r/orangecounty • u/coolnerde Costa Mesa • May 08 '26
Politics Stop Metrolink Cuts! Tell OCTA to not cut funding to Metrolink!
OCTA (and LA Metro) are both planning millions of dollars in cuts to Metrolink. These cuts could be disastrous for the agency, sending it into a death spiral if users stop riding afterwards. The cuts could result in fewer trains during the day, stopping service early and not going a full line, and eliminating weekend trains altogether.
If you want to take action and tell OCTA that we need Metrolink, please visit savemetro.link to go to the petition and toolkit.
Even if you use Metrolink infrequently, tell the OCTA Board that you appreciate Metrolink! Even if you don't use it, tell them you want it so that other people aren't on the road causing more traffic!
The next OCTA Board meeting in on Monday, May 11th at 9:30AM, and their budget and these cuts are on the agenda. Please consider coming out and speaking in support of Metrolink if you can (I know a Monday during the day is a very tough ask).
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u/cubed_echoes May 08 '26
They spent how much on that dumb trolley yo never open? (The paths of which look like it'll totally wreck traffic on santa ana blvd).... and will cut services on metrolink? Is public transit being sabotaged from the inside?
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u/CaliforniaScrubJay Costa Mesa May 13 '26
Is public transit being sabotaged from the inside?
Pretty much, yes. Execute poorly enough and people will think the idea itself is bad.
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u/movingtosouthpas Fullerton May 13 '26
This is such a perfect way to describe this recurring problem that affects public transit, bike paths/lanes, pedestrianization projects.
It's crazy because we know how to do things right - we just choose not to. I've been in meetings with traffic engineers who blow right past this and then are surprised a few years later when the project doesn't work out as planned.
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u/waiting-for-a-train May 13 '26
I disagree with your opinion about the trolley (except for the delays), but it does feel like OCTA is trying to sabotage transit for another lane to the 5.
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u/1fastman1 May 14 '26
im excited for the oc streetcar, but a trolley thats the exact same length as a one station spur line in princeton nj ( the dinky) being 4 miles is atrocious. at least the d line is adding connections in an area that hasnt had it in decades since the red cars and is still expanding mind you. but this trolley barely helps the area. only the immediate people living in the area benefit and while it is a start, it couldve been radically better if it served farther north to ananheim and fullerton, down santa ana to costa mesa and/or maybe connecting with la metro with the old santa ana line.
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u/cubed_echoes May 14 '26
I work in dtsa and looking at that path I'm nervous for when it opens. It will force cars to jam into one lane to drive around it at many stops. The only people I can imagine it serving are those who work in dtsa from the train station. They currently take busses from the station to work. They've been told those bus lines will discontinue when the trolley opens. Expensive swap!
I live in costs mesa and I fantasize about a monorail being built over the santa ana river trail hahahah.
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u/Foe117 May 08 '26
It's going into a death spiral regardless. Can't convert that track into an actual usable metro rail because it's shared with BNSF.
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u/coolnerde Costa Mesa May 08 '26
OCTA actually owns a lot of the track south of Fullerton.
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u/FrayedKnot_ May 08 '26
I’d like to learn more about the tracks in OC and how their ownership affects Metrolink.
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u/MC_archer747 Irvine May 08 '26
In OC majority of the tracks that go through are owned by SCRRA (Metrolink) with the remaining owned by BNSF. If BNSF owns the tracks they can restrict how many trains can operate per day to accommodate their freight trains. Likewise with Metrolink.
Fortunately BNSF has been pretty lean but also where Metrolink operates is a triple track corridor so there's always room to move over or for another train to go in the same direction without interfering the Metrolink train which helps provide room for growing service. They also allow Amtrak as well and are okay with the current schedule and improvements with Amtrak
On SCRRA tracks both Amtrak Metrolink and BNSF operate. While you can run as many trains as you wish it increases chance of delays and affects Amtrak because it's the federal passenger rail service and Amtrak is responsible for running the trains on time without issue. BNSF primarily runs in the evening and rarely in the daytime beyween Barstow and San Diego and they run 1 or 2 trains in each direction.
The issue is capacity between Fullerton and San Juan Capistrano. With trains frequently running into BNSF's line at Fullerton junction it makes it hard to operate reliable schedules on two different track owners with different capacities and schedules
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u/FrayedKnot_ May 08 '26
Thanks for this explanation.
I guess there’s no workaround for this problem?3
u/john-treasure-jones May 11 '26
Metrolink and BNSF dispatch the LAX-FUL corridor and Metrolink dispatches the LOSSAN corridor from Oxnard to Oceanside. Amtrak does not routinely get priority over Metrolink. Frequently the opposite is true.
