101 freeway widening idea has pros, cons

Santa Barbara, Ventura county leaders plan study

Mike Granaroli sees little reason to add more buses or trains when it comes to easing traffic on Highway 101 in Santa Barbara County. The 49-year-old Ventura ironworker said lugging the tools of his trade on a bus is not an option.

With half his work taking place in Santa Barbara County, Granaroli instead wants the congested freeway widened.

"I can't wait for the road to get bigger," Granaroli said, balancing a cup in his hand at a Ventura coffeeshop this week before heading to work. "I don't see why they haven't done it yet. It can't make it any worse. We don't even go to visit our relatives (in Santa Barbara) anymore because of the traffic on Sundays."

Two weeks ago, Santa Barbara and Ventura county leaders agreed to intensify studies on expanding commuter rail service as traffic between the two regions continues to worsen. Others, however, believe any solution should include widening Highway 101 in south Santa Barbara County, despite the furor that arose when the idea was proposed more than a decade ago.

Many Santa Barbara County politicians seem cautiously interested, saying it could reduce congestion but only if combined with carpooling, buses, expanded rail or more affordable housing.

"I don't think widening alone will solve the problem, nor do I think rail or any other means (will do it)," Carpinteria Mayor Dick Weinberg said. "It's got to be a combination of things."

Meanwhile, traffic on 101 increases as droves of middle-income Santa Barbara residents -- priced out of the real estate market there -- move to Ventura County for cheaper housing and commute north to work.

About 102,000 motorists a day used Highway 101 between the Milpas Street and Cabrillo Road-Hot Springs Boulevard exits in 2002, nearly double the number in 1980, according to the latest Caltrans figures available. In 2002, some 15,500 commuters drove from Ventura County to jobs north, more than five times the 2,800 commuters doing it in 1980.

Weekends often aren't much better than workdays, as Southern Californians flock to Santa Barbara shops and beaches or just pass through on trips to and from the Central Coast and Northern California.

All this stop-and-go traffic hasn't affected air quality, thanks to cleaner-burning vehicles, said Terry Dressler, an air pollution control officer for the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District.

"But we're going to see the end of that benefit, because cars can only get so much cleaner," Dressler said. At some point, air quality will worsen "unless alternative means of transportation are embraced," Dressler said.

The state Department of Transportation finished converting Highway 101 to a freeway in and around the city of Santa Barbara in 1992, Caltrans spokeswoman Marta Bortner said. That's when crews elevated the road, took out the last remaining traffic signals and steered it around the downtown, which it once ran through, Bortner said.

"It was built to meet the capacity needs of the time, and over time that changes," Bortner said of the four-lane highway -- two lanes in each direction -- between the southern edge of Santa Barbara and the Ventura County line.

In 1993, Caltrans proposed adding a lane in each direction along an 11.7-mile stretch between the Milpas Street exit near the Santa Barbara city limit and the San Ysidro Street exit just east of Montecito.

"The process had failed," said Santa Barbara County Supervisor Naomi Schwartz, who got nearly 3,000 letters and phone calls, mostly in opposition. "It clearly needed to involve the community much more than it had."

Many critics assailed Caltrans for what they called an offensive design. To add more lanes, the proposal called for cutting down thousands of trees -- groves planted to honor fallen war heroes -- and razing or relocating scores of homes and businesses, said Lee Moldaver, a board member with the Metropolitan Transit District.

Moldaver called the proposal "horrifically ugly." Schwartz described it as a "concrete swath." Even business leaders, who supported the widening idea and still favor it today, couldn't get behind the specific proposal.

"The design and presentation was, 'Here's the San Fernando Valley or Orange County, and we're going to put it in Santa Barbara,' " said Steve Cushman, executive director of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce.

"Even if you believed that widening would solve the problem," Moldaver said, "Caltrans could not ... say that adding an extra lane could solve a traffic congestion problem."

County leaders commissioned a study to consider options other than widening. A citizens task force reviewed the study, after which the Santa Barbara Association of Governments, in 1996, approved three smaller-scale freeway improvements, which remain unbuilt.

One will add a third southbound lane and two northbound auxiliary lanes between the Milpas and Cabrillo Road-Hot Springs Boulevard exits. Auxiliary lanes allow motorists to merge on and off freeways between exits. Construction on the 1.3-mile, $30 million project is slated to start in late 2006, Bortner said.

Other improvements include a $3.1 million northbound auxiliary lane between Evans Avenue and Sheffield Drive west of Summerland, and $21.6 million in interchange work at the Linden Avenue and Casitas Pass exits near Carpinteria. Work on the northbound auxiliary lane won't start until 2005. The interchange improvements are set to begin in 2008, Bortner said.

These projects, however, are not designed to reduce rush-hour traffic, Bortner said.

Santa Barbara County leaders have not abandoned the idea of widening 101. It is one of dozens of traffic solutions under consideration by the Association of Government's "101 in Motion" project, an ongoing study of the traffic problems.

An extra lane could be used for ordinary traffic or restricted to carpools or express buses, association spokesman Gregg Hart said, adding that toll lanes are another option.

