About seven months after imposing a 20% reduction in its weekday service, Metrolink is proposing further cuts that could start as soon as next month.
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The cuts would reduce service 29% during the week and 40% on the weekend, resulting in an overall 32% cut compared to the 2025 service schedule. The cuts would be most severe in Orange County, where earlier this year the Orange County Transportation Authority announced it would cut 10% of its Metrolink funding.
The cuts would slash half of Orange County’s weekend service and 38% of its weekday trips, which would mean no weekday service to Oceanside and increased reliance on the Surfliner, which charges higher fares.
Los Angeles County, where L.A. Metro cut Metrolink funding this year by 3%, would see its largest cuts to its Antelope Valley Line — a 67% reduction on the weekend and 27% drop during the week. Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties, which did not slash Metrolink funding, also will experience cuts of up to 36%.
The Metrolink Board of Directors voted to approve the budget proposal, including service cuts, on Friday. Now, member agencies will review the proposed budget before it goes back to Metrolink for final approval on Oct. 23. Service cuts would begin Nov. 16.
News of the proposed cuts comes on the heels of a recent fare increase.
Metrolink communications director Meredith Yeoman blamed the situation on “an unusually complex budget cycle.” Ridership and fare revenues remain below prepandemic levels, operating costs have risen, federal and state funding has changed, and member agencies are facing financial constraints, she said. Before considering service cuts, Metrolink reduced costs and adjusted fares, she added.
“Even with those actions, we determined that service reductions are ultimately necessary to align operations with available resources,” Yeoman said in an email. “These difficult decisions were not reached lightly, and we continue to pursue additional state and federal resources to help ensure regional rail will be available for Southern Californians well into the future.”
At Metrolink’s Board of Directors meeting on Friday, more than a dozen public commenters voiced concerns about the proposed cuts, with several warning that Metrolink could be facing a “death spiral.”
One Fullerton-based Metrolink rider worried that service reductions could result in further ridership drops, which might inspire deeper cuts in the future. “Poor ridership is interpreted as a lack of interest, where it’s actually an indicator that the services aren’t meeting the needs of riders,” she said.
The transit advocacy group Californians for Electric Rail called any service cuts “unacceptable” in light of the “ongoing climate crisis, record-high gas prices and (being) less than two years out from the 2028 LA Olympics.” Metrolink is ignoring its growing weekend ridership “in favor of chasing commuters,” CER said.
“Cuts indicate a return to ‘commuter-style’ peak-only service that is not responsive to post-pandemic trends and costs more per passenger to operate,” CER wrote. “The end result will be more hardship for riders and fewer cost savings for the agency than you might expect.”
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OCTA spokesperson Joel Zlotnik said the agency recognizes that thousands of locals rely on Metrolink, and the agency made decisions that would “minimize the impact on riders.”
“Our analysis shows that 79 percent of Orange County Metrolink weekday riders would have another Metrolink train within 30 minutes of their current schedule,” he said in an email. “Trains being retained by Metrolink on average carry three times the number of passengers as those that are proposed for elimination by Metrolink.”
In Los Angeles, meanwhile, L.A. Metro remains “committed” to Metrolink riders, spokesperson Maya Pogoda said.
“Metro staff worked diligently with Metrolink and other partners to identify the least disruptive reductions for riders,” Pogoda said in an email. “Metro asked Metrolink to focus any service cuts on routes with low weekday ridership; off-peak or reverse-commute service; subsequent train service available within a reasonable amount of time; or lower-performing weekend trips.”
Despite a small March bump in ridership coinciding with a spike in gas prices, Metrolink has lost about 40% of its riders since the pandemic’s stay-home orders inflicted “blunt force trauma” on the system, Metrolink CEO Darren Kettle told the Southern California News Group earlier this year.
As fare revenues have decreased, the agency’s budget has taken a hit. In May, Kettle told SCNG that Metrolink’s operational deficit was “somewhere between $30 million and $35 million.”
The service is largely funded by the transportation authorities of Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. According to Kettle, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties were asking for service increases, but other county agencies were open to cuts.
In the past five years, the bill for Orange County’s portion of the Metrolink budget doubled, OCTA CEO Darrell Johnson told SCNG in May.
“Is the product that you’re selling what people want?” Johnson asked. He recommended that Metrolink service be “rightsized.”
“If we don’t make a change today to right-size the service, we will run out of Metrolink funding in 2033,” he said. “Our responsibility has to be the long term.”
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