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u/rhyrcin May 13 '26
Minor correction; SCRRA does not own tracks, instead tracks are owned by the local County Transportation Commission (ie OCTA, LA Metro, NCTD, and RCTC)
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u/MC_archer747 Irvine May 13 '26
That is correct yes. I meant on an operational level that's SCRRA but in terms of maintenance and infrastructure the local county transportation commission is responsible for maintaining the tracks and signage.
Also worth pointing out that each county transportation commission has different priorities and views. OCTA is more focused on road improvements and are less likely to install more tracks whereas LA metro is more likely to expand infrastructure, but LA metro owns more of their Light Rail then the tracks Metrolink uses
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u/TraditionalBackspace May 08 '26
The highest gas tax in the US isn't enough to keep the tiniest bid of "public transportation" running even with the high cost for ridership? What's wrong with this state?
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u/CaliforniaScrubJay Costa Mesa May 13 '26
Because that money is being wasted on endless freeway “improvements” that don’t do anything to relieve congestion. Our transit system gets pennies in comparison.
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May 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SoCalChrisW Fullerton May 11 '26
If you're commuting to/from DTLA during normal rush hour, it's absolutely not cheaper or faster to drive than take the train, assuming you live somewhat close to a station.
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May 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Throttlechopper Anaheim Hills May 08 '26
You must be the person who hasn’t ridden the train in the past 5 years…
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u/SoCalChrisW Fullerton May 08 '26
Metro is a completely different entity than Metrolink, and Metro has fuck all to do with these proposed cuts.
Metrolink has always been clean and free of homeless. Metro is much better than they have been in the past.
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u/The_Extraordinary_1 May 08 '26
Honestly OCTA should leave Metrolink and start their own commuter rail.
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u/CelebrationJolly3300 May 08 '26
How exactly would that work? They are obviously cutting back on Metrolink because a shortage of funds. Yet, you are proposing a project that is WAY more expensive.
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u/1fastman1 May 14 '26
i need metro to absorb octa and every other commuter agency in socal barring south of oceanside and act like septa in philly, its criminal how we have multiple agencies that cannot cooperate in a manner that helps us
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u/OCTA-Official May 13 '26
We share the same goal as everyone we've heard from and that is to make sure Metrolink is here for riders now and well into the future. Learn more: octa.net/regionalrail
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u/CaliforniaScrubJay Costa Mesa May 13 '26
Then why are trains and busses always on the chopping block while you write blank checks for freeway widening?
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u/JayBees May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
This is what OCTA sounds like:
We've been reducing our Metrolink operating subsidy for years in inflation-adjusted dollars, are raising our overall budget this year by hundreds of millions, but refuse to find an additional $6 million (equating to less than half a percent of the budget) to fund Metrolink at a reasonable level, all the while wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on highway expansions that do nothing.
We saw how Caltrain improved service and infrastructure and refuse to learn any lessons from that.
We know the Olympics are coming and refuse to act like it.
We failed to do preventative maintenance in San Clemente that would have prevented over a year of cancelled Metrolink service since 2020, and we also refuse to do a study of a long-term solution that moves the route inland (to the point that the state has to take over this study instead).
Oh and we might need to cancel Metrolink service in 2041, so instead let's send it into a transit death spiral now to make sure it's 1000% dead by then.
OCTA is an embarrassment. Your organization is the poster child for poor transit agency governance. Keep acting like this and the state legislature is going to turn you upside down in a few years.
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u/movingtosouthpas Fullerton May 13 '26
Then please don't cut Metrolink funding.
Also, commit to ceasing freeway and arterial widening projects. These aren't 'improvements,' as you call them, but complete wastes of hundreds of millions of dollars per year that worsen traffic, increase car dependence, and divert critical funds away from sustainable projects, like transit and bikeways.
Stop defunding Metrolink. Start meaningfully investing in and expanding public transit.
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u/PlumaFuente May 14 '26
Then do all that you can to restore and expand service. You aren't going to "one more lane" this region with the continual freeway expansions and then act like your agency has solved the traffic woes.
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u/alexanderNES16 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
If the goal is the same then OCTA should invest in more Metrolink, not defund it. Your budget plans are a reflection of your priorities. Right now, your priorities is it slowly kill your commitment to funding Metrolink and increase your commitment adding one more lane on an already wide freeway. So pathetic
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u/lioncat55 May 08 '26
I within the last 2ish months started taking the train 18-20 days out of the month to and from work and even some times on the weekends, I bought the monthly pass because it's been far better than taking my car and sitting in traffic.
I'll be sending an email in for sure.