Ferries, rail and improved mass transit also are under consideration. Leaders from both counties recently agreed to intensify studies on expanding commuter rail. A decision on which options to pursue is due next year.

Adding more lanes to freeways, however, generally does not solve rush-hour traffic, said Tim Lomax, a research engineer at the Texas Transportation Institute. Initially, the duration of stop-and-go traffic may shrink an hour or so, Lomax said. But motorists who avoided rush hour by leaving earlier or later eventually return, "and they come back in enough cars to fill up the freeway," Lomax said.

Still, Tom Pollett, a Ventura resident who works in Santa Barbara as a software programmer, called widening the freeway a great idea.

"I'm a born-and-bred Southern Californian," Pollett, 58, said this week at the Ventura coffee shop. "I don't think I could give up my car."

Shannon Knupp, a 33-year-old Ventura resident and human resources worker, would rather see Metrolink expand its rail operations to Santa Barbara. The Los Angeles-based commuter service now stops at Ventura's Montalvo station.

Knupp moved to Ventura three years ago but continued to work in Santa Barbara. After four months of the nightmarish commute, she gave up and found a job in Oxnard.

If affordable housing became available in Santa Barbara, however, she'd move back "in a heartbeat," she said. "If I could afford to live up there, I would." The median home price in south Santa Barbara County is now more than $1 million.

Affordable housing could relieve traffic congestion if coupled with other transit solutions, said John Jostes, a Santa Barbara-based planner, city planning commissioner and author of "Taking Action Regionally," a recent study commissioned by Santa Barbara and Ventura county government agencies.

Jostes doubts there's enough political will, however, for affordable housing in Santa Barbara. "The way politics works is people go for votes, not for allocating environmental and social costs fairly across the region," Jostes said.

Carpinteria's Weinberg disagreed. The problem isn't a lack of political will, but rather backlash from not-in-my-back-yard residents who fear high-density housing, Weinberg said.

Ventura Mayor Brian Brennan said he would only support widening Highway 101 so it could have a light-rail line in the median. Just adding more car lanes doesn't make sense, he said.

"I think it's the classic case of curing obesity by loosening your belt," Brennan said. "We'll fill those roads right up again."

Transportation summit stirs old rifts on Hwy. 101

"It's going to be transit or rail. It's not about increasing capacity on Highway 101"

By MELINDA BURNS, NEWS-PRESS SENIOR WRITER

A regional transportation summit in Santa Barbara on Wednesday brought out some of the old rifts about highway widening vs. commuter trains, even as officials vowed to work together to unclog Highway 101.

On one side was Grant House, a Santa Barbara planning commissioner, asking Union Pacific Railroad executives how soon they could meet with South Coast leaders.

"There has to be some way to get more workers to work without a car," Mr. House said. "It's going to be transit or rail. It's not about increasing capacity on Highway 101."

On the other side was Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, describing the plan to widen 101 south of the Rincon from six to eight lanes. The additional lanes would be reserved for buses and car pools during rush hours, Ms. Gherardi said.

Ventura County voters will decide in November whether to help pay for the $545 million project with a sales tax increase.

Ms. Gherardi said it costs Ventura County $6 million per year to operate and maintain its Metrolink commuter rail service -- about twice what the county spends on buses.

"I'm not saying you don't run trains," Ms. Gherardi said. "But you look at what's most cost-effective."

About 70 community leaders from Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties attended the summit, which was convened at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center by Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara. Mrs. Capps called on the officials to cooperate on solutions for the 101, saying they would have more clout in Washington, D.C., if they spoke as one.

"We need some action now," she said. "This is front and center in people's minds. It can't just be limping along."

No decisions were made on Wednesday, but during a wide-ranging discussion about trains, planes and automobiles, the message to local officials was,"Don't ignore your neighbors."

The keynote speaker, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Portland, Ore., a senior member of the House transportation committee, urged officials to get rid of their ideas about "local control."

"Every time a jurisdiction does exactly what it wants without consulting other jurisdictions, they all lose," he said. "They're overwhelmed by what washes over them from adjacent communities."

A case in point are the 16,000 commuters who drive from Ventura to the South Coast daily on a freeway that is two lanes in each direction. Many of the commuters are middle-class professionals who can't afford to live on the South Coast, where the median price of a home is $1 million.

A recent study for the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments,"Taking Action Regionally," shows that future congestion on 101 could best be reduced by building more affordable housing on the South Coast, with preference given to local workers. Adding more buses and trains or widening
101, the study found, would not make a dent in the estimated 11,000 new commuters expected by 2010.

"This was astonishing to me," Bill Fulton, a Ventura city councilman, told the audience. "Housing available for the work force has to be part of the solution -- and that means here."

Meanwhile, Mr. Fulton said, Ventura is looking for ways to stimulate high-end businesses at the western end of town as one way of reducing the commutes.

"I accept we're going to have more and more Santa Barbara commuters," he said. "Pretty soon, we'll steal the workers and also the companies."

Several panelists on Wednesday criticized the federal funding rules that favor highway building over buses and trains.

