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HomeMy WebLinkAbout15-Council Office - CITOOF SAN BERNARDIIO - REQUEQr FOR COUNCIL AC",:))N From: Councilman Jack Strickler Subject: Proposea Hub System for Amtrak Dept: Council Office Date: December 9, 1985 Synopsis of Previous Council action: None Recommen-:led motion: That the Mayor and Common Council adopt a resolution in support of an additional train route through San Bernardino making the City a regional hub for Amtrak. ,- .+-d~"'lil ~~...~~ll.~ Ignature Contacc person: Phil Ar,,;'7.() Phone: 383-5168 SuppJrting data attached: Yes Ward: FUNDING REQUIREMENTS: Amount: Source: Finance: Council Notes: Mr. Walter Gilbert, Oceanside City Councilman, and Mr. Byron Nordberg, transportation consultant, requested that the Mayor and Council support be forwarded before the end of that the proposal can be brought before Amtrak the calendar year so in early 1986. / ...:s Agenda Item No. ~ ~ ' 75-0262 c San Francisco Martinez Proposed hub 8ystemfOt,Amtrak " _,' '."_'.,, ..."_",_,,,,^:,,,o'- ;_ Amtrak presently has four tr"ins travelling through San Bernardino each day, one going10 and from Flagstaff and Chicago, the other going to and from Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Under the proposed system, 12 trains would be rouled through San Bernardino each day: One to and from Chicago. one to and 1-. from Phoenix and New Orleans and one to and (' ~t- from Las Vegas and Sa~ Lake City. Three '1(/.: "'10 trains would travel through San Bernardino ;('0 '1 tl and from Oakland and San Diego. ~1-. Las ~ Vegas . . Present routes . . .. Proposed routes Staff map by Jean Maxam Kingman Bakersfield Flagstaff ARIZONA . . Santa Ana Oceanside DelMar San Diego Phoenix Railroad group wants San Bernardino to be regi2~~~'1~mtrak hub B~ CARL YETZER s....~ 5',,!! Writf!' The Railroad Passenger Association of California would like the San Bernardino City Council to support a plan to make the city a regional hub for Amtrak, with anoth- er passenger line into the city and more trains stopping here. RailP AC would like to see the twice-dai- Iy "San Joaquin" trains. which travel from Oakland to Bakersfield, extended south through San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange County to San Diego. said Bryon Nordberg. an association adviser and sur. faee transportation consultant. In addition. the group hopes to convince Amtrak to reroute the Los Angeles-to,New Orleans "Sunset Limited" through San Ber' nardino on Santa Fe tracks. The train now passes through Colton on Southern Paeific tracks but does not stop. Two Amtrak trains a day now stop in San Bernardino. the Los Angeles-to-Chicago "Southwest Chief"' anll the Los Angeles-to- Salt Lake City "Desert Wind." With major nortb-south and east-west lines crossing in the' city, San Bernardino would become a regional hub and a major transfer point for pIlssengers from the San Joaquin Valley planning train trips east. Since the San Joaquin line now ends in Barstow. rail paMSengers from that area must take a bus to get to the main east-west Amtrak lines out of Los Angeles - or make a lengthy detour north to Oakland and then south to Los Angeles, Nordberg said tbe proposed route ehanges would open up potentially luera. tive new markets for Amtrak without the need to add station personnel at San Ber- nardino. It would also give San Bernardino Wlease see Amtrak, B-IO/ , - c Amtrak :> (Continued from B-II residents a wiMr choice of desti- nations if they travel by train. Support for the proposal would have to come both from Amtrak and from Caltrans, which partial- ly subsidizes the cost of operating the San Joaquin trains and thl' Los AnReles,to,San Diego "San DieRans." Nordberg says RailPAC hopes to gather enough support from cities along the proposed routes to convince Caltrans to pre- sent the proposal to Amtrak. Cliff Black, an Amtrak public relations spokesman in Washing- ton, D.C.. said Amtrak hasn't been formally approached about the plan and therefore would have no comment. "The normal procedure for our inititating a new route is to wait until we are approacbed by the state department of transporta- lIOn involved, which. in this case. would be Caltrans." he said. '"Once that happens. then we initiate a marketing and feasibility study.'" "However:' he said. '"it is high- ly unlikely that we would be in a position to add any DeW routes in the near future, e\'{~>n with state suppor\. The hudget for Amtrak for the 1986 fiscal vear still has not been determined. wbut we do aoht- Ipate that there will be some cut- back.'