REGION: Sorrento Valley Coaster shuttle on chopping block

Transit agency scrambles to find cash to keep service going

By PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer | Thursday, December 18, 2008 6:42 PM PST ∞

OCEANSIDE ---- Transit officials said Thursday they fear coastal rail commuters will soon lose a vital link between Coaster trains and Sorrento Valley businesses.

"If those shuttles go away, then it's going to hurt us, there is just no doubt about it," said Lane Fernandes, manager of commuter rail for the North County Transit District, which operates the Coaster on weekdays and Saturdays.

At its monthly meeting Thursday, the district's governing board received news that the Metropolitan Transit Authority will hold a public hearing in January on a proposal to kill the shuttle service because the authority no longer has enough money to subsidize carrying Coaster riders to and from their jobs at businesses such as Qualcomm Inc. and the many biotech firms in the Torrey Pines area.

Shuttle riders have already seen their share of financial pain. On Sept. 1, the San Diego transit agency began charging $1 each way for a service that used to be included in the cost of a $160 monthly Coaster pass.

Tom Lichterman, director of operations for the Transit District, said Thursday that the Coaster saw a 30 percent decrease in the number of boardings and departures from the Sorrento Valley station almost immediately after the $1-per-ride fee took effect. Before the change, the shuttle averaged about 500 daily round-trip riders. In October, Lichterman said, that number dropped to 325. In November it fell to 275.

It costs about $1 million per year to operate the shuttle service, and the transit district will need to find another $455,000 if it wants to keep the service, which has run since 1995, operational. Sorrento Valley Station is the destination for one in three North County Coaster riders.

Lichterman said the district currently gives the Metropolitan Transit Authority more than $300,000 to help defray the additional cost of hauling around Coaster riders once they arrive in San Diego. But Lichterman said that the San Diego transit agency only plans to give back about $110,000 of that money once it stops running the Sorrento Valley shuttles. The transit director noted that the San Diego transit agency has not added any additional trolley or bus services at Old Town Station or Santa Fe Station as a result of Coaster riders. He said the Sorrento Valley shuttle is the only demonstrable service addition that the authority has increased for the benefit of Coaster riders.

Transit director Jerome Stocks, a city councilman from Encinitas, said North County ought to quit sharing any Coaster revenue with San Diego if the shuttle service dies.

Lichterman said he is talking with Sorrento Valley businesses to see if there is any way they might be able to help keep the shuttle running after January. He noted that 49 percent of Coaster riders, surveyed before the current $1 fee, said they would quit riding the Coaster to work with the new fees in place.

"Sixty-three percent of those people said they would drive alone in their own cars," Lichterman said.

Transit officials also received a report on Sprinter ridership Thursday. The most recent weekday count, which ended Dec. 5, showed 7,303 daily riders, a 15 percent decline from the estimated 8,658 counted Sept. 19.

Lichterman speculated that the recent decline in gas prices, and normal declines in transit ridership during the holidays had something to do with the decrease.

"At $1.60 a gallon, it's probably having some effect on some people's choice of how to get to work," Lichterman said.

Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.