"While the automobile is necessary and we should not declare war on the automobile, it's important that we do not surrender to it as well," Mr. Blumenauer said. "Simply expanding freeway capacity is like somebody dealing with an obesity problem by getting a larger pair of pants."

Jim Kemp, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, said federal funding restrictions make it hard for agencies to expand bus service. The county will soon lose more than $3 million per year in federal smog-reduction funds for buying and operating buses because the
county's air is cleaner now, Mr. Kemp said.

"We can buy buses," he said. "What we can't pay for is operating them. That needs to be changed."

Lastly, the discussion turned to increasing the train service between Ventura and Santa Barbara, either on Amtrak passenger trains or commuter trains such as Metrolink.

Saying that trains were a "forgotten piece" of the transportation network, Amtrak officials noted that the federal government has spent $30 billion supporting the airline industry since the Sept. 11 attacks -- more than Amtrak has asked for in its entire history.

With respect to commuter trains, two Union Pacific panelists said they had to consider their investors and their freight operations first.

"We try to make sure that what we do for you is in the best interests of our shareholders," said Jerry Wilmoth, Union Pacific's general manager for network infrastructure. "It may give us the appearance of being uncooperative. We're in a limited right of way, and we don't want to lose
the ability to expand. There are times when joint operations just don't work."

That statement brought a protest from Valentin Alexeeff, director of the county Planning and Development.

"What we're concerned about is the sense of hopelessness before we even sit down together," he said.

Mr. Wilmoth responded it was "challenging," not hopeless. "Maybe it's the same thing."

Saying it was time to "plunge in" and "find out what's possible," Santa Barbara County Supervisor Naomi Schwartz said: "Rail is a favored option in people's minds. We look at an empty rail corridor most of the day."

In an interview, however, Mr. Wilmoth said commuter rail was not simply a matter of scheduling. For one thing, he said, freight operations are expanding at a rate of about 5 percent yearly. Union Pacific's main line runs through the Central Valley from Fresno to Southern California. The
coastal route is a secondary line, but it's crucial in case of an earthquake, Mr. Wilmoth said.

"If we have a problem with a bridge or a tunnel, this is our backup," he said.

Panel presses for rail service
Wider freeways also suggested at traffic summit

By Charles Levin

A Santa Barbara County supervisor said Wednesday it's time to consider creating a new commuter rail service between Ventura and points north to ease traffic congestion on Highway 101.

"We no longer have this invisible county line that separates our work force from Ventura County and vice versa," Supervisor Naomi Schwartz said after a regional transportation summit Wednesday in Santa Barbara. "There's no question that any significant rail options need to involve both counties."

Several other panelists at the summit echoed Schwartz's remarks, calling for officials from both counties to find solutions to traffic now. Skyrocketing real estate prices in Santa Barbara have sent residents to Ventura County for relatively cheaper housing.

About 27,000 commuters now use Highway 101 between Goleta and Camarillo, up from 22,000 in 1990, said U.S. Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, who organized Wednesday's event. More than 100 people attended the summit, including civic and business leaders from both counties.

"What I have in mind is a rail SWAT team ... consisting of all the potential players in expanding inter-community rail along our corridor," Schwartz said. "Let's see what the barriers are and what we can do about them, and see what the costs are and how we can realize that."

Representatives from Metrolink; Caltrans, which operates an Amtrak rail service between San Diego and San Luis Obispo; and Union Pacific, which owns the rail track, indicated interest. Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long, who co-hosted the event with Schwartz, and Ventura Mayor Brian Brennan also said they support the idea.

Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, said any solution to Highway 101 congestion must also examine widening the freeway as well as mass transit.

"There's a certain point where you absolutely have to have more (freeway) capacity, and that's the situation we're in, in Ventura County," Gherardi said.

The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments is studying a host of solutions to congested freeway traffic, including car-pool lanes, ferries and widening the freeway and rail. A Santa Barbara grass-roots group is pushing for a commuter rail service between Ventura and Goleta.

Several panelists extolled the virtues of rail, noting it would get motorists out of cars and reduce air pollution.

Ridership is up on many rail services, officials said. Amtrak's Surfliner, between San Diego and San Luis Obispo, is the fastest-growing line in the nation, said Warren Weber, Caltrans manager of rail operations. Overall ridership is 2.2 million passengers a year, a 26 percent increase over the
past year, Weber said.

Funding for a solution, however, is going to be difficult, several speakers said.

Providing a commuter rail line between Ventura's Montalvo station and Goleta, with stops at Seaside Park, Carpinteria and Santa Barbara's State Street, could cost $193 million, according to a preliminary study by the Santa Barbara Association of Governments.

Two Union Pacific officials at the summit expressed interest in more talks. But the company's bottom line takes priority, they said. "What we do at Union Pacific is in the best interest of the shareholders," said Jerry Wilmoth, a Union Pacific general manager.

Union Pacific carries freight on 33,000 miles of track across 23 states."The last thing we want to do is something that doesn't work," Wilmoth said.

2-County Rail Line to Be Studied

A train linking Ventura and Santa Barbara counties is cited as an alternative to growing congestion on a 35-mile stretch of the 101.