. probably in the range of about 10 percen\.'" Matt Paul. chief of thf' Caltrans rail sl'r\'j('p~ branch. said Caltran~ ha_" askf'd Amtrak to inv('stigah' till' fea~ihility of f'xtC'udin,(! thE' ~an Joaquins south into Los An. ,celt-s. So far. he said. Amtrak has nlll re~p(}nd('d to thr' requf~st Thf' rdationship Iwtwepn Am- lr.:J.k and CaJtran~ ha:'C not bi.'{'n al. to,Cl'thrr harmoniou~ III f('('ent y.,><.trs Many California pass('ngt'r o - - o rail projects started during the ad- ministration of former Gov. Jerry Brown have been axed or cut back by Go\'. George Deukmeji- an's administration. But Nordberg said he senses the r,'lationship IS starting 10 change. The Los Angeles.to,Oakland segment of the "Coast Starlight,'" Amlrak's most popular long-dis. tance passenger train. is frequent- ly sold out, particularly on week- ends and during holidays. The Los Angeles,to,San Diego trains carry more passengers than any other Amtrak route. except for tbe Boston-New York-Wash, ington Northeastern corridor. Ridership on Ihe two San Joa- quin trains has far surpassed ex- pectations, Nordberg said, and there are plans to add a third dai- ly train. "\\'e raised the farebox recov- ery ratio of the San Diegans to 1O.t? percent in August of 1985 - an unheard-of result," he said. That means the traills met all of their operating expenses from fa- rebox revenues, and made a 4.7 percent profit. American passen. ger trains have not been profita- ble since the end of World War II. Irs clear that Californians 100'e their passenger trains and are rid- ing them in ever-increasing num- bers, he said. 1'\ordherg said Oceanside Councilman Walter Gilbert and SOIllf' otht'f peopl(' from cities be- t WPPTl San Diego and Santa Barba- ra h.n'€' lohbied for more rail sen- ice. ThaI result"d in getting Cal- tram; and Amtrak to sf'riousJy stu- dy addmc all cighth San lJi"gan to thf' pre-sent. seH'n-train dailj scht.'dule and extendmg the serv- ice north to Santa Barbara. he said. "Now (Gilbert is) attempting to do the same thing from San Diego to San Bernardino and on into Bakersfield:' he said. 'If we can put the local political maChinery squarely behind doing this kind of thing. then we can go to the state agencies and get their cooper- ation. A preliminary meeting was held during tbe League of Cities Convention in San Francisco. Nordberg said, and most of the cities responded favorably. One of the trains probably would be an overnight. arriving in San Bernardino early in the mOrn- ing, he said. The converse would be that one train would leave San Diego fairly early in the morning and stop in San Bernardino about midday and arrive in the Bay Area that night. It would be about a 14-hour run, Nordberg was asked whether Amtrak -which is facing a chron- ic equipment shortage - would have enough coaches and sleepers to extend the San Joaquins to San Diego. '"It depends on bow you (use) the amount of equipment that sits idle in railyarels at any given time on the West Coast and elsewhere in the country ,'" he said. Southbound San Joaquin trains sit idle in Bakersfield for about five or six hours before gomg northward again. ""Clearly. you're going to need another set of equipment to get into thE' cydf'," he said. "But our position is that that we should in- sist to Amtrak that equipment is a,'allable and th"t it should be llSfd '"Sleepmg cars are a problem. but only in thE' s{'ns(' that thpy lAmtrakl have to rethink how tbey allocate tbeir system region, wide." Amtrak has a large fleet of 1940s- and 1950s-era "Heritage Fleet" sleeping cars in use on East Coast trains. Amtrak is building a new fleet of sleeping cars and some of the Heritage Fleet equipment could be moved to the West Coast as those cars come on line, Nordberg said.