Transportation officials from Ventura and Santa Barbara counties agreed Wednesday to explore the possibility of establishing a commuter rail line between the two counties to ease traffic congestion on the 101 Freeway.

Acknowledging that starting a commuter line would be costly and time-consuming, officials said every means of alternative transportation should be pursued to find a solution to the growing traffic congestion on the 35-mile stretch of highway.

"We're not going to wait for some future date to start this," said Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara). "We've already started."

Capps cosponsored a transportation conference in Santa Barbara to discuss solutions to the commuter problem, made worse by a severe shortage of housing for middle-class families in Santa Barbara.

Instead, people have been buying homes in less-expensive Ventura County and commuting to their jobs in Santa Barbara and Goleta, clogging the freeway that narrows to two lanes through Carpinteria and Montecito.

"We need to find out what's possible and what's simply not possible," said Santa Barbara County Supervisor Naomi Schwartz. "Rail is a popular option in this community. We look at an empty railroad corridor most of the day."

But a rail line would be expensive and require the cooperation of the privately owned Union Pacific Railroad, whose first priority is moving freight from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach across the country, railroad officials said.

"We don't want to give the appearance of being uncooperative but we will do what we can to help our franchise," said Jerry Wilmoth, general manager of network infrastructure for Union Pacific. "We have a limited right of way, and we don't want to lose our ability to expand. In some places, there just isn't enough room. It's like putting a Ferrari and Volkswagen together on the freeway. They just don't work very well."

Yet Wilmoth and Scott Moore, general manager of the railroad's public-private partnership, said they would be willing to talk with representatives from the two counties.

"It's not hopeless, it's challenging. But maybe that's the same thing," Wilmoth said. "It's something we don't take lightly. But it takes a lot of work. We certainly want to be involved to find creative solutions that in the end can work."

Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, suggested the first step in that process should be a rail study to determine the operational costs of a commuter line, the cost of a bus service to shuttle people from train stations to their workplaces, the number of people who would ride the buses, where train stations would be located and the type of train that would be used.

"The two counties need to come together to come up with planning dollars to conduct the study," Gherardi said. "The outcomes will determine if we have the resources to establish a line. We need to get started on that right away."

She said Amtrak would soon be starting a morning route from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo that would stop in Ventura and Santa Barbara. The number of commuters who use the train would provide a good indication of how popular a commuter-only line might be, she said.

But Warren Weber, manager of rail operations for the California Department of Transportation, said for the train to be useful to Ventura commuters, it would have to depart Los Angeles at 6 a.m., which would cut into the leisure travel market. He said that was not something he wanted to risk.

David Solow, Metrolink executive director, said he would be willing to talk about expanding the service into Santa Barbara County.

"I'm here to help, but it's going to cost you a lot," Solow said. "There's substantial operating costs involved in order for us to grow. You need to understand it's something you're stuck with for a very long time."

The Metrolink rail system now operates in Ventura County, taking commuters as far north as Montalvo. The service costs Ventura County $5.5 million a year plus $550,000 paid annually to Union Pacific to use its rails, Gherardi said.

The conference was cosponsored by Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long and Schwartz. About 100 people attended the meeting, including Dennis Story, chairman of coastalrailnow.org, an organization pushing for a rail line between the counties.

"I'm optimistic," said Story, who lives in Santa Barbara. "The rail makes so much sense. It's kind of the way we're going."

But Ventura Mayor Brian Brennan, who attended the conference, said he was not sure. He said he favored establishing a light-rail system in the median of the 101 Freeway instead.

"That model's dead," Brennan said of the Union Pacific rail-line idea. "It's time to go with a new model."

Imagine gliding quickly along the coast as cars inch their way on the 101, and only paying $2.10 for the ride from Carpinteria to Santa Barbara. It’s possible with Amtrak’s 45-day 10 trip ticket for the San Luis Obispo to San Diego Surfliner route.

This ticket is good for 10 individual rides or groups traveling together and is available at the Santa Barbara station.

For travelers between Carpinteria and Santa Barbara, this means a savings of $29 over the individual $5 one-way tickets (which can be purchased from the conductor). This ticket is also available to other towns along the route, with individual trips costing $3.30 to Ventura and $12 to Los Angeles from Carpinteria. Or you can buy an unlimited monthly pass that costs $51 from Carpinteria to Santa Barbara, for example.

What a great incentive to leave your car at home, for which the environment and your wallet will thank you.

Schedules for are available at www.Amtrak.com. Always call 1-800-USARAIL to check status beforehand.

Amtrak is considering adding a weekday morning train from Carpinteria to Santa Barbara that would return in the early evening. To help this become a reality, please write a letter to David Gunn, president and CEO of Amtrak to let him know that the new service is important to you and encourage him to overcome whatever delays exist. (Mr. David Gunn, president and CEO, National Rail Passenger Corporation, 60 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Washington, D.C. 20002)

Another possibility is commuter rail, which works in countless cities around the globe with a connecting bus system. For more information on the campaign to develop this urgently needed service here, please see www.coastalrailnow.org (a project of COAST, the non-profit Coalition for Sustainable Transportation).

If you don’t like the train schedule, you can take MTD bus 21x to Santa Barbara. It runs on a half-hour schedule during the week and you can take your bike along, just like on the train. See www.sbmtd.gov for more information. A combination of taking the train one way and the bus the other is also a possibility.

It may seem like a minor contribution, but every car that stays parked reduces congestion, pollution and the frightening impacts of global warming (let’s keep Carpinteria above sea level).

It’s up to each of us to overcome the cultural addiction to gasoline and its far-reaching effects. I’ve made the commitment to replace at least one car trip per week with a train ride. How about you?

As a software project manager, Robin Butterfield faces the occasional deadline, forcing her to burn the midnight oil at her Santa Barbara office. Staying late keeps the 44-year-old Ventura resident from committing to rigid carpool, vanpool or bus schedules. So Butterfield commutes solo by car along Highway 101 five days a week.

Butterfield would hop a train every now and then if it offered flexible departure and arrival times. "I would definitely crank up the laptop and cue up a little e-mail," said Butterfield, who has commuted to Santa Barbara off and on for about 13 years.

Talk of a coastal commuter train has been making the rounds in Santa Barbara County for nearly a year. Last month, officials with CoastalRailNow.org, the Santa Barbara group behind this effort, began pushing their cause at the Ventura Farmers Market on Saturday mornings.

"We can't continue to do 99 percent of our trips with the automobile," said Dennis Story, secretary with the Coalition for Sustainable Transportation, a nonprofit agency sponsoring CoastalRailNow.org.

Commuter rail along the coast offers several appealing advantages: using Union Pacific's existing rail tracks while getting cars off Highway 101 and reducing air pollution, Story said. But the proposal, already under consideration by the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, has
some baggage: massive costs for trains, operating rights to the tracks and improved shuttle bus service between train stations and job centers -- and no certain way to pay for it.

Last week, several Ventura County leaders expressed cautious interest in the rail proposal, aware that increasing numbers of Santa Barbara residents migrate here for cheaper housing but still commute north.

"The easier it is to commute to Santa Barbara, the more people will do it," said Bill Fulton, an urban planning expert and Ventura city councilman.

A preliminary cost estimate for the proposal is $193 million, which includes trains, improved bus connections to job centers and an unspecified number of parallel tracks called "sidings," said Gregg Hart, spokesman with the Santa Barbara government association. The sidings allow freight trains to pass and stay on schedule.

The proposal is one of several being examined by the association's "101 in Motion" project, Hart said. Others include commuter carpool lanes, ferries, toll roads and widening the freeway, Hart said. Association officials expect to make a decision by mid-2005, he said.

Story's group envisions three trains a day along 38.5 miles of track -- 18.5 miles in Ventura County -- between Montalvo and Goleta with stops at Seaside Park, Carpinteria and State Street.

Downtown Santa Barbara is well-served by small electric shuttle buses but the Goleta area is not, Hart said. "A whole new system would have to be created to get people from the train stations to their ultimate destinations," Hart said.

Similar problems plague the Ventura County side, said Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission. The Montalvo and Seaside Park train stations lack bus service.

Gherardi seemed skeptical of the rail proposal, citing inconsistent shuttle services and costs. "We have a lot more flexibility to keep up with demand for buses than to mount a commuter train service," Gherardi said.

The county's VISTA bus line offers 10 to 13 trips a day between Ventura and Goleta, she said. Between 2002 and 2004, ridership on that line grew 97 percent, from 46,293 to 91,030 a year, officials said.

Earl Sutta, who helps operate the Clean Air Express charter bus service between Camarillo and Goleta, said improving bus service between train stations and jobs would be a key. If that's ironed out, Sutta would support the plan. Trains would be more reliable than buses, which also get stuck in
traffic, said the Raytheon engineer.

No one disagrees that jobs and housing have fueled the chronic glut of rush-hour traffic on Highway 101. Between 1995 and 2000, a little more than 7,000 people moved from Santa Barbara County to Ventura County, according to U.S. Census statistics. About 3,500 people headed from Ventura County to Santa Barbara County. Meanwhile, median housing costs in Santa Barbara
recently crossed the $1 million mark. That stratospheric market has forced residents to seek relatively cheaper real estate in Ventura County.

The downside is the freeway commute. "As we become the bedroom community for Santa Barbara, it's just impacting that freeway all the way up," said Ventura Mayor Brian Brennan, who supports more discussion with Santa Barbara officials about a potential rail plan.

Funding the rail plan would also be a critical hurdle. Train fares could pay for up to half the costs, said Story, of CoastalRailNow.org. Federal funding could subsidize the rest, he said, adding that Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, has expressed interest. Capps is hosting a transportation roundtable Aug. 25 at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center in Santa Barbara.

Moorpark Councilman Keith Millhouse, who sits on the Ventura County Transportation Commission, said some financing could come from Measure B, which goes to voters in November. Approval would increase the county's sales tax a half-cent and raise $50 million a year for 30 years for transportation
improvements. Twenty percent of the money would go to transit and rail projects.

Santa Barbara County residents already pay a half-cent sales tax for transportation projects, but it expires in 2009. Voters would have to reauthorize the tax, or "we will not be able to do any of these things," Hart said.

Other potential rail travelers aren't as excited as Butterfield, the software manager.

Mark Fisher, 48, works two jobs in the Santa Barbara area: one as a computer network manager, the other as the Montecito Country Club's executive chef. Between both jobs, the Ventura resident travels the 101 seven days a week, but his schedule allows him to stay out of rush hour. But he's skeptical about a train service.

Taking a train requires more time going from home to station and from station to work.

"I don't have three hours to waste on commuting by train," Fisher said. "And the car creates a sense of autonomy and independence that the rail system doesn't give you."

California legislators are asking for just a little bit of progress by Amtrak following the expenditure of nearly a billion dollars by the state on locomotives, cars, and track upgrades for the national system.

A letter circulated by Assembly Member Hannabeth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) and signed by 24 other Assembly Members
and Senators asks Amtrak to begin the second promised coast train “as soon as possible–ideally next month–so we do not lose a significant opportunity to encourage alternative travel in California.”

Ridership recently passed the 2 million annual trips mark on the popular blue Pacific Surfliner trains. That, along with record revenues, means Caltrans has more than enough funding to operate the new train. Several stations showed extraordinary growth—in the range of 43% to 71% last year.

A disproportionate amount of the ridership growth happened west of Los Angeles, where U.S. 101, and State Route 118 now have heavy congestion, even on weekends. Recreational travel produces some of the worst delays on U.S. 101, but these weekend and tourist trips represent an important component of the economies of Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo Counties.

The continuing growth trend between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara makes it imperative that sufficient trains be added at times Highway 101 is crowded. State officials worked for months with Amtrak, Metrolink, and Union Pacific to secure the right to operate an additional train and obtain a desirable train slot from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo in the early morning (with an early evening return arrival at LA Union Station). Amtrak earlier had assured the state that it had equipment available for a May start of service.

The ability to break through bureaucracy and introduce new service in an election year is key to making intercity rail politically potent. Amtrak did this on the San Diegan Route in 1976 and on the San Joaquin Route in 1980 for California. Amtrak began and then cemented its financially rewarding relationship with the state rail program in each case by getting trains going with less than 60 days advance notice. 2004 is also a Federal election year, but despite a year's advance notice, Amtrak has been slow to act, and in May reportedly told state officials that it couldn't start a new train before November, reportedly due to the need to hire and train four to six people.

Coastal California rail supporters are understandably frustrated by the pace of progress. Nearly all the bond monies from Proposition 116 have been expended, fourteen years after California voters approved it, but the state still doesn't have a single Los Angeles-San Francisco train to show for it.

“Amtrak and Caltrans have been blocked repeatedly in starting their first state train linking northern and southern California” said TRAC Board Member Dan McNamara. “Since 1990, four new trains have started that go most of the way between the Bay Area and Southern California, but not one goes all the way.”

“This is the first proposed schedule that could be extended to San Francisco, and we understand that Caltrans has plans to run dedicated bus connections through to the Bay Area. That's great, but we think Caltrans should be more forward thinking and find the resources to run this train all the way,“ said McNamara. “If California can support San Joaquin and Capitol schedules that cover only 25 percent of their out-of-pocket costs from passenger revenues, then it should be able to afford trains which get better than 50 percent revenue cost ratios, like every Bay Area-Los Angeles train in its history, including the Spirit of California.”

“In the long term, the subsidy on this train would clearly be less if it ran all the way through to the Bay. San Francisco is a much more attractive destination than Emeryville or Oakland for tourism,” said McNamara. “Can you imagine the response from the California public if you could finally take a train from Los Angeles direct to Silicon Valley and Peninsula stops such as Santa Clara, Mountain View, Palo Alto, SFO/Millbrae or even to get off a block from SBC Park for an evening Giants' game?”

Legislative supporters of the train are hopeful that the segment as far as San Luis Obispo will start running this summer, so as to get a strong start from peak season tourist revenues.

Assembly:
Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara)
Paul Koretz, (D-West Hollywood)
Dario Frommer (D-Los Angeles)
Assembly Speaker
Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles)
Fran Pavley (D-Santa Monica)
Patricia Bates (D-Sepulveda)
Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys)
Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles)
Ronald S. Calderon (D-Montebello)
Jerome Horton (D-Inglewood)
Mervyn Dymally (D-Oceanside)
Carol Liu (D-La Cañada-Flintridge)
Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles)
Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria)
Herb Wesson, Jr. (D-Los Angeles)
Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach)
Keith S. Richman, MD (R-Northridge)
John Laird (D-Santa Cruz)
Rudy Bermúdez (D-Norwalk)
Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach)

Senate:
Jack Scott (D-Altadena)
Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles)
Bruce McPherson (R-Santa Cruz)
Betty Karnette (D-Long Beach)
Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica)

Will commuters be riding the rails from Ventura to Santa Barbara in the next five years?

A growing group of local officials and politicians says it can and must happen. Santa Barbara, they say, has become a commuter city with 27,000 people driving in to work on the South Coast daily, bringing with them the traffic, noise, exhaust and parking problems that make every trip downtown a hassle.

"It's inevitable that rail will come," says Jonathan Maguire, a Santa Barbara planning commissioner who serves on the board of the nonprofit Coalition for Sustainable Transportation, or COAST. "We envision a three-train system which could potentially take 1,000 to 1,500 cars off the road. One day, there won't be any more room to expand the freeway, and the railroad will be the only other way we have to get people in and out of here."

A contentious debate over expanding Highway 101 to six lanes south of Milpas Street ended in a dŽtente last month, as North County and South Coast leaders put their disagreements aside, pledging to widen the freeway and to expand mass transportation for 15,000 commuters from the Ventura area. The politicians also authorized a two-year, $1.6 million study of 101 congestion using $200,000 that was originally earmarked for a report on trains.

The advocates of commuter rail say there's no time to waste. It will take 10 years just to complete several "mini-widening" projects planned for the freeway south of Milpas. In the meantime, commuters can expect even longer delays.

"As we start upgrading Highway 101, we are going to see enormous costs in terms of time people are going to spend on the freeways," says Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara. "Even if we put in that third lane, it's going to take 10 to 15 years. Having a rail option may be very helpful. We're in the preliminary stages, but I'm sensing the momentum building. We have to go for it."

Santa Barbara's Traffic and Circulation Committee, a citizen advisory group, will hold a workshop early next year to discuss commuter rail. The tentative date is Jan. 22.

Adding trains to the tracks will not be easy. Service on Metrolink, the nearest commuter train, stops at Montalvo, 28 miles south of here. But a new train can cost a minimum of $50 million, and the supply is low nationwide.

Cities and counties that provide commuter rail service usually subsidize about half the operating cost. Local bus service must be beefed up to take commuters from the train station to work. The trains must be stored somewhere overnight. And Union Pacific drives a hard bargain for the use of its rails.

There is only one set of tracks between Ventura and Santa Barbara's bird refuge, and no siding where a train can pull over between Seacliff and the Santa Barbara Depot.

Scott Wenz, president of Cars Are Basic, a nonprofit group that favors six lanes for 101, says it's irresponsible to talk about running commuter trains on the existing tracks, an option called "heavy rail."

"Do you think the state Coastal Commission would give this county the right to go in with dynamite and blast some of our coastline to put in a siding?" Mr. Wenz asks. "Heavy rail won't work. It's obstructionism."

But Das Williams, a Santa Barbara councilman-elect, says local residents can't afford to ignore the benefits of commuter trains.

"By night we're a city of 95,000, and by day a city of 125,000," he says. "People have wanted to avoid growth, but the increase in the number of commuters has created all the impacts of growth. Even people who don't commute are starting to understand that our congestion is forcing commuters to use neighborhood streets.

"We have to think about not just the next five or 10 years, but the next 30. I don't think any freeway widening is a 30-year solution."

Santa Barbara Councilman Roger Horton says the best bet may be for South Coast governments to buy trains and operate their own service.

"I'm optimistic," he says. "Enough people are talking about it. The heavy rails are there."

For commuters such as Kathleen Johnston, who rides a van pool from Ventura to her job at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital every day, it would be like traveling back to the future. Years ago, when she lived in Long Island, Ms. Johnston rode a train to work in New York City an hour each way. She read a lot of novels. On the way home, she says, you could have a drink in the bar car.

"Commuting is so much easier on the East Coast, where I come from," Ms. Johnston says. "You don't mind it if you're sewing or reading or catching up on your mail. You never take your car into the city.

"If a train here were cheap, convenient and the times fit within my work schedule, I'd be open to it."

Right now, only 13 trains come and go daily between Goleta and Ventura. Six are freight trains, and seven are Amtrak passenger trains.

None of the Amtrak trains travels at a time or in a direction that would help relieve northbound rush-hour traffic on 101 from Ventura. An Amtrak train that is stored overnight at the La Patera station in Goleta heads south against the traffic early in the morning.

Could this train instead be stored in Ventura and make a morning run to Goleta? Not if it is billed as a commuter train, according to Caltrans. Amtrak gets a third of its funding from the federal government, and these dollars cannot be used to pay for commuter service.

"If they start moving the trains toward a commuter-based schedule, they run the risk of breaking a federal law," says Marta Bortner, a spokeswoman for Caltrans on the Central Coast.

Amtrak officials did not return repeated News-Press calls. But Ms. Bortner says the company was planning to add a new Pacific Surfliner train next spring, one that would leave Los Angeles at about 7 a.m. and arrive in Santa Barbara between 9 and 9:30 a.m.

"It would be a pseudo-commuter train," Ms. Bortner says. "It would not be commuter-only rail."

The Amtrak trains have about 450 seats. The fare between Ventura and Santa Barbara is $8 one-way, or $97 for a monthly pass.

Metrolink, the nearest commuter rail service, ends its northernmost route at the Montalvo station, near 101 and Victoria Avenue in Ventura. If Metrolink were extended to Santa Barbara, the fares would be about $6 one-way from Ventura to Santa Barbara, Metrolink officials estimated. The trip would take about 40 minutes.

Metrolink officials say Union Pacific agreed to allow two commuter trains to run north of Moorpark to Camarillo and Oxnard as an emergency measure after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. But two years later, Union Pacific tried to shut down the service, saying it was clogging the tracks and disrupting freight trains.

"It was an attitude problem that Union Pacific had," says Mary Travis, manager of regional programs for the Ventura County Transportation Commission. "We had been operating for two years, and there were no serious problems."

After a year of intense negotiations, including a visit to company headquarters in Omaha, Neb., by Simi Valley Mayor Bill Davis, Union Pacific backed off.

"We screamed at each other and said a few curse words for about an hour, but we came to an agreement," Mr. Davis says.

It was not cheap. The commission pays $500,000 per year to use the railroad for two hours a day. Most of the payment is in the form of capital improvements, such as new lights, passing lanes and sidings, and tunnel repairs. Operating costs are additional and may be as much as $300,000 per year.

"It's going to be tough for Santa Barbara even to get Union Pacific to sit at the table and then commit to a price that would be reasonable," Ms. Travis says.

"Government can't make the air quality or traffic congestion-relief argument to Union Pacific, because they don't care. Their business is running freight."

John Bromley, a spokesman for Union Pacific, says he cannot comment on the negotiations with Metrolink. He says Amtrak is effectively subsidized by Union Pacific, but all other agencies such as Metrolink using the lines must make capital improvements to increase the capacity.

The railroad through the South Coast of Santa Barbara County is not equipped to handle a large volume of trains, Mr. Bromley says.

"Operating passenger trains on freight lines unavoidably interferes with the freight trains," he says. "But the reality is, railroads are under tremendous political pressure to continue operating Amtrak trains as well as favorably considered commuter train proposals. . . . We want to be made whole. It can be done, and we will talk to anybody who wants to do that."

Today, Metrolink, which does the lion's share of its business in the Los Angeles Basin, carries about 200 people daily on its two trains to Oxnard and Camarillo, and the Ventura commission wants to add a third train. Negotiations with Union Pacific have been under way for a year and a half, and still the company has not agreed to come to the table.

"My temper is getting a little bit short," Mr. Davis says. "We have not been able to sit down and finalize anything."

But Mr. Davis, who recently sat in stop-and-go traffic on 101 through Santa Barbara, towing a Blazer behind his motor home, believes commuter rail is worth the headaches.

"Would I love to see it up there? Absolutely," he says. "Santa Barbara would be the most logical place right now for a commuter train. You can imagine what the ridership would be."

Rail advocates envision thousands of commuters traveling to and from the South Coast, with new stations at Summerland, Butterfly Lane, Milpas and Micheltorena streets, La Cumbre Road, Fairview Avenue and Storke Road.

In 1999, the city of Carpinteria rejected a proposal by Union Pacific, Amtrak and Caltrans for a siding on the scenic bluffs east of City Hall.

Union Pacific officials characterized the project as "vitally important to improving rail operations" along the South Coast. They said it was the only place between Santa Barbara and Seacliff where Amtrak trains could pull over to let freight trains go by. A siding that originally served that purpose in Carpinteria was removed to make way for an Amtrak station.

Union Pacific said that during occasional schedule disruptions, Amtrak trains were having to wait as much as half an hour elsewhere to let freight trains pass them south of Santa Barbara. A siding in Carpinteria would shorten the wait to less than 15 minutes, the company said.

But some residents questioned the need for the siding, with so few trains going by. Others said they feared trains might pull over on the bluffs for days at a time, blocking public access to the beach.

"It was right after we had purchased the bluffs," says Dick Weinberg, a Carpinteria councilman. "It would have totally obliterated the view of the ocean. We really objected strongly."

Mr. Weinberg and others also opposed Union Pacific's plans to increase train speeds to 65 mph through the area. For one thing, they said, the noise would disturb harbor seals resting along the shore. Union Pacific did an experiment, slowing down a train and then speeding up past the seals, with no obvious effects -- but the opponents prevailed.

Today, Mr. Weinberg says there is no chance Carpinteria would ever agree to a siding within city limits. A better location, he says, is near the Padaro Lane overpass along Highway 101, farther up the coast.

Carpinteria Councilman Gregory Gandrud, an advocate of highway widening, says trains may not be a panacea they seem.

"As romantic as the train could be, I'm having a hard time seeing how much it could help," he says. "Can we get more trains to run at certain times? Probably. But people would rather have the extra lane. They express their individuality through their cars: It's a very American sort of thing. We shouldn't try to fight that."

Ray Garcia, center, a Metrolink conductor, talks to two Metrolink engineers early Friday morning, before the 6 a.m. train leaves the Montalvo station for Los Angeles. Metrolink, the nearest commuter rail service to Santa Barbara, ends its northernmost route at the station 28 miles to the south.

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